Sunday, July 13, 2025 Morse Municipal Campground to International Peace Park Campground (on the Manitoba/North Dakota border), Boissevain, Manitoba

Deb here. We woke up to a bit of rain. Fortunately, the train noise didn’t keep either of us up. I have to say this was one of our least favorite campgrounds ever, so when no one showed up to collect money we didn’t worry about it. We left the campground at 7:15 a.m. and started driving west in search of breakfast. Mission accomplished an hour later in Moose Jaw, where we found Veroba’s Family Restaurant. We knew we were in the right spot as we walked in and there was a huge banner hanging outside reading “voted best breakfast in Moose Jaw”. Turns out the banner was spot on, hot eggs, homefries, sausage and toast served quickly and with a smile. Perfect.

Next order of business was locating the world’s tallest moose. We’re on a roll up here with “world’s largest, tallest, biggest”, etc. We found Mac the Moose next to the visitor’s center and took some pictures. Then it was back on Rt 1 for awhile before we decided to turn off and head toward Rt 13, the Red Coat Highway. We miss the biggest red paper clip though…

So many fields and so much canola once again. There were very few towns along the way, but in Weyburn we stopped at a Walmart to try and pick up our short list of groceries. The store was missing a lot, so not much luck there and we continued on.

Yesterday the friendly tourist rep in Medicine Hat had given us a booklet about Southeastern Saskatchewan. As John was driving I read up on the various towns we’d be passing through and decided we needed to stop in Redvers. Redvers boasts the largest Royal Canadian Mounted Police statue, along with a log cabin visitor center/gift shop/cafe that sells Saskatoon berry pie. The statue was a big incentive to go, but the pie was even more of a deal maker.

We stopped in Redvers, ate delicious pie (Saskatoon berries are somewhat like blueberries but with a nuttier flavor) and talked with Jake, Nath and the twins. As we were doing our family What’s App chat at a picnic table outside a man came along with a whole berry pie who asked if we were heading to the International Peace Gardens today. He (Dave as it later turned out) said it was an amazing place and not to be missed and that if we decided to go there we had to say hi to Vicki.

So after we ended our phone call we looked up the International Peace Gardens and what an amazing project. The idea of a joint US/Canada peace park came up in 1929, and the formal gardens were completed in 1932. The park includes something like 25 acres of gardens, a conservatory featuring cacti and succulents, a game warden museum, cafe, 9/11 memorial and campground. I called the campground number to find out if there was space and I talked to Vicki and told her the whole small world story with Dave, who she of course knew. She set us up with a campsite and we started driving, jumping ahead an hour when we crossed into Manitoba.

By 5:30 we were at the park and campground, and what a place it is! The campground’s actually located on the US side of the park, but no passport needed to camp here. We set up, took a walk around the park and made our dinner. Tomorrow we’ll head into the gardens and museum and then who knows what’s next?