RV Travel On Canada’s Secondary Highways

RV Travel On Canada’s Secondary Highways

Well, I admit it: I’ve been a crappy prairie travel blogger this year. I only hope you’ve been keeping too busy with your own summer adventures to notice. Haha.. Anyway, I want to start this post off by telling you why I love travelling the many secondary highways around Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Oops, I almost forgot BC too! The only reason BC gets dicey for RVs when it comes to secondary roads is because of the sometimes steep mountains and too frequent natural disasters. The other Western provinces seem to not suffer as much from fires and floods, although tornados and giant hail storms are very real here. I guess we have to choose our poison when it comes to natural disasters in the West.

Lost Weight

Anyhoo, driving primary highway speeds of 110 kmh are hard on my small but mighty XTerra. Even if the Arfpod is a 3000 lb lightweight that tows very nicely. I keep my trailer weight down by only bringing only what I need . When I travel, I now even pack dehydrated food to allow me to pack more water. RV life is all about prioritizing life. Last year I found out when we travel, packing lots of water is a necessity. I found this out after I ran out and there was no potable water anywhere. So now I bring less stuff and put a lot more water in my freshwater tank.

RV life is all about prioritizing and creating an intentional life. You wind up whittling the extraneous bits off of life until you find something very simple and beautiful beneath it. For me of those extraneous bits was the need to get from A to B as fast as possible. Taking secondary highways lets me meander at speeds of around 90 KMH, which is much easier on my xTerra, Blue. It also allows me to stop to explore and enjoy out of the way places, especially, but not always, those with fenced dog parks for my girls to run.

Meeting People

In spite of being a curmudgeon (I guess the correct word is “introvert” but curmudgeon works too), I’ve met lovely and interesting people throughout my journeys that I couldn’t have met if I had hurtled down a bigger highway, trying to keep time with the tractor trailers. I’ve shared campfires and stories with farmers and their families . I’ve chatted with camp hosts like one in Cut knife, Saskatchewan. Cut Knife is a truly multi-cultural town. Like many of Canada’s little prairie towns, Cut Knife tragically lost nearly all of its men in World War 2 after they went oversea to fight for the freedom of people they would never meet. It’s pretty astounding to think about.

These days, it’s a struggle to find enough volunteers in the town to run and maintain the amazing community museum and stocked fishing pond. As a writer, I consider it a duty to stop and explore places like Cutknife, Rosetown, or Lumsden in Saskatchewan. I’ve found great campgrounds, cacti, pronghorn antelope and more by traveling on secondary highways.

Anyway, I wound up in Winnipeg, as far East as I’ll travel. Stay tuned folks, my next post will be about my amazing adventures here.