A Butte, Big Beaver and Rocks

All winter we've been anticipating a trip to the Big Muddy Badlands, a couple hours south of Moose Jaw, close to the US border.  But they don't call it Big Muddy for nothing.  A little rain or snow can turn the land into boot-swallowing gumbo.   So we waited until mid-April, when the area had dried up enough for a visit.

Big Muddy is a wide east-west valley lined with low hills and sandstone formations.  These days the land is mostly used for grazing cattle.   But in the late 19th century guys like Coyote Pete and the Pigeon-Toed Kid could be found along the Big Muddy - Willow Bunch Trail, a sort of Canadian terminus of the Outlaw Trail which stretched down through Montana all the way to Mexico.  The Big Muddy part of the trail was used for centuries by indigenous people, and later by buffalo hunters and other travelers. One of the landmarks they all reckoned by is Castle Butte.  Left behind by receding glaciers more than 10,000 years ago, it's a mix of sandstone, clay, alkalai and coal 200 feet above the prairie and a quarter of a mile around.

This painting of Castle Butte was on the wall of the Bengough Cafe where we stopped for breakfast on the way.  The town is named for cartoonist John Wilson Bengough, who in the early 20th century published Grip, a Toronto satire magazine modeled on Punch.

There’s a well-signed turnoff to castle Butte about 22 km south of Bengough.  Then it’s another 5 km or so along a gravel road.  As we approached it was hard not to think of Richard Dreyfuss building the mashed potato butte in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

And some parts of it do look like someone's been playing in the potatoes.  Over the centuries rivulets have carved runnels and caves in the sandstone and exposed layers of the harder rock.  Even on a dry day there was water seeping from somewhere deep within Castle Butte.  As for climbing to the top, 200 feet doesn't sound very high, but it's a steep scramble up and an even trickier descent.

Castle Butte is on private land.  The rancher asks that visitors respect the land, and watch out for cattle on what is often open range.   Also, the pathway around the base of Castle Butte is strewn with cowpies.  And in warmer weather there will be ticks.

Being so close, we had to check out Big Beaver, half an hour south of Castle Butte and celebrated in Warren Zevon's Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song)

  He was born in Big Beaver by the borderline

  He started playing hockey by the time he was nine...

There is no hockey rink in Big Beaver (population 15) but there are several houses, a post office, and the indispensable Aust's General Store.

A final word about Saskatchewan highways - even paved roads are often patched with gravel containing some fairly large rocks.  Most drivers slow down and pull to the right when they meet an oncoming vehicle.  But some don't, with the inevitable damage to a car's windshield.