There are very few “camping” spots left in the camping world. Most have segued into the world of accommodating massive trailers and 5th wheels with all the comforts of home. But what about old timey camping? No power. No flush toilets. Small, private campsites. What about a campground in the middle of a pine forrest with a beautiful stream running right through the campsites??? What if such a place existed in the middle of Saskatchewan farm land? A myth? A fairytale?! Enter: Pine Cree Regional Park
We spent 2 nights at Pine Cree and it didn’t disappoint. It truly is a Saskatchewan hidden gem! It’s close to neighbouring Eastend with their very cool T.rex Discovery Centre, sporting “Scotty” one of the only complete TRex fossils in the world. It is also close to the Frenchman River which supports a glorious scenic drive. Unfortunately for us, it poured rain that day. But the area has lots to do and see and is the gateway to Cypress Hills.
One other detail for future travellers to the park. The river really cools off the campground at night. It was ~35ºC when we were there during the day but it got really cold at night. So make sure you’re well bundled!
Photographically, this trip was shot largely with Samsung S20 and also the iPhone 11 and the FujiFilm XPRO2 (23mm, 35mm, 90mm lenses).
At the top of my Sister-in-Law’s bucket list has been hiking to Grey Owl’s cabin. It’s a 40 km round hike in Prince Albert National Park, an enormous federal park in northern Saskatchewan. You can look up all kinds of information about who Grey Owl was and what he was doing up on Ajawaan lake. This blog post will simply chronicle our journey and give suggestions and coordinates for future hikers.
Hiking advice is generally relative, depending on many factors from weather and gear to preparedness and individual athletic ability. However, this advice is absolute:
DON’T DO THIS HIKE IN SUMMER!
Jason Schultz
Unless you like 70 trillion insects swarming and buzzing your face and body non-stop and you love sweating all the time. LOL. We did this trip at the end of June and our temperatures were an unbearable 36-38ºC with absolutely no breeze. Kingsmere lake was absolutely glass the whole time. The insects went from bad to worse with mosquitos, black flies, deer flies and horse flies each taking their turns attacking us non-stop. The greatest challenges this hike provided us would have been remedied by doing it in late September/early October.
That, and ultra-lite gear. We just used stuff we had on hand and that made for a bit of a challenge. Our gear was heavy and we had to camp at the far end of the hike, at Northend – which meant we had to carry the gear pretty much the entire hike. If we could have lessened that load, I predict it would have made the journey 17% more enjoyable.
This map is provided by Parks Canada but it doesn’t include GPS coordinates for the campgrounds. I find it so helpful to have these things marked so that you can tell how far the next stop is going to be. Here are my GPS coordinates for the camp stops and trail heads along the way:
It truly is a gorgeous hike with lots of spectacular scenery. We had a good but challenging time! The most challenging section was Chipewyan Portage to Sandy Beach, mainly because it’s the most open part of the trail and it was unbelievably hot. We were able to get cooled off swimming at Sandy Beach thankfully. The registration process to hike the backcountry has to be the day you start the hike at 7AM. Then you have to drive the 35km to the trail head, so you don’t actually start hiking until around 8AM or so. It was already sweltering by that time. The park really needs to employ an online registration setup with night-before access so you can start earlier. We started our return trip before 6AM and didn’t regret it at all. Thankfully, we saw no bears either. Elk in the Waskesui campground was about as exotic as it got.
Our Statistics:
Hiking in to the Cabin June 30th – 24.6km, 10:15 hours total (including swimming stops).
The S20 has several modes, including night mode. I tried it out on a walk last night. This is a challenging photo regarding dynamic range. With the naked eye, I couldn’t see the foreground detail when I took the photo. It’s mind blowing that a cell phone camera can ‘see’ more than the human eye can!
The results of night mode are very impressive. Clean, sharp, good colour, detail… what’s not to love?! 😎
After a lifetime of iPhones, I switched to Samsung. Specifically, an S20. The camera is unbelievable! 64MP main cam captures unreal detail. We made falafel tonight and I shot this using the food mode setting.
Samsung S20
It gives the shot a cool bit of bokeh. I adjusted the levels a bit in SnapSeed. But other than that, it’s pretty pleasing. 😎👍
