Monday Continued

Despite their best efforts we were still a little late pulling out of Winnipeg.  Since we had first sitting for lunch that simply meant we got to eat more of our meal without the rocking of the train.  Of course, it also meant that the scenery was changing before our eyes.

Via has a nifty system for meal sittings.  Before you leave Toronto they ask you to pick your sitting.  We chose second, and they gave it to us, but also advised us that we would have that sitting for Sunday, but that Sunday evening we would be asked to choose a different sitting for Monday, so that everyone had the opportunity to get their first choice of time.  Second sitting is the most popular.  So on Monday we had moved to first sitting ... which was sneaky, in a way, because we wouldn't be on the train past lunch on Tuesday!

By mid-afternoon we were into Saskatchewan ... the land of potash.  I'd been told that I would see more grain elevators than enough, and we did see a few, but not nearly as many as I'd been led to expect.  Oh, and I'd also heard that the Prairies are really flat.  Perhaps they should come and take a look at Essex County -- then they'd know what flat really is!

As you can tell, I did see hay bales like I'd never seen them before!  And I did 'almost' catch one of the grain elevators - why is it that the train only hits rocket speeds when I want to take a photo???

They told us that grain is now Saskatchewan's second largest export.  Potash has edged grain out of first place.  That's just part of our changing world!

It was a little shocking to realise that we left Ontario early on Monday morning, lunched in Manitoba, and had dinner on the edge of Saskatchewan.  If nothing else puts the size of Ontario, and particularly northern Ontario into perspective, that certainly does.

Our American neighbours were astonished at how much land in northern Ontario is still in a natural state.  They kept asking who owned it.  They kept hearing "the Crown" -- or "it's a nature preserve for the animals that live there" -- or -- "there's no real way of knowing simply by looking from the train window."  But we do have a huge nature preserve in northern Ontario.  Sometimes we get it right!  (Or maybe the land is not yet desirable enough to fall to developers.)