Myths and ghosts lure visitors to heart of CanadaIs old northwest
Published Wednesday August 20th, 2008
THE BATTLEFORDS, Sask. - The trees have more twists and turns than a plate of spaghetti, and at dusk the setting sun casts eerie shadows off their distorted limbs.
This is Saskatchewan's Crooked Forest, "a botanical mystery" in which a group of wild aspens bend and loop around each other.
"What causes the grove of trees to grow this way? No one really knows," reads a sign in the forest, also known as the Crooked Bush, near Hafford, Sask.
"Some say a flying saucer flew over the area and changed the chemistry of the earth beneath the roots."
University researchers suggest a genetic mutation may be the reason no tree grows straight for more than an arm's length.
Visitors strolling along a boardwalk find themselves ducking to avoid limbs that have stretched across the path. And be warned: according to folklore there are reports of people getting dizzy and light-headed in the forest.
"Only the brave go into the bush on the night of a full moon," reads the sign.
The forest is a short drive northeast of the Battlefords in a region where there is plenty to see besides strange trees.
The Battlefords, about an hour and a half northwest of Saskatoon, consist of the town of Battleford and the city of North Battleford, situated across from each other on the North Saskatchewan River. It's where the Prairies give way to lush green hills and the boreal forest, best appreciated through a geology tour of the area.
A 19-stop self-guided tour of geological formations takes in rivers, lakes, levees, sand dunes and an ancient glacial spillway.
In North Battleford, there's a walking tour that highlights the city's beginnings when the railway was built in the early 1900s.
But it's in the old town of Battleford where locals talk of myths and ghosts - and who would expect less in what is called the heart of Canada's old northwest.
"The start of what we know as the Prairie provinces, the root or the start of the Northwest Territories, happened right here in Battleford," says Battleford Mayor Chris Odishaw.
"From the battles, to the wars, to the negotiations, to the building of land with farmers getting their quarter section - it all started right here in Battleford. We're really rich in history."
Battleford was founded in 1875 as a fur trading post. The following year it was named the capital of the new North-West Territories.
To walk through Fort Battleford is like stepping back in time. Cannon fire echoes through the fort and costumed staff tell stories of the settlement of the West as they wander through the fort's original buildings - where the ghost of a surgeon is said to haunt the officers' quarters.
The fort, built by the North-West Mounted Police at the junction of the Battle and North Saskatchewan rivers, is also the site of the largest mass hanging in Canadian history.
On Nov. 27, 1885, eight aboriginal men who were involved with the North-West Rebellion were tried for murder and hanged within the walls of the stockade. Their gravesite is just metres away, marked by teepee poles in a spot overlooking the river valley.
Odishaw acknowledges the site is not without controversy.
"The issue of creating a tourism site from a mass gravesite is not spiritually correct within the First Nations people, but yet it's part of our history," he said.
"None of us can be proud of what happened, but I think we all grow from past experience."
There have been reports of strange noises, some say war cries, heard in the area - but that may just be par for the course in the Battlefords.
Even the town hall, which once had an opera house upstairs, has a ghost, according to staff.
They say every once in a while the smell of cookies - chocolate chip cookies, specifically - wafts through the council chambers. Sometimes, there's the smell of a cigar around desks in the office area.
But no one is baking or smoking.
"It's Charlie," a town staffer says with a giggle. "That's what we call him."
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If you go . . .
The website www.tourism.battlefords.com provides details on historic sites (haunted or not), nature walks, the casino in North Battleford and interesting day tours.
To get a brochure on the self-guided geology tour, phone 306-445-5098.
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