Day 25 – Monday August 30, 2010
Kilometres: 456.9
Time: Five hours, 45 minutes(riding time)
Weather:
Saskatoon: Overcast, 12C at 10:30 AM
Batoche: Partly cloudy, 18 C at 2 PM
Regina: Rain, 12 C at 7 PM
I really should read my itinerary the night before I ride. I thought I skipped over visiting Batoche yesterday because of weather. It was actually planned for today. This morning I weighed my options: Go to Regina early and see the RCMP Museum, or go to Batoche. After a quick breakfast I packed up and headed north to the site of the last Metis battle. I reasoned that there is a good chance of me going through Regina again, but only a small chance of me ever being close to Batoche again.
You don’t just stumble across Batoche. It is so out of the way that you have to know it’s there. I got off of Highway 11 and headed east on 312 for a while before going north on 225. Both 312 and 225 are not well travelled. I passed seven cars going in the opposite direction on both 312 and 225. If I were to breakdown my only witnesses would be the ducks on the ponds. The grain fields go on forever, but I still deny that Saskatchewan in flat. Both the North and South Saskatchewan rivers have created deep, wide valleys, similar to what I’d seen in Qu’Appelle Valley. Stands of trees break up the farmland, and I’ve often wondered if the Prairies without all the farm fields would look similar to Southern Ontario.
Speaking of similarities, highways 312 and 225 reminded me of the concessions and regional roads of Southern Ontario: farmers fields on both sides, a small road ditch, hardly a road shoulder, and quilt work patches of pavement.
I arrived at Batoche a bit before noon. I turned off onto a paved road, which quickly turned to hardpack and then gravel. Don’t these people think of motorcycles? The parking area is on grass, so I guess they don’t think of motorcycles at all. There were only six cars in the lot, so I had high hopes that I wasn’t going to be surrounded by screaming kids.
The national park is undergoing revitalizing construction, so the reception area is in a construction trailer. I paid my $7.80 and was lead to another trailer to watch a short film about the battle. I really think that third semester broadcasting students could have done better. All the key characters were represented by what looked like hand-formed plastic figures. They probably did it this way so the narrative could be overdubbed in French and English, but it looked cheaply done. The six other people in the room were shuffling our feet and staring around presumably from inattention to a rather boring film. I later learned that we were some of the last people to see the film as it is being re-shot for next year.
After the film we were allowed to walk around the site and interact with the few period costumed interpreters. The first building I went into was the original church. Many of the statues, and other religious artefacts are original to Batoche. Beside the church is the rectory. There I met one of the interpreters who walked me around the three rooms on the ground floor. All the items in the rectory are from that time period, but not necessary from the original Batoche rectory. In many ways it reminded me of the recreated rooms I walked through in the big house at Lower Fort Garry.
On the second floor the priest kept the post office, a prayer room, a room for visiting priests and another bedroom (his bedroom was on the first floor, so I don’t know who slept in the upstairs room.
In the corner I saw a piece of furniture that look similar to the oak piece I’d given to Margo a few years ago. The two upper drawers were slightly different and this piece was maybe 15 cm taller. I asked the Parks Canada person if she could open it for me as I was interested in seeing how the handle and catch worked. Also, the colour of the Batoche pieces is white. I had stripped off five layers of paint on the oak cabinet, and I think the last one was white. Hey, Margo, it looks like I gave you something from the 1880s or 1890s. You may want to paint it white.
With my interested in the piece, the Parks Canada guide directed me back downstairs to look at another piece that was painted red. She said it was painted using milk paint, which is no longer made. I corrected her on that, and after looking at the piece I suggested that they looked in the Lee Valley catalogue, specifically for ochre milk paint. It is very close in shade, but the Batoche piece maybe slightly lighter in colour.
Here's a picture of the church with the rectory behind it. Both took shots from the RCMP's Gatling gun during the battle.
I had spent too much time talking, and had to hurry the remainder of my visit. I went to the ridge where the battle took place. It was a lovely view of the South Saskatchewan River. I turned around to look back at the church and saw this:
From there I started to walk towards the Metis gun pits, but they were half a kilometre away. Was it worth walking a kilometre to see holes in the ground with my time at Batoche running short? Instead I turned around and walked to the Batoche cemetery.
The guides told me to follow the paths to the different areas. They aren’t really paths, as the area is mostly grass. All they have done is taken a tractor and mowed down three metres of the grass. If you go off the mowed area, you will be standing in grass up to your waist. The path continued around the side of cemetery, but I always like taking the front door when I can find it.
The gates of the cemetery, which is still used by the parish, were locked shut, but the black gate had a simple catch on it. I pulled in the catch and pushed open the gate. Everyone from Batoche to Saskatoon must have heard me open the heavy metal gate. It has never seen a drop of oil in its life. Wow, was that ever loud … and I had only opened it a few inches. I paused for a second. Was I supposed to use the gate? Oh, well, I’d already started making a noise, so I may as well finish. An yes, I remembered to close the gate behind, just in case they didn’t hear me open it.
I was looking for the grave of Gabriel Dumont, Louis Riel’s military leader. I found several members of his family, including his brother and sister, but I didn’t see his grave, even though I was told he was in the cemetery. There was a plaque on a rock commemorating what he’d done, but I couldn’t find the grave marker.
I found the grave of one of the RCMP (or were they the North West Mounted Police by that time?) soldiers killed in the battle. All the other bodies of soldiers killed in the battle were returned to their families in Ontario.
There is also a wooden fence around the graves of the Native fighters who lost their lives at the battle. What I found interesting about the cemetery is the mix of English and French people buried there. Many of the French graves had the inscription, “Ici repose le corpes de …. And then ended in RIP. Generations of the same families are buried here, but interestingly, the cemetery is not divided up by family. This didn’t help me at all with finding Gabriel Dumont’s final resting place. Also, the graves are not arranged in rows. It’s a bit of a jumble.
In the end I gave up looking. The wind had dropped and the flies, especially the mosquitoes were coming out by the millions.
I didn’t see the remainder of the Batoche site, and I know I missed quite a bit, but I couldn’t stay any longer as it was getting close to 2 PM. I had at least a three and a half hour ride ahead of me.
As I stood beside my bike and started to get ready to head out, three tourists from Saskatchewan struck up a conversation with me. They had also travelled extensively throughout Canada. They said that they spent 11 days in Newfoundland and still didn’t have a chance to see everything they wanted to. It sounds like that will be a two-week trip for me and not the one-week I had originally planned. We also started talking about the geography of Saskatchewan. Apparently there are three distinct parts to the province. Batoche is on the edge of the valley. North of here it’s all lakes, trees, and wilderness. The southern part of the province is more hilly, especially the Cypress Hills, which I’d missed seeing because of poor weather a few weeks ago.
As I got on the bike, I noticed that it was 18 C, the warmest weather I’d had since leaving Vernon nearly a week ago. The sun was attempting to poke out from behind the clouds, and for a while it was winning. But as I rode south, the clouds again increased.
I stopped for gas in Saskatoon and kept going south. I knew I had to stop for gas one more time before reaching Regina, and I wanted to prolong that stop for as long as possible. If I timed everything right, I could get gas and quick bite to eat and not have to worry about food once I arrived in Regina.
I stopped at 5 PM at the small town of Davidson. My fingers were numb and so were my toes. The temperature had dropped to 14 C. I needed to warm up. I fuelled up both the bike and myself and then stretched my legs for a bit. My half an hour break would cost me, though, because about 10 minutes after I left Davidson, the temperature dropped even further.
For the next hour and 15 minutes I rode in the rain, which I don’t mind, but I also rode like a frozen Popsicle. Thank god I bought that $10 piece of plastic called a cruise assist. It slips over the throttle and I just lean on it and the throttle opens. It means that I don’t have to grip the throttle all the time. My hands were so cold that I couldn’t grip the throttle even if I wanted to. They simply rest on the grips and turn the bars when I come to a curve in the road. Once again I’m thankful I’m not riding the twisty roads in BC.
I arrived at the hotel craving a hot coffee, but this one doesn’t have an in-room machine, so I had to go across the street and buy one from Tim Hortons, which means I was desperate.
Tomorrow I’m heading to Winnipeg and then I’ll retrace my steps home.
