On the road again...

It is a chilly minus 6C or 20F this morning in Eastend Sask. This will probably be the coldest spot for us on our route. But after we leave this morning, we will be crossing the prairies and will not be camping anywhere with internet for the next 2 days. So the blog shall be suspended until we reach "civilization" again...probably Castleton North Dakota (near Fargo).

To keep you amused, I shall leave you with a general collection of Eastend Sask photos...

This place doesn't look very promising on the outside, in fact it is pretty nondescript. But it has a fairly interesting history. It began in 1914, as a bakery in the Cypress Hotel across the street. The original owner was Greek. The Greek family of Markeris ran this little cafe for 4 generations and just a few months ago sold it to yet another Greek family of new Canadians who came to Saskatchewan from Toronto quite recently. They are a delightful group of papa, mama, daughter Joanna Efstathopoulou age 20 and her two younger twin sisters. Joanna was our hostess for our breakfasts and our Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Here is a photo of us on Thanksgiving Day.

You might get a glimmer of the fact that the interior of this nondescript cafe is anything but. It has been in this location since 1920, and the interiors have not changed since then. It is the same place that I was in, in 1969 on my last visit. The murals are wonderful. They depict every significant aspect of life in Eastend, the NWMounted Police post at Fort Walsh, the farmland and ranchland, the river bottom, the Indian encampments, the place just south in Montana where the Indians used to drive the buffalos over the cliff to make an easy kill.

The new Greek family were most generous with us, and wanted us to see the room on the other side where important events were celebrated. We gasped.

As you can probably surmise, there are surprises around every corner in Eastend Sask.





One day we went outside of town about 3 miles to Chimney Coulee.  Aside from it's historical significance (see below),

Chimney Coulee was also the homestead of choice for Corky Jones, the most famous and best-loved resident of Eastend. I met him in 1969 when he was almost 90. He lived to 97 and died in 1978. In the beginning he came to western Canada at the tender age of 16 ....but wait...back up. Let's give you another visual aid to this story. Here is a 1914 photo of Corky Jones' ranch at Chimney Coulee...

That's Corky on the left. All of these people had their own amazing story, so let me tell you something about them. Corky's father was a doctor on the Isle of Wight. He was the personal physician to Queen Victoria and the Royal family when they were visiting there. He was a very busy man so young Corky hung out with another friend of his father's and his son. This man "just happened" to be an avid amateur paleontologist, and so at a very young age Corky was introduced to the love of finding fossils. Once in Eastend, Corky soon discovered that fossils were everywhere, and they were BIG ones. He was instrumental in collecting and notating his early finds, and in starting the Eastend Historical Museum which still houses all of his finds plus many other treasures. Sitting up against the wall are his wife Muriel (Watkis) Jones, an accomplished pianist and organist who came out from Shropshire in the early 1900s. She played the organ for most of the churches in town and gave music lessons. Sitting in front of her is her brother John Watkis and beside her is John's fiancee Doronthy Nunn. They were married the next year (1915) and became long-term Eastend ranchers. Lying on his side is "Doc" George Thornewill from England. He was the vet, trained in Toronto and a volunteer member of the Veterinary Corps in the First World War. His father was a Vicar in England and an MA graduate of Oxford University. Sitting on the end is my dear Uncle Drew Lindsay, dressed in suit and tie (who knows why??)....




So now let's look at Corky's museum in Eastend.

I have run out of time. The internet here is very very slow...so this will be it until sometime in about 3 days....we hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving...love to you all...

Barbara and Rick