#2: [07-Oct-05]

20-Apr-2001 -- Not only were we the first to find a confluence in Saskatchewan, but we also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am an awful photographer.

One Friday after I came home from school, Dad (Rick Bullerwell) and I (Dane Bullerwell) loaded up his GPS and headed out to 53° N 109° W. The GPS isn't a hand-held unit by any stretch of the imagination- it's an agricultural model (Trimble AgGPS 132) used for things like keeping a sprayer spraying in a straight line- so we attached the receiver to the roof and struck out.

It wasn't a long drive from where we live (52° 48' N, 109° 09' W). The maps showed the confluence in the general vicinity of what looked like the end of a lane into someone's yard.

We arrived at the yard, and I hopped out and knocked. No one was home, but the trip was a bit too far to justify leaving without visiting the confluence. We crossed our fingers, hoped no one would show up with a shotgun, and headed out into the field where we judged the confluence to be.

After a lot of driving forward and backing up (and almost backing into a large puddle, suitable for getting stuck in), we found the spot. I carefully lined up the GPS display for a shot of the numbers, but I held the camera a bit too close, and didn't aim it very well, either. Ooops. (Note: the out-of-focus picture wasn't included, to conserve space)

The confluence itself is almost exactly where the truck is parked. The only interesting thing reasonably close to the confluence was an `antique' truck frame that had obviously seen better days, sitting to the west of the spot.

Truth be told, the confluence was conveniently located. It wasn't very far from the yard, and the yard wasn't very far from the road. The Yellowhead, a major western Canadian highway, is just a few kilometers to the north of the spot.

We didn't spend much time at the spot, partially because there wasn't much to see, and partially because we didn't look forward to explaining to whoever lived there why we were parked in the middle of their field. We went out for supper in Maidstone and then headed home.