Day Trip to Moose Jaw!

While C and I were visiting Regina and its University in late May, we decided to take a break from all of the house hunting and professor meeting and drive to nearby Moose Jaw for some sight seeing as well as a little research. It's a short 70 kilometres west of Regina. For those of you who aren't sure how far that is in imperial miles, consult C's educational post on the Metric System.

The drive was fun and relaxing and even a bit thrilling for me to see that speedometer pegged at 110 for most of the way there. That's kilometres-per-hour, of course. Heh heh.

C had been to Moose Jaw before, when she visited Tom Sukanen's steam ship a few years ago. I, of course, had never been there before and was pleased to find a quaint, charming, little town.

I took this picture from a second floor restaurant we found on Main Street. Look! They've got cars and electricity here too. Nice, eh?


Here's a sweet looking theatre on Main Street.


After a brief stop in downtown Moose Jaw, we headed south on Highway 2 to the Sukanen Ship and Pioneer Village Museum. You'll find it as interesting and fascinating as the name sounds, meaning if you aren't interested in Sukanen's ship or pioneering, you probably wouldn't have a whole lot of fun there. C and I, however, had a blast.


ooOOOooo. Spooooooooooky. Now come on, how can anyone see this enticing sign and not want to check it out? It looks like something out of a bad teen slasher movie.


Of course, the museum isn't really haunted. Except for about a few dozen prairie dogs who would keep a close eye on you. The museum is an odd collection of old farm houses, schoolhouses, general stores, farm equipment, trucks, cars, sewing machines, printing presses and a thousand other little knick knacks and oddities from days gone by. You can bet if it was left unwanted out on the Saskatchewan prairie by someone, then it most likely ended up being dragged here for all to ponder and enjoy.

For you GPS and Google Earth fanatics, you can find the museum at 50 degrees-16'-50.30" north by 105 degrees-32'-15.95" west. If you find it on Google Earth, you can just make out Sukanen's ship in the southeast corner of the lot, by the turnoff of Highway 2.

Besides a maintenance man who showed up to empty all of the waste baskets throughout the museum and mow the tall grass, and the museum's very friendly and informative curator behind the desk in the main office, C and I were the only ones there. The stillness and quiet definitely added to the ghost town atmosphere of the place. All you need is a guy with a chainsaw lurking between the buildings and you've got yourself a summer blockbuster! Curator: "Chainsaw and overalls? Sounds like you're describin' Old Man Bitters. But he's been dead for forty years now." C and R: "Gulp!"


Here's an old schoolhouse. Cool.
What's cool is you can walk into each of the buildings and look around. Most of the rooms inside the buildings aren't even roped off, so you can actually walk up and touch things like old wardrobes in closets and China in kitchen cabinets. The interior of the schoolhouse was cool, but the mannequin of the school teacher, I must admit, was a little creepy. I was afraid it'd suddenly turn its head toward me and say, "Raul, you're tardy." YeeeEESH.


This the predecessor to the giant movie-plexes of today. One is forced to wonder if our present-day "high class movies" such as Scary Movie 2, Shark Boy and Lava Girl, or Snakes on a Plane would hold up to the standards back then.

We had to take a picture of this little cabin. We were both amazed to read that six people lived together in this tiny cabin for like 10 years on the prairie! Holy cow! Today this little cabin would go for about $850,000 in San Francisco (plus parking).


The museum had lots of old trucks and cars. C loves old trucks. She couldn't hot wire this one, so we moved on.


A petting zoo! Look at the little bunnies! You know... it's hard not to make poopy sounds and look like an idiot when you're looking at baby bunnies all huddled togther. I'm man enough to admit that.

And no petting zoo would be complete without your gratuitous baby goats. Cute.


The general store was pretty interesting. It was fun to see all of the brand names we know today on the shelves way back then, and how cheap they were! Like an unopened Madden 22 for the PSX sold for fifteen cents! Oh man!


Tom's Ship

Finally, after making our way through the museum, we came upon the subject (well... at least half of it at least) of C's thesis project: Tom Sukanen's ship, the Dontianen.

It was a steam ship that Tom Sukanen, a Finnish ship builder, hand made back in the 1930's and 40's after several tragic setbacks befell him while he was trying to make a living homesteading on the Saskatchewan prairies. It's a tale as tragic as it is true, and one that C could tell you about better than I.

Here's the other half of the subject of C's thesis, Tom himself. Or his remains at least. After the ship was moved to its new home, Tom's remains were moved here to the museum as well, so that he could rest next to his ship. Very touching.

"Hello again, Tom's boat."


It was interesting to witness C reuniting with the ship, after visiting it a couple years before. You can't help but think there's some connection between her and the ship.


C inspects the rudder.


In a way, it was like watching James Cameron looking out of the portal of his deep sea vessel and seeing the Titanic lying at the bottom of the Atlantic. You could almost see C trying to soak up the energy and the untold stories held within the steel and wood.

Tom hand pounded each plate of steel and then hand stitched them all together to form the outer shell of the hull. C read that he had to push the line through each hole, then climb up and into the boat to pull it the rest of the way through. And there are thousands of stitches covering the hull. This must've taken an incredible amount of time and patience!


We climbed aboard and marveled at his handiwork. He built is own camera, a threshing machine and even a bicycle which you can see on the left.

Every piece of the ship was hand made by Tom, even the tools and machinery he used to build the ship! Amazing. I don't care what people think of him trying to build a ship in the middle of a prairie, this guy was truly a genius.

C holds one of Tom's hammers in her hand. Despite her expression, she's actually very excited here. I guess that's part of what makes C such a formidable poker player.

This is the legendary hammer that Tom held when he was finally arrested for "blocking the King's thoroughfare" while he was trying to drag his ship to the Saskatchewan River, seventeen miles away. The story is that Tom went quietly with the authorities but held on to his hammer all the way to jail, finally relinquishing it to a friend before stepping into his cell.

The hammer was nailed to the hull so we couldn't hold it, but it was cool enough just to be able to see and touch it.

"See you later, Tom. I'm gonna make your movie, dammit."

It got late and C and I were starving. Time to head back to Moose Jaw for a bite before heading back to Regina.

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We hope you enjoyed these pictures of our reconnaissance trip to Saskatchewan. Stay tuned in the next few weeks as we begin saying good-bye to our friends and family here in the Bay Area and head off on our long and winding road trip to our new home on the prairie.

Until then, adventure!
R-