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Showing posts from July, 2010

If you're going through Saskatchewan, you're bound to run into a Indian Head

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My virtual cycling tour across Canada landed me just west of "Indian Head" at 1801km from Horseshoe Bay, BC.  Indian Head? Yep I kid you not!  And what does every town need when named from a First Nation's part of their anatomy - a INDIAN HEAD?  YEP!   Indian Head is a town in southeast Saskatchewan, Canada, 69 km east of Regina. The town is directly north of the Trans-Canada Highway. The town is known for its federally-operated Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) experimental farm and tree nursery that produces seedlings for shelter belts.   So  there you go.  I've been riding into the darnedest towns!   ---WAB1234---

Moose Jaw - Wonder where the name came from

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My virtual tour lands me in Moose Jaw at 1663km across Canada.  How did this place get its name? Wiki (gotta love Wiki!) says "Marked on a map as  Moose Jaw Bone Creek  in an 1857 survey by surveyor John Palliser, [ 1 ]  there are two theories as to how the city got its name. The first one is that it comes from the  Plains Cree  name moscâstani-sîpiy  meaning "a warm place by the river", indicative of the protection from the weather that the  Coteau Range  provides to the river valley containing the city [ 2 ] and also the  Plains Cree  word Moose Gaw  meaning warm breezes. The other is that on the map of the city the Moose Jaw river is shaped like a  moose 's jaw." I like the first version rather than the obvious.  Traveling luck has a better break down of Moose Jaw here  .  Of course every town aptly named from a moose's anatomy should have a giant statue of it!      Regina is a mere 70km away and Winnipeg is 550km.  There is a whole load of km still t