We were surprised this morning to find two side excursions to water falls (Wekusko Falls, and Pisew Falls), surprised because the land seems so flat that we had trouble imagining that anything could fall. But we should not have been surprised As these falls were not distinguished by the height of the fall but by the volume of water and power of the flow. Pisew Falls in particular was very impressive and unusually even Nina was impressed.

Today we were traveling over the the precambrian shield or Laurentian shield "a large area of exposed igneous and metamorphic rocks that form the ancient core of the North American continent". We probably transitioned onto this geological feature sometime yesterday but it became more evident today with frequent outcropings of rock visible in the wet lands on the side of the road. The shield is rich in minerals and was the impetus for the founding of the twin towns of Creighton and Flin Flon on the Saskatchewan - Manitoba border. These towns originated in 1914 when Tom Creighton discovered a massive copper/zinc ore body on the site of what would be these two towns. Flin Flon incorporated as a town in 1946 and granted city status in 1970.

We got a bit obsessed today with both Larch trees (also called tamarack) and lakes. Why you might ask. Well the larch trees are abundant along the side of the highway, some green and others various shades of yellow. We spent a good deal of time photographing them in the hope of capturing the color and structure of these beautiful trees. Also later we discovered from google that they are the only deciduous conifer, dropping their needles in the winer after turning yellow. There was also a touch of nostalgia for us in these trees as we drove through many Larch forests in Mongolia in 2013.

Today turned out to be sunny, as predicted by the weather app on our phones and making it a good day for us to leave Prince Alert and travel the section of Highway 120 to Candle Lake which was marked as a scenic road on one of our maps. The good light also gave Nina a chance to get a few photos of the PA Exhibition grounds and some of its more notable sights.

It was still raining this morning with a light mist so that driving south towards Prince Albert was like being in a green/grey tunnel.