Epic Alaska Adventure - Spring 2024
<< Leg 4 - Fargo, ND to Winnipeg, MB | Trip Home | Leg 6 - Saskatoon, SK to Calgary, AB >> |
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We're Ryan and Katherine, and we flew to Alaska and back in Spring 2024 with our dog Magic 🐶.
<< Leg 4 - Fargo, ND to Winnipeg, MB | Trip Home | Leg 6 - Saskatoon, SK to Calgary, AB >> |
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I woke up early to look at the weather and decide on our next stop(s). I shared my Tim Hortons with Magic while I reviewed everything.
I wanted to visit Saskatoon since it looked interesting, but this would be my first time flying VFR in Canada, and there is of course quite a lot of nothing between the two cities. I figured out how to file my flight plan and headed to the airport to depart.
The flight was pretty easy, despite the total lack of in-flight weather information. (I hadn't yet setup the Iridium GO) My first experience on 126.7 was being terminated by Winnipeg Terminal only 20 miles out from the airport and sent over to enroute. It is a pretty quiet frequency most places! I quickly got the hang of what was expected and made my calls, to nobody in particular. Based on the reports I was hearing, they were nowhere near us, as we flew past Lake Manitoba.
The weather was fine, as expected, with only a few isolated showers to go around. We landed in Saskatoon with a very cool view on final over downtown and the river.
I saw that the weather further down the road (near Calagary) was pretty good, but I decided I was pretty fatigued with all the flying that weekend and I wanted to actually see Saskatoon and not just stop for lunch. Since Tuesday would be a normal workday for us, we got a hotel for 2 nights (based on my estimation that the weather would be OK on Thursday to get to Banff) and went into the city. I decided to stay at the historic Delta Bessborough, which is one of the old railway hotels and looks very cool from outside.
Our room even featured a turret, which is where I made my office.
We really enjoyed Saskatoon, it is a very pretty small-ish city along the river. We took Magic for some walks along the very pretty riverfront and generally explored a bit. Fortunately there were some good restaurants right by our hotel, which we visited several times, since most of our time in Saskatoon was remote work.