Wendy Blacke

emotional wayfarer

Tag: nature

  • Cypress Hills 2026

    Cypress Hills 2026

    a travel post

    I started taking Darwin camping when he was 3 years old. Every year since, aside from one year during COVID and another where we tried a different camp site, our spot has been Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. I first fell in love with the area when I was a teenager and it has been an important place I’ve returned to time and time again.

    This year felt particularly important. Darwin had an amazing first year of high school and I have been on a personal healing journey. Sitting amongst the lodgepole pines with the whisper of the wind to keep you company and a fire to keep you warm brings a level of relaxation I haven’t felt anywhere else.

    A tent in the woods
    Home away from home.
    A bench nestled in the woods
    A beautiful bench at the start of a hiking trail.

    We arrived on a Sunday and checked into our campsite, the same campsite we stay in every year right in the park. There is no electricity, so nights tend to be quiet. It’s a refreshing change from life in the city, where the hum of traffic and electricity is a constant static in the air.

    To our surprise, there was no fire ban this year! Given the prevalence of wildfires this season, we thought our nightly bonfire tradition might take a break this year. Darwin just turned 15, and I thought it was about time I pass down the knowledge of how to build a fire. I don’t use fire starter, just paper, kindling, and a barbecue lighter. On the very first attempt, Darwin built a successful and beautiful fire.

    Darwin’s first fire

    We also made our annual trip to Eastend, Saskatchewan, where the largest T Rex skeleton in the world was discovered, and visited the T Rex Discovery Centre, home of Scotty the T-Rex. We barely avoided being eaten.

    It’s a really fun place to explore. Active paleontologists are working in this location so you get to see new fossils still in the process of being identified.

    We rented a boat to take out on Loch Leven, a beautiful tree-lined lake in the middle of the park. Our legs were tired after this and we were ready for lunch. It is so quiet and beautiful out on the water. Lots of seaweed this year!

    Loch Leven

    I absolutely have to give a shout out to Lakeview Grill, a restaurant overlooking this same little lake. In previous years we’ve had their Beyond Burger, which is amazing, but this year they didn’t have any in stock. They did, however, have the Beyond Dog, which is a brand of plant based hot dog that we hadn’t tried before. I will let this photo speak for itself, but it was the best hot dog I ever had. The salad was their house salad with berries and a raspberry vinaigrette. Yum!

    Squirrels are your neighbours when you are living in the woods. We had two in particular that earned names. We named them Dempster and Spitz after their preferred food item to steal. One morning I woke up and found Dempster hips deep in a torn open bag of hot dog buns. They are brave little creatures without much fear of humans, so keeping them out of the food was more challenging than you might think. Eventually we realized they were really running the show, so we started making regular payments of sunflower seeds to satisfy their demands.

    Dempster: hot dog bun thief

    We spent six nights in this little corner of paradise and arrived home feeling refreshed and ready for Darwin to start school this week. We have a little tradition of going to this lookout point to watch the sun set on our last night at camp. This year we were treated to a stunning display.

    Until next time, Cypress Hills. We’ll miss you!

    Bonus photos

  • Monster

    Monster

    A woman and a little girl sat by a babbling winter river. They sat close enough to touch and watched the swirls of clear, cool water swim by. The grey winter sunlight through the trees sent freckles of light dancing around them. The air was cold — cold enough to turn breath to smoke and crisp the edges of the river into thin sheets like brittle glass.

    But they were warm. Despite the cold, they sat there together, generating their own internal summer.

    The woman curled her arm around the girl and the girl accepted this offer of safety with a cautious smile. They listened as birds greeted the day in the distance, feeling the forest around them hum with life. The girl didn’t know the woman, she was sure of it. Though the woman looked familiar and smelled familiar, she was a stranger. The woman knew the little girl very well. She remembered her like a song.

    “I’m here to help you,” the woman finally spoke.

    The girl looked at the woman, opened her small mouth to speak, then closed it again, looking away. She shifted nervous feet against damp, packed earth.

    “I know it’s difficult,” the woman continued, “keeping secrets like you do.”

    The girl’s small hand moved to a bandage on her left wrist where it froze, protective. Tears welled in her bright, hazel eyes.

    The woman smiled down at her and squeezed her shoulders. “It’s okay,” her words floated softly in the crisp air. “This is a safe space. Nobody can hurt you here.” The frozen leaves overhead swayed in the breeze, sending flakes of the morning dew to the soft forest floor.

    “There’s a monster in my house,” the girl finally spoke, her voice small, barely a whisper in the air between them. “Do you believe in monsters?” She lifted her gaze to the calm presence of the woman’s face and saw a tear gathering there in familiar hazel eyes.

    The woman’s lips formed a tight line and she swallowed, nodding slowly. “Yes,” she said, the quivering tear sliding down one cheek as she blinked. “I do. I believe in your monster.” 

    “My monster…” the little girl looked at her loosely bandaged left wrist. A small amount of blood was seeping through, a bright red rose blossoming on clean gauze. She winced.

    “It will be alright,” the woman said. “Let me show you.”

    The woman took the girl’s small pale hand in her own and unwrapped the clumsily applied bandage. She led the little girl through the forest to a tree where the long fibres of old man’s beard lichen grew. She taught her about the healing properties of the forest and showed her how to use the lichen as a dressing. Using a clean section of gauze and threads of lichen, her expert hands helped the little girl wrap her wrist snug and secure. The pale worry that had appeared on the girl’s face at the sight of the blood lifted then, a new confidence taking its place.

    “Will it heal?” The little girl asked.

    “It will heal,” the woman answered. “People tend to get stronger at their broken places.”

    The two walked hand in hand back to the river.

    “Living with a monster is really hard,” the woman spoke. “I also know you’re a very strong and smart little girl. You’re going to keep getting better at healing yourself until one day your monster can’t hurt you anymore.”

    The girl smiled at this and collapsed exhausted into the arms of the woman. The woman let her sleep, watching the sun move through the trees. When the little girl awoke, she stood up and thanked the woman for all she’d said and shown to her on the bank of that frosty river.

    “I need to go home now.” the little girl spoke, her breath leaving tiny frozen clouds in the air as she made her way back through the trees.

    The woman watched the little girl depart with a smile playing at the corners of her trembling lips. She rolled up the left sleeve of her coat and there, against skin turned pink with cold, was a line — a scar faded with age and barely visible, where the anger of a monster had broken her, and where she’d learned to heal.