Russell, Manitoba to Preeceville, Saskatchewan

Our entry into Canada went smoothly for all concerned, although a little strange. Riders commented that they didn't know how they (customs) knew for sure that everyone had been checked-in. The procedure was to go inside, show your passport, go back outside and drive across the border (how could they be sure that all the riders had in fact checked-in?) The answer was - they couldn't! The procedure was the same for all the chase drivers, and the answer was again the same.

Manitoba (at least in this part) is a flat barren landscape with miles between villages that seldom larger than 1000 residents. Despite the small size, the village of Deloraine (which appeared to be an atypical Manitoba village) had a full-size indoor hockey arena and a three lane quonset-hut style arena for the Deloraine Curling Club; pretty lively for a community of its size.

Despite having a "guide" to lead the way to Russell, all 24 snowmobiles were led twenty-five miles out the way. Pete (our safety coordinator), saved the day, when he showed the guide his GPS device, pin-pointing the current location of the sleds which clearly indicated that they were headed in the wrong direction.

In addition, the riders, for a distance of about twenty-five miles, were forced to make-do without a trail, and were thus forced to endure, what snowmobiler's call "ditch-banging; a grueling (and somewhat dangerous) ordeal which tosses the snowmobile from side-to-side and subjects them to unknown obstacles mindlessly thrown into the ditch, or culverts hidden by the deep snow and what ever else "Mother-nature" provides.

As a consequence, their arrival at the Russell Inn was about two hours late. This was unfortunate since the Inn had a banquet set-up to welcome MichCanSka to Russell.

Russell is larger city with seven distinctive glu-laminated arches that mark the intersections along the main thoroughfare - very impressive!

It is about 150 highway miles to Preeceville, Saskatchewan or about six hours by "toboggan" the euphemism sometimes used by the Canadians for a snowmobile. It is miles of open spaces of multi-thousand acre farms that to this untrained eye appear only as barren land; an appearance that is further heightened by the fields of snow.

There were few towns to fill the void landscape and when arrived in Preeceville, the grain elevator rising above the city was focal point Preeceville. These grain elevators are a ubiquitous feature of the small towns that dot the landscape of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.