Hallowe'en in Saskatchewan 2014

Hallowe'en in Saskatchewan 2014

Hallowe'en hasn't really changed much in the last 50 years or so.  I'm sitting here with my bowl full of miniature chocolate bars and case of mini Pringle chips ready to go.  I'm waiting for the first kids to ring my doorbell.  It's before supper, so generally I'm expecting the littlest people to arrive first because their bedtime isn't too far away.  The bigger ones show up after dark, and one of the better changes is there isn't nearly as much 'tricking' as there once was.  In fact, toilet tipping used to be an all time favorite, but outdoor toilets are pretty much a thing of the past.  Graffiti had it's day not that long ago, but once again, that comes and goes.

When I was a kid, because we lived in the country we could choose from either the town or the farm area or both.  If we got to drive around in town, the pickings although good tended to be a little slimmer than in the country.  I remember one place that only gave a half of one double-bubble....they must have had too many kids or were very poor.  When we drove around the farming community, it was so much different!  We would get whole brown, lunch bags full of goodies at each farm.  In those days you could get these trememdous popcorn balls...man they were the best.  You might get cookies, or apples, and all kinds of delicious candy.  Unfortunately, some kind of idiots started to put sharp objects like razor blades in apples, so those home-made items have all but gone by the wayside.  People do some weird things for no good reason it seems.

I wanted to share with you some of the trick or treaters I had at my door tonight.  They all consented to having their picture taken and even for me to share it on my blog.  Thanks everyone.

TV show characters....I think

Mario and Luigi aka my grandsons :-)   The littler the kid, the littler the snack container.

I don't know...hmmm...some junk food, ketchup (with the matching red Canadian mitt and red bag) and orange M&M, the guy in white looks like snow with skid marks across!

Cute little princess and her mama the skunk.....Incidentally, the skunk was probably the best costume I saw tonight!

Hockey players, painter or drywaller, Sherlock Holmes and sorry guy in the front....I think you're some kind of Star Wars person perhaps!

We possibly have a business man, a cat woman, a convict, Anne of Green Gables,  or maybe Annie.... a possible skiier, a possible Ninja, sorry guy in the front.....I just don't remember, but I see you have a pillowcase slung over your shoulder that's getting pretty full!

and finally, two of the cutest little girls....the one in the green wig could barely stop eating her potato chips long enough to have her picture taken.....By the direction her wig  was perched, it looked like she'd had a rough night already!

I didn't get everybody's picture, but that's okay....it was a fun night!

Happy Hallowe'en!

Fort Edmonton Park

Fort Edmonton Park 

Located on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River

The Fort - Fur Trading Era  1795 to 1870

Rowand House - A home within the fort built for the Chief Factor of the Hudson Bay Company's Saskatchewan District.  (Hence the term factory in later years).

A plaque on the Clerk's Quarters Building

One of the four towers at the corners of the enclosure

Clerk's Quarters

Entrance and an antique truck that we saw people driving :-)

Notice the grassy roof on what I think is the Ice House

The Watchtower

Clay Bake Oven

Wood Pile for fuelling everything!  Note pointed spikes on log fence to keep out the bears...guess that's the main reason they had to make it a fort because of the wild animals.

Brilliant three-holer outhouse :-)

It seems this might be the Horse Stable with some sheep in the foreground.

Off on our horse-drawn carriage ride....really two lovely and well-trained and behaved work horses...don't know their names, but they reminded me of our team from when I was a kid... [Peach and Jean]...and the carriage was really a wagon with benches...but we felt pretty special no matter how you look at it.

She was the gentlest of drivers with the softest voice and had those horses responding effortlessly to her requests.  She was phenomenal to watch!

Settlement Era 1871 to 1891

1885 Street 

Jasper House Hotel

McDougall's General Store

Secord Complex and Ross Brothers' Hardware

James McDonald's Carpentry Shop and Bellrose School

Municipal Era - 1892 - 1914

1905 Street

Anglican Church of St. Michael & All Angels

Rutherford House and Firkins House next door (supposedly haunted)

The Firkins House was built by a dentist from the U.S.A.  It was the first in the area to have stucco on the exterior.  The interpreter was telling us about who haunted the house.  A little girl had been pushed downstairs by the dentist's daughter for the second time.  She hit her head on a radiator....Once the tour was over the interpretor told us he had only made that story up for a laugh...It was kind of creepy at the time, though because it was just getting dusk and we were right across the street from "Tent City"...wish I had a picture, but it was a place where people were living for up to two years waiting for a decent home to be built.  The tents had to be built on a platform to avoid the damp and cold and stop a condition where a foot never dried out called Trenchfoot.

Original street lights.

One of the largest buildings on the street - the Masonic Hall.

Around the next corner was 1920 Street which was the Metropolitan Era from 1914 to 1929  (Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures here, because we became mesmerized watching a coyote playing around a big garbage bin!)

Fort Courtyard

Gunpowder Display

Family close by.

Kids playing.

Ear plugs?

The court yard soon filled with gunpowder smoke!

Lead pellets....buck shot?

Left a hole by the looks of it...

Next people got to practice building a fire by striking two flint rocks together and making sparks fly.

As you can imagine, this is only a sample of what is actually at the park.  If you would like to read more about this subject, go to the following link,

http://www.fortedmontonpark.ca

Later we were served a scrumptious meal in the Clerk's Quarters and bussed back to our hotel.  Thank you to our Alberta hosts for the wonderful experience!

De Plane

I arrived in Edmonton via a West Jet flight around noon and came straight over from the airport.  It was almost an hour's drive, which is ironically about how long the flight was.  Flying is a funny thing.  You have to be at the airport 90 minutes early, about 9:00 a.m. for a 10:35 a.m. flight.  You hang around and rush around.  You have far too much stuff to carry including coat, backpack, and purse.  You sweat.  You try to juggle a hot cup of coffee, a boarding pass that they're printing on thinner paper than ever. Pray to God that you don't spill coffee on it.  Did you remember your passport?  No....well then, dig out two pieces of government issued photo ID.  Well I only have one with a photo, so that has to suffice. I've smartened up and decided to buy the coffee after I go through security.   Now they have Keurig coffee makers on the 'other side'...  Of course, my first attempt was a malfunction and ran only clear water... so had to do it twice.   You know, you just lay all your bags down, and then you have to do it again.  After you drink the coffee, you head over to the ladies room so you don't have to use those God-forsaken units on the plane.  The stewardess reiterated this point during her announcements.  "The toilets are up front and very small".  It worked, I can't say I saw one person leave their seats to make the trek.  I guess most people can hold it for an hour. The toilets and sinks in the bathrooms at the airport worked absolutely fine and were exceptionally clean.  The stalls were even big enough for all my luggage and me.  The chairs were uber comfy in the waiting area and the overhead paging wasn't as bad as it can be.

They're renovating at the airpor,t so to board the plane, you have to go downstairs to the ground floor, walk through this massively long tunnel, that turns into a very long makeshift quonset. They have huge concrete blocks making up the path and they aren't really secure because with all the rolling luggage, there's quite a few extra clickety clacks. Oh, and don't bother putting your boarding pass and ID away while you're on that long walk, because although no stewardess has ever even hinted at wanting to see it...this time she does "because you're coming from the unsecure ground level" is what I thought I heard her say.  My hearing seems to be going somewhat...  So you stop and start rifling through your purse and hold everybody up who is behind you.    You smile and move aside slightly so they can force themselves by.  Smile again when jabbed by that buckle!

Go find your seat and realize the guy in front of you is sitting across the aisle from you in 12C.  He has just deposited two gigantic carry-ons and gone ahead, without asking, and filled your overhead bin spot with his luggage, the one obviously reserved for the 12B occupant -- you -- where you would normally put your backpack and coat....So you smile once again..(being Canadian, we do these things).  You have to back up at least two seats to find an open space above 10B.  Later when you get off, you will have to be the last one out, just so that you can retrieve your things.

This plane didn't have a bathroom in the rear, but it did have another exit there which sure helped when the time came.  For some reason, we were delayed being allowed to deplane because somebody from customer service had to be phoned to physically come out and either open the doors herself or give his permission to have someone else open the doors. There were at least 20 workers scurrying around outside...with not a thought to opening a door it appeared.  Personally,  I think they were racing to see if they could get the luggage moved to the terminal before any of the passengers got there.  They wanted to wow us and make our heavier bags already be  going round and round on the carousel, so that when we arrived we would be so thrilled....Sure enough mine was there before I was.... for the first time ever.  Was I thrilled, of course...

And, as we know, rules are rules, and some people follow them to the letter.  Even though the reasons can sometimes be rather obscure. Reminds me of the joke about the people on the escalator when it stalled...they had no idea what to do and stood there debating what to do for hours...  Hmmm...things you just don't know when you're the passenger.   Twenty or so minutes later the doors were opened and we started to move...  At least they kept the air flowing the whole time, so we were breathing fresh air, (I think- or at least a semblance of it as it comes to us through this gigantic hose attached to the plane).  I've been on planes, where there was suddenly NO air and a person actually passed out, no word of a lie.  They had to start oxygen on her.  If I had been closer I would have tried for the odd whiff myself, but alas, I was not, and just had to tough it out.

Two fairly young men were sitting ahead of me and gossiped all the way there.  Luckily for them I really couldn't tell much of what they were saying except things like, "did she really say that?"   You know so and so and he's just such a ....."  Is that any different than women?

Praise God, the girl beside me was young and wanted to sleep.  She wore a toque that she pulled down over her eyes and I was amazed at what a brainiac idea that was!  Because the band of the toque fit exactly around her ears so she couldn't hear anything either.  I loved sitting beside her because she was all curled up against the window and she didn't even try for the arm rest.  I got it all to myself!!  She did miss snack though, which was something I thoroughly enjoyed...Tomato juice and sesame bits.  I could have eaten a whole pail of them they were so good....but as usual, we were on the one pack limit.  Notice how they never offer you seconds on the plane?  They did offer complementary booze though....I've never seen that before, but you may have.  I think they were happy about their decision to sling free liquor prior to the door opening fiasco.  You can imagine the people who are always the first to leap out of their seats and grab their stuff from the overhead bins. The guy who filched my luggage spot was one of them.  He was also someone who had a nice big glass of red wine.  Those people got to stand and stand and stand and stand.  Again, it was only an hour flight, so if they had imbibed something without using the facilities prior to take-off, it might have been a tad uncomfortable for some.  With everybody standing up in the aisle, there was no way to reach the up front bathroom even if you had to.

Several people always have to be told to shut their devices off when about to take off.  In fact, the girl beside me was one of them...She turned it on again the second the wheels touched the ground.  I heard her tell somebody on the other end that she was starving....  The wind was whipping at about 60 mph when we walked across the open-air tarmack....are they renovating every where?