10 Thrilling Places To See In SW Saskatchewan

all this is in southwest saskatchewan in this video we're going to explore ten thrilling places most of them are in remote areas that are not very popular with tourists from happy land to happy valley you're gonna see a whole bunch of things you won't see anywhere else you can find dinosaur bones quicksand rattlesnakes and more you'll be so glad you came and in the description below i put a link to the southwest saskatchewan fun map so you can get more information about every spot so let's begin the first stop on our trip is the great sand hills this is located about 25 minutes south of leader saskatchewan it's an act of sand dune and there are no services and it's not unusual that you're by yourself when you visit here there are some wildlife in the area but you're mostly going to encounter cows it's highly recommended you don't try to drive here after heavy rain it's about a hundred meters from the parking lot to the sand dunes and all together you're going to walk about two to three kilometers to explore everything 70 mile butte is just outside val marie saskatchewan or about an hour and 20 minutes south of swift current it's one of my favorite hikes in all of saskatchewan it's a pretty reasonable four and a half kilometer loop hike the way up is a little bit more difficult than when you come back but the view is well worth it you'll feel like you're on top of the world and there's lots to photograph the entire time although it's part of the grasslands national park west block you have to leave the main park to get here there are rattlesnakes in the area but you probably won't ever see one grassland's west block is located a few kilometers from val marine saskatchewan is the land of living skies and nothing says that more than this park they have a 31 kilometer eco tour it takes you in and out of the park you're going to see a lot of great features about the park but you're also going to see a little bit of history on the way there's also a lot of these prairie dogs and there's buffalo and a whole bunch of birds i also really enjoy the viewpoints they've set up there is a lot of hiking here and from what i understand the camping here is great highway 13 and 18 in southern saskatchewan are full of towns that don't exist anymore that's why some people call them ghost town trail there's a lot of these old grain elevators that have been disappearing from the skyline the past few years and of course there's ghost towns and old churches just about every town has one really neat thing to photograph here in mccord saskatchewan there's these old gas pumps in dollard there's this church if you enjoy photographing old heritage buildings there's no shortage of them in southwest saskatchewan but always respect private property just because the place may be abandoned someone still owns it the valley of a thousand devils is my favorite place to visit in saskatchewan it's wild and it feels prehistoric it's one of the most thrilling places i've ever been to in all of canada it is part of the grasslands national park east block and it does require a difficult five and a half kilometer hike each way from the visitor center and then you're going to want to spend at least 5 more kilometers to explore however you could just walk to the halfway point and explore a little bit of the northern part of the badlands people still find dinosaur bones and fossils here however you can't take them with you you could spend days exploring these endless badlands but the trails are not very well marked that's why i use the all trails pro app when you're in the valley of a thousand devils you will be sharing the area with cows but the good news is no one has seen snakes here for decades of all the places in saskatchewan to visit this is my favorite by far and it's highly recommended grasslands national park east block is located about 30 minutes west of rockland saskatchewan i just learned this spring that the valley of a thousand devils is part of grassland's east block because they're so different i gave them two different sections on this video grassland's east block has a lot of cool things to explore and in the last couple years they built this 10 kilometer road to a whole bunch of amazing viewpoints and once you're at one of these amazing viewpoints you can walk into the valley to see more my favorite viewpoint for exploring is crackerjack there's a lot of badlands down here for you to check out and the friendly people at the visitor told me that there's a pretty significant dinosaur fossil down here if you walk through the valley about a kilometer north of here you're going to encounter quicksand you have probably heard of dark sky preserves pretty much the entirety of the southwest saskatchewan is a dark sky area it is very sparsely populated and there's not a lot of big towns all the locations covered in this video offer great night photography opportunities and you won't be interrupted with traffic it's very rare to see anybody else out there while you're shooting night photography is my favorite style of photography and southwest saskatchewan is the jackpot when in southwest saskatchewan gas stations and services close sometime between 6 to 10 pm make sure you have gas and supplies if you're going to head out at night the avonlea badlands are just outside of avonlea saskatchewan it's an easy one kilometer hike to get in here you may encounter cows on the way in the valley there's a lot of great hoodoos you're going to spend a lot of time getting some great photos my favorite time to visit is during golden hour there's not a lot of wildlife here but thankfully there's no snakes the badlands are on private property the only way to get in is through tours done by the avonlea museum private tours are available sometimes call ahead to see if you can arrange one they also do tours at night allowing you to get some great night shots just down the road from avonlea is the clay bank factory behind the factory is a one and a half kilometer hike through the white clay valley castle butte is one of the most iconic locations in all of saskatchewan it is located just south of bengal saskatchewan in the muddy badlands it's only open from june 1st to mid-november due to calving season and sometimes you're sharing this spot with cows you can climb up the butte if you want to it's a half a kilometer hike to walk around it and there are no services here it's located on private property and the owners allow people to visit as long as you respect the rules one of the prettiest drives in all of southwest saskatchewan is between ravens greg saskatchewan and east end it's very pretty here in the 90s they found one of the most complete t-rex skeletons here you can now see it at the east end dinosaur museum there's a lot of badlands and white clay jones peak offers one of the most breathtaking views of the valley just make sure that you close the gate when you leave to make sure the cows don't get in the town of east end offers a lot of services but if you like to camp i recommend pine cree it's just outside of the town it is one of the nicest campgrounds in all of saskatchewan cypress hills is an intra-provincial park on the alberta saskatchewan border it's also the highest point in canada between the rocky mountains and labrador and it's the only spot covered in this video with modern tourist facilities like a spa golfing in the lake most of those tourist facilities are on the center block in saskatchewan and there's a lot of great hiking here a short drive away is the western block of cypress hills this site is more wild it's also where you can find fort walsh and everybody likes to visit the conglomerate cliffs considering this spot is only half an hour away from highway 1 i'm surprised it's not busier i moved to saskatchewan from banff about 15 years ago hills reminds me a lot about banff except there's no mountains or tourists when you're traveling in the cypress hills i strongly recommend you stick the named roads if you use an app for navigation they may send you down a cow road which may be closed washed out or filled with cows while you're in southwest saskatchewan you can also check out some of the french towns like willowbunch in this charming valley and there's gravel burg you can really get a sense of the french culture here there's all these neat old buildings you can shoot and this church and old convent offers tours in the summer and wouldn't you want to watch a film in this old movie theater during spring and summer in southwest saskatchewan you can get some pretty severe thunderstorms some of these thunderstorms produce so much rain it can make some of the roads undrivable for days the best part is you can watch these storms coming in for a few hours and they're really fun to photograph there's rainbows tornadoes roll clouds i really enjoy storm photography but make sure you don't get hit by lightning always stay safe the town of cornex saskatchewan also offers some public and private tours to see even more exciting stuff on private land like this ancient buffalo effigy just visit their website to find out more if you happen to be exploring saskatchewan from late june to the third week of july you're going to be greeted with canola fields everywhere and finally there's checkerboard hill this is just west of leader saskatchewan it's close to where the red deer and south saskatchewan river meet this is not only a great viewpoint but it's also where you can find rattlesnakes and scorpions most of this land is on private property and of course always treat wildlife with respect i really hope you enjoyed our trip across southwest saskatchewan check out my southwest saskatchewan fun map there's a link to it in the description below if you happen to get some great shots of southwest saskatchewan please tag me on instagram i'd love to see what you got i'm chris atril thank you so much for joining me you

Channel: Chris Attrell

Views: 67,675

Rating: 4.9163556 out of 5

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Id: 6yyn6FMyKJY

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 03 2021