North Battleford, SK Part II

 …. (Continued) the one unexpected thing for me about the reunion was how good the venue was. The reunion took place at Jackfish provincial park which was just north of the city of North Battleford (pictured in photo above). It was a particularly good venue for people with kids - they had an excellent beach, clean facilities, a large selection of boat rentals, a bouncy castle, mini golf, beach volleyball and a large, well-maintained grassy area that was very close to the beach – it was a great place for frisbee, soccer, and kids just running around. I recall Charla saying that Saskatchewan had many great lakes and that she had many fond memories on family vacations at different lakes in Saskatchewan growing up. But as an Albertan who had never spent much time in Saskatchewan I also wondered if the lakes were so much different than they were in Alberta. Based on our experience there, the overall experience of Jackfish lake FAR EXCEEDED my expectations and I found myself wondering "why does Alberta not have a provincial park or lake as good as this." Or maybe they do somewhere, but if so we certainly don't know about it. My experiences in the past couple of years with Ben and Oli at a few different beaches in Alberta have been plagued with mosquitoes, algae, leaches and foul smelling water (the foul smell I assume coming from either the algae, not being well maintained or a combination of both). It made me think that this would be a great place to have a next reunion as there were lots of kid friendly activities, the accommodation would be cheap and those of us who golf couldn’t go wrong as there is a golf course only 3 mins away from the campsite and it only costs $42 for 18 holes! (which I’m sure beats the Kananaskis green fees by a long shot). It would take about 4.5 hrs to get to North Battleford from Edmonton, but considering it took us about 4 hrs to get to Kananaskis, not much of a difference there. So what does everyone think? Certainly a place to keep in mind for another family reunion if some people consider unprecedented travelling east of Edmonton to another province – I’m sure that there are some Schneids who haven’t yet been to Saskatchewan am I right? So could be a new experience for some of us.