Everything That Happened Here

Journey to Canada's most underrated province - Saskatchewan - where the simple act of hiking feels like time travel. From Badlands replete with fossils, to miles of Prairie grassland teeming with wildlife where bison roam, join adventurer Phoebe Smith as she explores the National Park you've never heard of - but definitely should add to your to do list. 

Practical travel help is baked in too. I share my no-nonsense travel hack for avoiding ticks and removing them safely, plus we chat with Jenna Carr, aka The Travel Mum, about why family travel is chaotic, slower, and still absolutely worth it. We round things out with fast Saskatchewan facts, stargazing gear for a dark sky preserve, and a Hidden Hero conversation with a species at risk scientist working behind the scenes to protect the “little guys” we too often overlook.

Also coming up:

• The Travel Mum - Jenna Carr on why you can travel with kids
• Travel Hack: How to avoid and remove a tick
• A Canadian Dead Sea, the biggest T-Rex fossil on the planet? 10 Saskatchewan Facts that will have you headed straight for Regina
• Meet the woman who works to protect endangered species in Grasslands National Park
• Gear chat: what to pack to go stargazing
• Geraldine Moodie – pioneering photographer and owner of the first studio opened by a woman – is our Wander Woman of the Month.

If you love wildlife encounters, Canadian road trips, and prairie dogs, hit subscribe, share this with a friend who needs fresh travel inspiration, and leave a review so more people can find us.

www.Phoebe-Smith.com; @PhoebeRSmith

Transcript

Speaker 5 0:00

On this month's Wander Woman Podcast.

Speaker 10 0:03

The people who come here are people who want to be here and be in nature. To be like they're not here for the selfies, they're not here for like the Instagram moments.

Speaker 5 0:13

I journey thanks to this episode's podcast partners, Tourism Saskatchewan, to the Canadian National Park you've never heard of, and explore the land that was once home to dinosaurs, sabre-toothed tigers, indigenous people, cowboys, and for the last 20 years, the near-extinct prairie bison. Speaking of endangered, I meet the woman whose job it is to monitor and reintroduce species of endemic animals to explain why we should all love an under- no, sorry, prairie dog.

Speaker 9 0:40

It's easy to love the charismatic megafauna. I would say my heart goes out to the little guys. Like, don't forget about the prairie dogs and the burrowing owls and the snakes, and they all are part of this natural ecosystem too.

Speaker 5 0:52

And as we approach the summer holidays, I meet Jenna Carr, aka the Travel Mum, who's made it her life's mission to prove to everyone that yes, you can travel with kids.

Speaker 4 1:03

Family travel is chaotic and it is messy and it doesn't look like the Instagram pictures and videos, but it's amazing as well, and it's worth doing, and you can do it.

Speaker 5 1:14

Also coming up, I give you my top tips for avoiding and removing ticks on your outdoor adventures in my monthly travel hack. Discover 10 fast facts about the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, and in my regular gear section, I help you pack for a night of stargazing beneath the land of living skies. Finally, I'll be revealing this episode's Wander Woman of the Month, the traveller whose name is lost in the history books. You're listening to the Wander Woman Podcast, an audio travel magazine with me, adventurer of Phoebe Smith, exploring off the beaten track destinations, wild spaces, wildlife encounters, and the unsung heroes behind conservation efforts. Come wander with me.

Welcome to Saskatchewan

Speaker 3 1:54

Welcome to Grasslands National Park. Here we have the Killdeer Badlands, and that's what makes us special. And that's what we'll be kind of getting into a little bit today, because this is where we find all kinds of cool pieces of history, uh both human and dinosaur. So uh we are gonna be going back uh 70 million years in the next 60 minutes.

Speaker 5 2:16

In this Canadian national park in which I'm standing, there is history spanning back 70 million years. That's as far back as the Cretaceous period. And while you can probably say that of most places in the world, here in what's called the East Block of Grasslands National Park, the other half of the park about two hours' drive away, is called perhaps predictably the West Block. You can actually see the history before your very eyes. From pre-human to early indigenous peoples to ranchers and nowadays travellers like me looking for a national park to escape the crowds. And so I began with my interpretive guide Rose at the beginning with a hike that promised a speedy cliff note style history of the area.

Speaker 3 2:56

This Badland area uh would have looked uh quite different than it does today. It wouldn't be this quite arid desert, but in fact, 70 million years ago, it was actually completely underwater. So this right here is uh kind of the last stage of the Western Interior Seaway. So at one point, almost all of kind of western North America was all underwater. By about 67 million years ago, a lot of that seaway has really dried up, and we're now looking at kind of this marshy, coal swamp kind of area. So looking out here, it wouldn't have been looking like this, it would have been uh quite a bit more water than we have today. Uh, but also you would have seen huge palm trees, uh ferns, and of course our dinosaurs wandering around here.

Speaker 5 3:44

Looking out at the Badlands now, it's a sprawling collection of domes of island-like peaks, rising dramatically upwards from the miles of prairie land that surrounds it. Known as Buttes, these hills are devoid of the green carpet of vegetation typical of this area, and instead are a visually shocking layer cake of clay and rock, ranging in colour from grey to black, beige to white. They got their name as Badlands long ago, so called by farmers and ranchers as well as indigenous people, as nothing would grow on them. But their striped geological makeup is what hides a hidden lesson in history for those who take the time to look.

Speaker 3 4:21

It's kind of uh, I like to call it earth being a storyteller. Uh so as time goes on, these layers of sediment accumulate on the earth's surface, creating almost like an invisible clock, uh, where every layer of sediment is kind of capturing a different moment in time.

Speaker 5 4:38

So the land today actually shows us how the earth was made. It also contains a clear line, literally, that's visible to the naked eye, which demarks the exact moment the dinosaurs roaming here were made extinct. Discover in the 1980s.

Speaker 3 4:54

It was this line in the sediment column that looks almost like an Oreo cookie. Very weird. It was black, white, and then black. And uh they started testing it and they were like, okay, that's strange. When we look below this line, it's all dinosaurs. When we look above this line, it's all mammals.

Speaker 5 5:11

Rose explained how the white line in the middle was made of iridium, a substance not found on Earth. And that's when they realized that it must have come from outer space. Sure enough, a sight from the impact of either a meteorite or similar was discovered not long after, much further south on the continent, thereby confirming the importance of this line and the history it displays before our very eyes. From walking on the line demarking the rise of mammals, we moved deeper into the Badlands, descending into the time of the dinosaurs. And soon I heard my friend Jodi call out, Here it is!

Speaker 6 5:49

Ah, you found it!

unknown 5:50

Yeah.

Speaker 5 5:52

Sure enough, she had discovered the fossilized leg bone of a triceratops, a famous find left out for hikers to spot in a very trusting Canadian way, giving all of us the chance to experience a fraction of the thrill felt by George Mercer Dawson in 1874 when he happened upon the first dinosaur bone found here. I was amazed to see something so incredible simply lying here. But Rose was quick to point out.

Speaker 3 6:19

A fossil in hand is worth nothing, but a fossil in situ or in the environment is could be worth millions. Could be that final piece of the puzzle that puts it all together. But if we miss that last piece of the puzzle, we now have an unfinished puzzle, and that's not fun for anybody.

Speaker 5 6:34

After searching for other fossils and finding evidence of petrified trees, fossilized teeth, and even dinosaur poo, we left the era of the dinosaurs and emerged at a point where a sign advised us about the residents of the Badlands that came after mammals. The park is on Treaty 4 territory, so home to indigenous nations that have linked their lives to the migration of buffalo who once roamed here since time immemorial. This includes the A'aninin people, the Niitsitapi, the Nakoda, the Lakota, the Dakota, Nehiyawak, as well as being the cultural homeland of the Metis. It also proved a place of sanctuary during a particularly difficult moment in history, as Jodi read aloud, her words punctuated by the prairie winds which blew strong.

Speaker 7:19

The Lakota Sioux sought sanctuary here after the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. Some members of Chief Sittingbull's tribe fled north across the medicine line, the Canada-US boundary, and camped along Rock Creek safe from the pursuing American army.

Speaker 5 7:36

That night we camped in Rock Creek too, in our own little sanctuaries from the wind. O-Tent-tiks, modern-day structures made of wood and tarp that resemble a prospector's tent, furnished with bunk beds that offer the chance to enjoy a campfire outside courtesy of fire pits. While we collected wood, we spoke to Ranger Alex, who used to work at a much more well-known park in a more famous Canadian province. And I asked him, what made him change location?

Speaker 10 8:03

People who come here are people who want to be here and be in nature. To be like, they're not here for the selfies, they're not here for like the Instagram moments, they're here to really enjoy being out in nature.

Speaker 5 8:17

Firmly being one of those people myself, I lit the campfire and watched the stars overhead as our early ancestors would have done, while a meadowlark provided a tuneful soundtrack. The sun didn't properly set till past 10pm, in glorious fashion, bathing the wolf willow and long prairie grass in an amber light, until tiny pinpricks of stars came out above us. Because all the indigenous people who came through here were nomadic, there was never really full-time prairie residents in what is now grasslands. But fast forward to the 20th century and colonial settlers turned ranchers dotted the area. The long overhunted buffalo or bison gone, replaced now with cows. In fact, when the park was first designated back in 1981, when the value of mixed grassland, aka Prairie, was discovered to be such an important but endangered ecosystem, it was met with backlash by the people who were about to be moved off it, the cowboys. I met with one of them the next morning after being woken by the Swifts who nested above my bed. Her name was Brenda Peterson, and she greeted me in classic Saskatchewan style by offering a homemade Saskatoon berry pie.

Speaker 8 9:38

You take the Saskatoons and then I add um sugar, yeah, and I put a little bit of lemon, yeah, and I put a little touch of cinnamon. Oh nice. A little bit of so now you see if you can taste all that.

Speaker 5 9:52

Brenda described herself as a park neighbour, but much like the layers of sediment in the Badlands, her history goes back much further.

Speaker 8 10:00

Before the park was a park, before they decided what the boundaries were, th this just over that hill, um, it was my family's land.

Speaker 6 10:12

Okay.

Speaker 8 10:12

Okay. So um so I rode these hills since I was little. Okay, and then so um born and raised just twelve miles north of here.

Speaker 6 10:25

Yeah.

Speaker 8 10:26

That's where uh where my home was. And uh so then went to university, became a teacher, uh married a cowboy from two towns down.

Speaker 6 10:39

As you do.

Speaker 8 10:41

And uh so and we ranched just north of the park border. Yeah, and uh that's where where I live now.

unknown 10:49

Okay.

Speaker 8 10:50

Yeah, so um, yeah, so the roots are deep.

Speaker 5 10:54

Indeed, they are, and generations of her family have lived and worked here before her, so it's not surprising to learn that in 1975 Brenda protested the coming of the park.

Speaker 8 11:06

So I presented a brief saying, My family has looked after this land for 75 years, and I plan to too, and we will look after it just fine. We don't need a park to do it.

Speaker 5 11:19

Yeah, ranchers do that. Despite protests, the park went ahead anyway, with the West Block first, where people were made to leave the land, but here in the East, to maintain good relations, they changed tact, and people were offered the chance to sell in a willing buyer, willing seller situation. Not only did Brenda agree, when she retired from teaching in 2010, the year after she actually came and worked for the park as a ranger. And because of her tireless work, the park not only grew thanks to her mediating between them and other landowners, persuading them to consider selling too, but so did visitation, which meant more funding became available.

Speaker 8 12:00

It used to be recounted by how many people signed the book. I used to chase people down the road.

Speaker 5 12:10

Brenda's story was fascinating, and so was her knowledge of the landscape. Before I left, she was keen to show me another part of the park, the uplands.

Speaker 8 12:20

Like to me, the uplands, like this area, is just so beautiful. It really is. But I think it's so beautiful because it's such a contrast to the grasslands.

Speaker 5 12:32

Comprising rolling hills, rising up above the river valleys, some coated with trees, and the ubiquitous prairie plant, the fragrant sagebrush, it felt so far away from the rest of the park. Along the way, she stopped to show me some teepee rings, circles of stone, first invisible to the naked eye, left here hundreds and thousands of years ago by the indigenous people who had set up their tents above the prairie plains while tracking the bison, using glaciated rock till to secure their animal-skinned walls. She explained how the park has a trifecta of landscapes, these uplands, the badlands, and of course the grasslands, which is best observed in the West Block, where I journeyed to next, and met my guide Ryan in a lay by just off the park's EcoTour driving loop to learn about the park's most famous residence, the prairie bison.

Speaker 2 13:27

1850 and earlier there was approximately 30 million bison within North America, and mainly through the Great Plains, which would have been here. There was a lot of things that happened between 1850 and 1890 that started in the demise of bison population. So it went from about 30 million bison to 1890, being around a thousand animals, they figured left within North America.

Speaker 5 14:02

According to Ryan, who I should say is bison operations coordinator here at the park, thanks to a few ranches back then, some of the last remaining specimens of this species were rounded up and kept in different private sites across North America. So, years later, when humans began to realise their value to the ecosystems, a process began whereby Parks Canada started reintroducing the bison back into the landscapes that they once called home. And here in Grasslands, after a year in a holding pen to acclimatize to their new terrain, in 2006 the first herd of 70 were finally set free into the national park.

Speaker 2 14:54

We had 400 plus animals on landscape. So in eight years' time they'd gone from 70 to over 400.

Speaker 5 15:03

Now they maintain that population size, and every two years they round up the herds and select some for relocation to indigenous reserves, universities, other national parks, and sometimes for the meat industry, making money to go back into the park system. But it wasn't just the size of the bison population that was growing. Alongside them was an increase in visitor numbers too.

Speaker 2 15:26

We've gone from 2005 to having 4,000 to 4,500 visitors to now having 22,000, 20 to 22,000. Some of it is bison for sure.

Speaker 5 15:39

Ryan showed me the facilities where he rounds up the bison for their vet checks and sorting, explaining how they have held on to their wildness in a way he's not seen in other species, discussing how he brings them in not by force but with bait. They are very partial to alfalfa cubes. Then, as we said goodbye, we spotted one lone male sitting in the prairies. Me and Jodie took a hike to try and get a better look from the safety of a nearby hill. Watching this big fluffy specimen rolling in the dirt forming a wallow hole, feeding in their classic mosaic style, picking bits and pieces from the ground and getting to feel the land shake as he moved felt somehow primal and transported me, just for a moment, back to a time when these great herds roamed freely here. But it's not just about the big beasts in Grasslands, as I discovered the next day when I met with park interpreter Nick once more against the ever-present soundtrack of that good old prairie wind.

Speaker 1 16:41

So you'll find things here you find nowhere else in Canada. And the best example of that is our Black Tail Prairie Dogs, which we're going to go see momentarily here. You can hear them barking away right now.

Speaker 5 16:50

Don't be fooled by the name. These are no dogs, and the barks are more like squeaks. They fall somewhere in between ground squirrels, aka gophers, and marmots who whistle. But it was the French settlers who gave them their name, as Nick explains.

Speaker 1 17:06

Apparently, when some of the earlier French explorers came out west, they thought it sounded like a dog, and they realized they were on the prairie, so they were like, oh, that dog's barking at me. So prairie dog, and the name kind of stuck. This is what we call top dog town trail. There are about a thousand prairie dogs on this colony right here, and this is probably an average size. There's about 20 colonies in Grasslands National Park. I say about because they're constantly shifting and expanding. Sometimes they'll break off and form new colonies. So sometimes it's, and then sometimes there's big die-offs in the winter, so those colonies won't survive or they'll shrink a little bit. But we guesstimate around 20,000 individual prairie dogs in Grasslands National Park.

Speaker 5 17:47

On our walk, we spotted over a hundred prairie dogs and watched in awe as they yipped to each other, alerting the colony to our presence, then did a funny Mexican wave to one another as a kind of hooray to signal when we'd moved on. There's loads of them now. But it wasn't always the case. In fact, they were much maligned by ranchers in the 1930s who tried to kill them off. Legally at the time, there was actually a bounty on their tails, as their burrows caused injuries in their cattle, and they ate the grass that the ranchers wanted for their cows too. Thankfully, things changed for them just in time.

Speaker 1 18:19

There was a bit of a turnaround in the 1950s, and uh they're now called Nature Saskatchewan, but at the time I think it was uh Natural uh Saskatchewan Natural Heritage Society. They were big advocates for black-tailed prairie dog protection and reintroduction. If you go to Three Sisters Trail in the park, you can walk to the end, you'll see a pillar up there right now that says this is the first prairie dog uh colony ever protected in Canada, still to this day, and it was sort of the impetus to get the ball rolling for the formation of Grasslands National Park.

Speaker 5 18:49

Wherever the prairie dogs are, the grasslands look different, even to a layman like me. Because just like the bison, they play a vital role in engineering the prairie ecosystem. One that is, believe it or not, the most endangered ecosystem on earth. In North America alone, up to 90% of native prairie grasslands have been converted or lost, and with them the animals who call it home. Watching these funny little ground-dwelling prairie dogs, it was amazing to think that something so small were the catalyst for the formation of such a big park that's still growing as more ranchers sell their land to help protect the prairie. As I packed up to leave, it dawned on me that despite spending a few days here travelling through tens of millions of years of history, the story of Grasslands National Park isn't just about the past. It's about resilience. It's a story of extinction and survival, of people and wildlife shaping one another. As bison graze these plains once more and black-tailed prairie dogs help sustain the life around them, the prairie is proving that restoration is possible. The grasslands in Saskatchewan reminds us that protecting a place isn't just about preserving history, it's about ensuring there's a future worth inheriting for those who come next. That was me reporting from Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, Canada. Thanks very much to Tourism Saskatchewan who took me there. While I was visiting, I learned not only a lot about geology and history, but more than that, the nature I found in the park taught me to slow down, use all my senses, appreciate the little things, and allowed me to travel through time on every single hike. It was one of the most perception-challenging places I've ever been to, and probably the best place I've been for giving you time and space to travel unhurried and with purpose. As you heard, it's home to some incredible animals of all sizes. One of my particular highlights there was seeing an incredibly rare western hognose snake, something that the ranger hadn't seen in nine seasons at the park.

Travel Hack: Avoid ticks and remove one safely

Speaker 5 21:06

But amongst all these wondrous species, there is one that you need to be a little wary of. And despite popular belief, it's not the prairie rattlesnakes. Nope, the critter I'm talking about is the humble tick. Which leads me nicely into this month's travel hack on how to avoid it and what to do if one of the little biters gets stuck into you for a feed. There's no getting away from the fact. Ticks are rubbish. Really rubbish. Even talking about them now makes me itch a little. And no doubt listening to it does as well. It is an important subject, but let's make this a quick one. Tics are parasitic arachnids and are disconcertingly described as small, blood sucking arthropods and found, well, almost everywhere. Well, everywhere there are vertebrates to feed off, which is almost everywhere. They particularly like warm, humid climates and Long grass. They're increasingly found in the UK too as the country gets warmer. And some carry diseases. The most famous of all is Lyme disease, which thankfully is not found in the ticks in Grasslands National Park where I was this episode, making them more of a minor irritant. But when you're in tick country, there's lots you can do to avoid getting one stuck on you for a feed. Firstly, be sure to wear long trousers and tuck them into your socks. In Saskatchewan, we jokingly refer to it as a prairie sheep, and it is sported on all of those in the no, including the park rangers. Wearing light-coloured clothing helps you be able to see the ticks if they do climb on you, so it is worth considering your colours, especially for your trousers, which are definitely preferable to shorts. Remember to use a prairie perfume, aka insect repellents containing deep. PMD, found in lemon eucalyptus oil, or picaridin, also often listed as icaridin or saltedin, which are also effective against ticks. Also keep checking yourself, your skin and clothing, particularly on your neck, head and scalp. When you're home, give your body a thorough lookover too. In your belly button, around your crotch, in your ear, between your toes, and around your hairline too. And if you find one, always have a tick remover with you. They're inexpensive and found in pharmacies, outdoor shops, and on a well-known online boutique retailer site. According to the Lyme Resource Centre, a Scottish charity, prompt correct tick removal is key to primary prevention of any disease. To remove one, if you don't have a tick remover, which instructions you can follow, you can use a pair of fine toothed tweezers. Gently grip the tick as close to the mouth parts as possible, so close to your skin as possible. Pull steadily away from your skin in a single swift action, not twisting, without crushing the tick. Once you've taken it out, dispose of it, wash your skin with water and soap afterwards, and apply an antiseptic cream to the skin around the bite. Do not listen to anyone who tells you the old wives' tale about burning them off with a match or suffocating them with petroleum jelly. As if you do this, you cause it to feel threatened and risky regurgitating its entire stomach contents directly into your bloodstream, increasing the risk of you contracting any diseases it carries. If the tic's mouth parts do break off in your skin and can't be removed, it can cause an irritation. But they should fall out naturally in time. And there is no need to visit a doctor unless you have a pink or red rash, a temperature of 38 degrees C or over, or other flu-like symptoms like a headache or joint pain, swollen lymph nodes, that sort of thing. So there we go. Nothing pleasant about ticks, a comedy cul-de-sac, really. So at the risk of sounding like family planning advice, use protection, be careful, and avoid tumbling in the long grass. That was my Wonder Woman travel hack, the advice I give to you every month to make your travels better and certainly less stressful.

Wander Woman meets... The Travel Mum, Jenna Carr

Speaker 5 25:04

Speaking of which, if any of you have ever tried travelling with children, whether they're your own offspring or part of your wider family or maybe your friend's clan, you will know the dread even just talking about this concept can cause. And it was the same for my first guest, Jenna Carr, who several years ago during lockdown had her first baby and was met with the cry of, no, you can't, so decided to start a network called The Travel Mum, encouraging families to explore more. Now she's released a book, Yes, You Can Travel With Kids. So I caught up with her in London to ask for her top tips and gain some extra travel inspiration.

Speaker 4 25:39

I found myself having the same conversations over and over again with parents online and in real life. And the theme was pretty much always that you can't travel once you have children. And I guess that goes right back to me having my son seven years ago now. People would say your travel days are over, you're gonna have to settle down now. And I just didn't think that was going to be the case. But they had kids, they knew, and I I believed them for a while, and it made me really sad actually. And as I've had kids and I've started travelling, the conversation has gone more from you can't do it to you shouldn't do it. Interesting. Um to then moving more on to how can we do it? And I guess the book came about from that, knowing that there are so many families out there that would love to travel with their kids, but I guess they've gone from you shouldn't to now how are we gonna do it? So it's giving you doing it. Well, I mean it's giving them the how, I think, and there's so many travel books out there that will tell you where to go, what to do, every apart from how you do it, and I think it's the how that stops a lot of families from travelling. So really I just wanted to write something that was real and a bit messy, and just to let people know that family travel is chaotic and it is messy, and it doesn't look like the Instagram pictures and videos, but it's amazing as well, and it's worth doing, and you can do it. So it was just putting something out there really to help families that are in that position.

Speaker 7 27:15

And tell me how were your travels? What sort of traveller were you pre-kids?

Speaker 4 27:20

Pre-kids, I was a very backpacking budget traveller. I mean I had to be, I didn't really have a choice, but um very back to basic, very rough and ready, and very DIY. It wasn't that we were going to package holidays like to nice resorts, we were getting trains, we were sleeping in hostels, and uh that kind of adventurous life was something I was really passionate about and something I wanted for my kids as well. And I just I remember seeing a family in a hostel when I was in Thailand, and I just thought how amazing that this family and they've got their kids and they're just here with their backpacks sleeping in a hostel. Like I thought that's what really what I want to do when I have kids. So I guess that was probably a very early inspiration for what we do now.

Speaker 7 28:05

So you're known as Travel Mum. Yes. How did that come about? Was that around the same time you were thinking ideas for the book?

Speaker 4 28:11

No, so the travel mum came a long time before um the book, and it all happened quite accidentally to be honest. I used to be a doctor, so it was during the pandemic actually. It was a very stressful time working in a hospital. I just had my first son, I'd gone back to work after maternity leave, so there's a lot going on, very stressful, and creating content and posting about the happier times when we were travelling was just a bit of a creative outlet for me, I guess. And from that, people were interested, and that's where I started to realise you know what, people don't travel like we do, they don't do these DIY trips. They people were quite angry, we'd get a lot of comments saying you're so selfish, you shouldn't be traveling with kids, they won't remember it. Like, this is all for you, not for them. And I kind of saw this niche where I could kind of go in and help people and educate them a little bit, and that's where the travel mum grew from, really.

Speaker 7 29:05

And the positive feedback must be good. Have you had some nice stories of people who follow you who've gone who've been inspired then?

Speaker 4 29:12

100%. I mean, we get messages a lot now where people say we went here recently and we'd have never gone there if we hadn't seen how you did it and how you made it work, and that kind of drives it all now, it makes it worthwhile.

Speaker 7 29:24

And do you think is this book gonna go to the followers you already have? Is this you hope sort of gonna reach some new people?

Speaker 4 29:30

Yeah, I hope this book can reach anybody who's struggling, travelling as a family, or questioning traveling as a family, or anybody that's pregnant and worried about what their life is gonna look like now, moving into this new era that anyone can travel and it's gonna be chaotic. And it I wanted to keep it realistic that you know it's not gonna be perfect, but it's it's amazing.

Speaker 7 29:53

Embrace the chaos.

Speaker 4 29:54

Embrace the chaos.

Speaker 7 29:55

And has your travel then changed, or shall I say, how has your travel changed since having the kids?

Speaker 4 30:02

It's just slower. I think you you work out over time that you can't do all the things that you once wanted to do. You have to put a lot of downtime in there, you have to accept that things are pro well, things are going to go wrong and just laugh about it and change direction as you have to, I guess. Um it's slower, it's more chaotic, but I I prefer it, and people think I'm crazy when I say that, but I genuinely prefer it and I wouldn't change it.

Speaker 7 30:29

Oh, that's lovely. And do you have any sort of top three destinations you'd recommend for people travelling with young kids?

Speaker 4 30:36

I guess it depends on the age of the kids and how adventurous they are. We recently went to Japan and absolutely loved it. The kids loved it, there's so much that it's such a vastly different culture, the food's amazing. So as an adult you can get all that kind of all that stuff you want from travel, but there was so much for the kids to do as well, and everything with even like the toilets. The toilets were very exciting for the kids. Um highly recommend Japan with kids if you're feeling adventurous. But then for less adventurous people who are travelling for the first time, just places closer to home, France is amazing. You can drive over there, there's holiday camps that have got all sorts of kids, lots of outdoor stuff to do. And the Netherlands as well. Absolutely love the Netherlands again, quite close to the UK, there's lots of great things there. Efteling theme park is my favourite place in the world, it's amazing.

Speaker 7 31:21

Love it.

Speaker 4 31:22

Um they're probably my top three, I guess.

Speaker 5 31:24

And then the one question that I end with I ask every guest on the podcast is what's the one piece of travel gear that you never go anywhere without, particularly, shall we say, with kids in tow?

Speaker 4 31:34

For the older kid, as I hate to say this, but an iPad. Totally understand. My hit um we always said I wasn't gonna be a screen parent, but we are screen parents, and definitely if you're on a long fly, leave them to it. It keeps them happy. Yeah, I hate that I've given that piece of advice.

Speaker 5 31:50

That was former doctor turned content creator and author of Yes, You Can Travel With Kids, Jenna Carr, who offered some great advice about travelling with kids. For more inspiration, you can check out thetravelmum.com where she posts regular holiday deals and articles to help you find an affordable family holiday.

10 Fast Sask Facts

Speaker 5 32:10

Now, if I were a doctor, I think I would prescribe everyone a week-long trip to the destination I visited at the start of the episode, the province of Saskatchewan. Because it was such a chill place to explore. But to whet your appetite further, and because I love alliteration, tongue twisters, and facts, this episode's top 10 offers you 10 fast sask facts. I'll try saying that with a mouthful of mustard seeds, which, as you're about to learn, probably come from this underrated province.

Speaker 5 32:38

At 10. Saskatchewan is the location where the biggest T-Rex in the world was found. He was on Earth back in 1991, and it took paleontologists almost two decades to remove all the bones by hand from Frenchman River and what is now on the boundary of Grasslands National Park. You can see him today, one of the oldest and most complete fossils ever, at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum's T-Rex Discovery Centre in East End. It is seriously cool.

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At nine, poo. That's T-Rex scat, which is known scientifically as coprolite, was found in and can only be observed in Saskatchewan. If 65 million-year-old feces floats your boat, then you have to go there. Because hey, in Saskatchewan, coprolite happens.

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At eight, Canada's largest and darkest dark sky preserve is, drumroll please, Grasslands National Park. So when you go, be sure to stay up around the campfire when it's the sunset and look to the land of living skies.

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At seven, we heard them pipping before it's the black-tailed prairie dog, which only exists in the wild in Canada in the west block of Grassland National Park. Yippee!

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Staying with the Grasslands at six, did you know that it's the only park in Canada that preserves mixed prairie grassland? And one of just a handful of places in the world that does this.

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And at five, I will add that Grasslands is also one of the quietest places on earth, according to Quiet Parks International, an organization dedicated to natural quiet. Keep it to yourself.

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Reluctantly moving away from grasslands with a heavy heart, but for good reason, I go to stat number four. Saskatchewan is home to a lake second only to the Dead Sea in salinity. That's right. Here there is a landlocked Canadian Dead Sea called Manitou Lake, where natural buoyancy makes it fun to bathe in, and I'm sure the mineral content high in sodium, magnesium, and potassium salts, can cure all manner of ailments, from tick crashes to heartache.

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For this province is also the proud location of the most northerly active sand dunes in the world. Athabasca sand dunes extend over 100 kilometres along the southern shore of Lake Athabasca and are so remote that you can only access them by boat or floatplane.

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Coming at you with stat three, did you know that the Mounties, aka the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and I mean every single one of these iconic Canadiana peoples went through their training right here in Saskatchewan and have done since 1885.

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At 2, go to your kitchen cupboard… That little jar of mustard seeds you bought for a recipe once, statistically speaking, some of them probably came from Saskatchewan. The province is the world's leading producer and exporter of many crops, including lentils, chickpeas, and all manner of herbs and spices.

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And finally, the big one. Saskatchewan is home to a meeting place for indigenous people that's been active for over 6,400 years. Wanascawin Heritage Park, just outside of Saskatoon, has the northernmost medicine wheel, a circular formation of rocks found anywhere in the world. And is home to Canada's longest-running archaeological dig, which uncovered four petroglyphs, along with the actual stone tools used to make the carvings, unheard of in the field of archaeology.

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Say it with me, Saskatchewan, eh? Who knew? Well, now you do. That was my top ten slot, the part of the episode where I load you up with inspiration and information to inform you for all your future travels.

Travel Gear: Stargazing kit for dark skies

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And speaking of loading you up, it's time to lighten your load with some much sought-after gear tips. And this month, inspired by the dark skies of Saskatchewan, I wanted to include the kit you'll need to go on a star-gazing adventure.

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Listen up. First up, even in summer you'll need warm clothing because nights can always get chilly, especially when stood around looking at the sky. As always, opt for layers, including a puffer jacket, as well as a warm hat, gloves, and some cozy boots. Then you'll need a head torch so you don't fall over or stub your toe on anything once the sun goes down. Opt for one that has a red light function and use that. That way you preserve your night vision while reading maps or adjusting your equipment. Unless you have a trained astronomer with you, you will need some kind of star map or more honestly, an app to make it easier to identify stars, planets and constellations. I use Star Walk 2. No sponsorship or freebies. It is free to use though, and I've always found it accurate and very, very easy. You might be tempted to buy a telescope, but you'd be better off with some good binoculars when just starting out because they're easier to use, show more of the sky, and if you decide stargazing is not for you, they can still be used to wildlife watch on other trips in the daytime. Finally, you're likely to be sat around for a while, so take some comfort items with you, including a folding chair, a blanket, a flask, and of course, insect repellent. And I never go anywhere without snacks. Happy stargazing! That was my monthly gear talk, the must-have packing lists I offer each episode to keep you thriving.

Hidden Hero: Laura Gardiner

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Now, one thing that isn't always thriving, sadly, is wildlife. And that's something I learned from all my travels all over the world. But there is hope. Behind the scenes, there is always someone working tirelessly to help be the voice for those who cannot speak. On my recent visit to Saskatchewan, I met with one such hidden hero, Laura Gardiner, wildlife ecologist and species at risk scientist at Grasslands National Park. I caught up with her in a bison corral used for the two-yearly count and health check of the animals to find out which are the top species at risk in the prairies and what they and we can do to help them.

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I would say out of those kind of top three that I spend the most of my time on, the Greater Sage Grouse is probably the most uh threatened. We have very few birds left in the park at this point, and they're they're almost extirpated uh from Saskatchewan.

Speaker 7 38:48

Why is that then? What's the reason behind that?

Speaker 9 38:50

So there's a there's a lot of reasons, I guess. It's it's more like a death by a thousand cuts, I would say. Um it's it's very difficult to point to one single reason. Yeah. Um, but part of it is just habitat loss at the greater um greater landscape range. Yeah. Um, increases in predators that say benefit from having humans on the landscape like coyotes and and great horned owls, um, corvids like your crows and your magpies and your ravens. Um they're particularly skilled at um depredating greater sage growth, I guess.

Speaker 6 39:27

And what can be done to what sort of things can you do to help the species that's on sort of rapid decline?

Speaker 9 39:33

Yeah, so one of the things is trying to maintain the habitat and the vegetation in the best state that it can be. Um, so that is one role that the bison do play is trying to create those mosaics of habitats, so different areas of native grasses that are different heights and creating an or enabling a diversity of forbs to be on the landscape that species like greater sages can can benefit from. Um, we also have a program that um tries to reduce uh benefits or human-caused uh benefits for predators like like corvids, for example. So great horned owls and and your crows and your magpies and your ravens, they really like human structures, for example. Um, so buildings and fences and power poles and anything that they can really perch on, and it just gives them that advantage in a landscape that they otherwise normally wouldn't have that advantage on. So we do have an infrastructure removal program. So obviously, as a national park, we do require some infrastructure on the landscape in terms of signage, for example, and like visitor centers and and obviously bison need fences to some extent. Um, but there's also some infrastructure that was left over on the landscape since before it was a national park that we no longer need, or maybe pastures that have been redesigned, for example. So trying to, if there's a particular infrastructure that's not needed for um for humans on the landscape, then trying to remove those structures to restore that habitat back.

Speaker 6 41:08

What's been the big biggest success, would you say, of grasslands in terms of the programs that you look after?

Speaker 9 41:14

I would say bison's probably the poster child. Um, yeah, I feel like the bison program has has been really successful, um, and Ryan's been a really big part of that. And it's a big draw, obviously, to to visitors to the park to come and see the bison in in their native habitat. Um, and yeah, we do have to manage their their numbers internally, so they are they're doing really well. Yeah. Um I would say prairie dogs and sage grouse are struggling a little bit more just because they have more threats impacting uh their populations. Um one of the other species at risk that we have in the park are burrowing owls, and they were doing quite well for a number of years as well. Um, and I I think that is partially due to the presence of prairie dogs in the park. It's easy to love the charismatic megafauna. That's that's why bison tend to attract a lot of people to the park. But um I would say my heart goes out to the little guys. Like, don't forget about the prairie dogs and the burrowing owls and the snakes, and they all are part of this natural ecosystem too, and they all play a role. Grasslands National Park is a dark sky preserve, um, so that definitely does attract people like the Royal Astronomical Society, for example, to come and view the dark skies and just be in an ecosystem that's not just polluted with artificial light. Um, and it is a beautiful place to be at night if you ever come camp in the park and you can look up at the stars, and some nights there are northern lights as well, and it's just it's beautiful, like you can see way more stars in the park here than you can in the city. Um, and that's that's definitely one of the most beautiful parts of the park, too. And and those dark skies are one of the things that recover some species at risk as well, like bats, for example. Um, they'll do much better in an area without that's not as polluted with artificial light. Grasslands is a beautiful place, and I encourage people to come and check it out. I mean, I was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, so I am from the city originally, but just came out here and completely fell in love with it. And just being an open, quiet space with so many species at risk and native mixed grass prairie all in one place is kind of what made me stay.

Speaker 5 43:24

That was this episode's Hidden Hero, the person doing amazing things behind the scenes to make our travels even better, while simultaneously helping locals on the ground of human or wildlife varieties. It was great meeting Laura, and I never had any idea that sometimes our actions can give predators an unnatural advantage. Who knew? That slot is definitely one of my favourites of the whole podcast. And just like that, it's nearly the end of the

Wander Woman of the Month: Geraldine Moodie

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episode. So nearly time for me to reveal my inspiring Wander Woman of the Month. I hope you've enjoyed what you've heard. Please do subscribe so you never miss an episode. And please, please, please do leave a like. Of you. It means so very much. You can follow me on Instagram at Phoebe R Smith or go to my website phoebe-smith.com where you can sign up for my occasional newsletter and, of course, send me a message.

Speaker 5 44:11

Now, this episode we stay on in Canada but journeyed back to 1895 when a photo studio in the province of Saskatchewan is opened for the first time by a woman.

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You can barely see the clapperboards of the Hudson Bay store in Churchill, Manitoba, for the furs hanging in three rows across the facade. Outside the store are more than a dozen people, trappers, Inuits, and the store manager with his daughter and dog. The photograph I'm describing, and which you can easily find online, was taken sometime between 1906 and 1909. But what singles it out is that this one was taken by a woman, one called Geraldine Moody, who, though not a name known to many, was one of the most prolific photographers of northern Canada and the prairies.

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The picture of the store sums up a point in history that turned Canada into, well, Canada. It was a time of hunting and trapping and the wealth and poverty that belonged to those pursuits. It was a time of rampant colonialism, where Inuit and First Nations people were subjected to awful practices and marked the beginning of the loss of identity for so many. For the colonialists, it was a time of expansion across the West and North, in search of fur, gold, and anything else that could make a man his fortune, no matter what got in his way. And at the very frontier, documenting this period in a way unlike anyone else at the time was Geraldine Moody, a woman who travelled across the country, photographing everything she saw, from government ships to mounted police training camps, polar bear hunting, and northern flora.

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Mostly, however, she photographed the Inuit and First Nations people she met, offering intimate, sometimes playful, emotive documents at a time of great upheaval, the point at which nothing would be the same again for the people who lived in this great expanse. In the 1890s, she extensively photographed the Cree who lived at North Battleford, Saskatchewan, where she opened her first photo studio and worked, it is said, with a surprising sensitivity for the time, especially when her subjects were women or children. She lived there, Maple Creek and Regina, all within the province.

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Geraldine Moody was born on 31 October 1854 in Toronto into an impressive family. Her mother, Agnes Dunbar Moody, was a botanical illustrator, and her father, Charles Fitzgibbon, was a lawyer with the Court of Probate in Toronto. While her maternal grandmother was Susanna Moody, author of Roughing It in the Bush, and her great aunt was Catherine Parr Trail, a naturalist and author. She married Douglas Moody in England in 1878 and then moved to her homestead near Brandon in Manitoba. In 1885, Douglas became an inspector with the Northwest Mounted Police, a police force established to keep order in the new Canadian Northwest Territories, part of which later became Saskatchewan in 1905, after the transfer of Rupert's Land and Northwestern Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada. He held the commission for 32 years, and Geraldine and their six children followed as he was posted across Canada.

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She started out photographing plants to help with her work as a botanical illustrator when she was raising her children. But after her husband became frustrated by the photographs his lieutenant was taking on their missions, he commissioned her to do the job. And from her 40s to well into her 80s, Geraldine became a prolific photographer. She was commissioned by the Prime Minister and worked professionally selling postcards, prints, and photographed collages of the Canadian Pacific Railway and Northwest Mounted Police, whose archives still hold many of her images.

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Another striking photograph she took was of an Inuit woman, Mirkiuk, and her child, taken at a studio in Fullerton Harbour, Nunavut, around 1905. The child inquisitively looks at the camera while the mother looks out. Today her photographs will sit on the mantelpieces of the ancestors of this young woman and her child, while also being studied by archivists and historians. Her photographs have been studied by Inuit craftspeople today looking to maintain their beadwork and clothing-making traditions. So while her imagery can be seen as reinforcing some of the prevailing stereotypes of the time, it seems clear that Geraldine Moody knew she was documenting lifestyles, dress, tattooing, and the familial relationships into a portfolio that, if she didn't, would be lost forever.

Speaker 5 48:51

As Canada still reckons with its history, Geraldine Moody's photographs are an essential part of that conversation. Whilst they were taken in the context of a colonial setting, her photographs are vividly evocative and human, a far cry from the upright emotionless images we're accustomed to from the era. In 2025, Geraldine was finally recognised by the Canadian government as a person of national historic significance for her unequalled photographic legacy, which brought a different focus and understanding to her work, which was distinctive to her male counterparts. Yet I've not found any photographers who even know her name. So I hope to change that.

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She died in 1945, but she is someone who continues to challenge the perceptions and start conversations through her work. And for that reason, she is our very deserving Wander Woman of the Month. That was our fascinating Wonder Woman of the Month, the traveller whose name is lost in the history books because of her gender. I hope that when you next take a portrait photograph yourself, you will remember her legacy and maybe go and look up some of her pictures.

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On the next episode of the Wander Woman Podcast, I send my Wander Woman correspondent Daniel Nielson to Argentina to rediscover the South American place he used to live in and seek out some of its hidden stories. I also chat to accidental kayaker cum author Katie Carr about finishing her late brother's journey and diary to become a best-selling book. And I'll be revealing another of my utterly inspiring Wander Woman of the Month. See you next time, Wander Woman Out.

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The Wander Woman Podcast is written and produced by me, Phoebe Smith. The editor and writer of additional material is Daniel Nielson. The logo was designed by John Summerton. A huge thanks to this episode's podcast partner, Tourism Saskatchewan. Check out more about the province at tourismsaskatchewan.com. And a final shout out to all the people I met on my journey who were willing to talk to me. It's because of you that this episode was able to happen at all.