My grandpa was a captain and radar technician for the Royal Canadian Air Force, so he moved around the country a lot. He had stories from nearly everywhere he worked, but when it came the Queen City he had mainly one comment:
“They pump their water from a reservoir fifty miles from the city, you know. I couldn’t believe anyone would drink it! When people watered their lawns, the whole city smelled like a swamp.”
I grew up in Yorkton—also widely panned for its water quality—so when I moved to Regina for school I did not find it wildly out of the ordinary. I appreciate city water with flavour.
Looking for something to do on one hot, algal bloom-ey afternoon, Teisha and I decided to see if we could find our way to Buffalo Pound Lake, the source of this questionable water. We would tack on some fishing and see if the quality was really something to be concerned about.
Deciding not to use any maps, we attempted to find our way by feel and smell alone. We drove west from the city through flat country on a labyrinth of grid roads. After a half-dozen dead ends, we found our way to something mildly topographical on the horizon, which seemed like the obvious way forward.
The road descended into a coulee and, from then on, the landscape was rolling valleys and emerald groves. We meandered through narrow corridors of Manitoba maple, passing by collapsed banks on a small creek, finally arriving at an empty parking lot.
WELCOME TO NICOLLE FLATS NATURE AREA
I had never heard of it.
On the site was a large, austere house made of stone. There was some interpretive signage that explained how it was built from materials found in the area. It said that each stone was gathered by hand, hauled-in by horse, then individually carved into bricks and laid into place—a staggering amount of work borne out of perseverance. If the sign was constructed to make me feel lazy and inadequate, it was working.
I had advised Teisha that hiking boots would not be necessary and to leave them at home, but there was a trail to a scenic viewpoint at the top of the valley.
"We didn't come all this way not to climb the big hill," I argued. Images of the Nicolle children flashed in my head—sweating under the beating sun—desperately trying to grind and chisel enough solid rock into bricks with their little fingers by wintertime.
Teisha eventually gave in and followed me up the dusty trail in flip-flops.
The hike uphill was led by a transition from cool, dense shrubs of the valley into open grassland. There were prickly pear cacti all along the hillside, which was something I did not know existed in the province. Lichens formed fractal-like geometry on the surface of the rocks. The air moved quietly through the grass at the peak of the hill. From there, we saw the full expanse where the Nicolle family had chosen to build their home: a short walk away from the Qu’appelle River and what would have been the lake at one point in time.
To the west was the Buffalo Pound Dam, holding back all the drinking water we could ask for.
After leaving Nicolle Flats, we returned briefly to the ag-land plane, then back again to the valley and confines of the provincial park.
The road weaved through shady groves, past paddocks with grazing bison, picnic areas and campsites. We found a path to the lake by a seemingly secluded beach and I brought my fishing rod to see if the water was in fact blessed.
I stepped into the water to cast my line. It was cold and clear, therefore clean, and fit for human consumption.
After a few casts, I hooked what appeared to be a decent walleye, but fumbled the retrieve and snapped my line. Another fourteen-dollar Rapala, gone. Two conservation officers, who had been watching us since we arrived, laughed and emerged from the shrubbery.
“The water's beautiful!” I said, beaming with civic pride, which garnered no response from the officers, and they proceeded to check my licence.