Day 23 – This Little Piggy Went to Market (Binscarth MB – Minnedosa MB)

Apparently the swarms of mosquitoes that Saskatchewan is famous for, and which we missed, heard that we were headed for Manitoba and decided to meet us there. After finishing my blog last night, my arms and legs looked like I was on the losing team in a dart fight. They are not much better tonight.

Today started out under overcast skies and temperatures in the mid-50°s. It was another day being surrounded by oceans of yellow canola fields.

 The ride was fairly short (84 miles) so we decided to start later and take it easy.





 About 16 miles into the ride, we passed by what looked like a farm with some very large buildings, so I convinced Serge that we should ride up the gravel driveway, let the folks know about our trip and ask if we could get a tour of their facility. The operation was a breeding facility for piglets, with 2,600 sows delivering over 50,000 piglets per year. The manager of the facility emigrated from Scotland 9 years ago and was very friendly and proud of his operation.

He gave us a tour of each of the major sections explaining everything as we went through. Thankfully they gave us overalls and large rubber boots to wear for the “tour” - it took us about 10 minutes to get full control of our gag reflexes. The whole facility was geared for one thing only – to produce as many healthy piglets as possible, per sow, per year. It was quite the shock to see how this was achieved, although an education as well – basically a well-run efficient factory for creating piglets. Needless to say we were not allowed to take any pictures of the inside of the facility. Although the animals were treated with care, they are basically caged 24/7/365 and are in various stages of pregnancy for their entire “career” – some 5-7 years. Every week a semi with 1,000 to 1,200 piglets heads to the northern US states (North Dakota, Montana, etc.) from the plant.




The operation is staffed by 12 workers, all immigrants – a Scotsman, a Welshman, a couple of Germans and the rest Russians. They were all very nice and very interested in our excursion.

We then went on our way heading east to Minnedosa. The roads today were fairly good with a nice shoulder to ride on, although I did hit a large pothole which caused a puncture in my rear tire. Luckily the sealant stopped the leak so it did not inconvenience us too much. We arrived in camp shortly after three after yet another great day of riding.