Saskatchewan Winter 2026 — Sandra Herber Photography

March 1, 2026

View of the snowy area east and north of Saskatoon as we came in for landing

The first full day of the trip (after arriving in Saskatoon late the day before) turned out to be more productive than I thought. I was planning to scout some locations on the way to my accommodation southeast of Saskatoon, but I got some good light, had some cool finds and might have gotten a few images. The day started out cold - around -21C - making for lovely frost patterns on the windows of the rental car. On the way out of town, I stopped in at the Sparrow Cafe picked up their gingerbread cookie sandwich. A good choice!

I checked out some grain elevators along the railroad line running west of the city and then turned south to visit the beautiful old wooden elevator at Feudal. Being that it's so near to Saskatoon, it is crazy that in the 13 years I’ve been visiting and photographing elevators I had never seen it, but I hadn't. As I was photographing it, a truck pulled up. I turned to say hello, to be greeted by an older man in the passenger seat and a kid in the driver's seat. I told them I was photographing the elevator and then jokingly asked the driver, "Are you old enough to drive?" "Yes," he said proudly, "I'm 15 and I just go my learner's permit". His grandfather told him to turn off the ignition (“it’s blowing diesel fumes in her face”) and we settled in for a chat. I was happy that it had warmed up to about -15C, because it was a lovely long chat. Gary (the passenger) told me that the elevator at Feudal had been built in 1928 and closed in 1978, the year he started farming. He remembered coming to the elevator to deliver grain with his dad when he was younger. He told me he and his wife had lived near the elevator when they were first married. “You don’t want to be near one of those tin-clad elevators in a wind storm. Those tin sheets, when they fly off, they’re as sharp as arrows”. He commented on the lack of snow west of Saskatoon (which was also a disappointment to me) asking his grandson how many times he'd got out on his snowmobile this winter. "Maybe only twice," was the response. They had a lovely relationship, with the young man patiently waiting while his grandfather chatted with me and politely answering any questions that came his way. Gary mentioned that a lot of young people leave the rural areas for the cities, but his grandson said he didn't want to. He likes it on the farm, he said.

In the late afternoon, I turned toward where I'd be staying the next three nights: the Alive Sky Lodge. It is a working farm where they have added some accommodations, including the one I was staying in for the first three nights of the trip - a converted grain bin! It has been done up beautifully, is very comfortable, has an electric fire place in the bathroom (which has a claw foot tub) and an outdoor hot tub, which I decided to try just after sunset. It was magical to be in the hot water with my face chilled in the -2C air.

Here is a quick video tour of my temporary grain bin home:

March 2, 2026
The second day started off with breakfast being delivered to my grain bin home (in a wonderfully whimsical cooler) by Darryl, the owner/farmer. I had met his lovely wife, April, the evening before. I asked Darryl to confirm the locations of some places I hoped to shoot. He told me that, unfortunately, the elevator at Minden and the church at Glamis are gone. He also gave me some good info on road conditions. My first stop was an old homestead, which April had given me the co-ordinates for, where I shot for quite a while in the bitter cold. Next, I tried to get to the old Glamis elevator. The road in from the north was a bit dicey, so I turned back, but made it to the elevator by coming in from the south. It is a simple, weather-beaten and tilting old elevator, still standing after over 100 bitter Prairie winters and stormy Prairie springs - my absolute favourite scene to photograph.

180 degrees around the Glamis elevator: the road in, the elevator, the road out. Sorry I was moving the phone so fast: it was COLD out there!

After that, I visited a few churches, including the church in Wartime - a tiny town that looked to have no more than 4 or 5 inhabited homes. As I was finishing up, I saw an older man walking over to me. "Did you get some good pictures," he asked. And then, "Where are you from?". When I said, "Toronto" he said, "I think I've heard of it, it's east of here, right?" with a smile. We chatted for a while and he told me about the old wooden water tower I was going to photograph next. He said it had been in use since 1913, when it was built by the CNR (Canadian National Railway) and was in use right up until last year. For over one hundred years, water from a well 2 1/2 miles away had flowed through underground pipes to that tower. When I asked about elevators, he said there had once been two in town - Wartime A and Wartime B. As we were wrapping up our conversation, he held out his hand and said, "Do you want one?" I looked down to see a key chain, with a bullet on it. "Do you make those just to give away," I asked. "I do," he said, "It's mostly the men who take them" but I couldn't refuse such a gift, so now I own a key chain with bullet on it.

I stopped in the town of Plato (church and elevator), photographed and made a late lunch of a turkey sandwich to eat in the car and finished up back at the Sovereign elevator. It was lovely to come 'home' to the grain bin after a cold and windy day. That night it was -11C - too cold for a soak in the outdoor hot tub.

The water tower that supplied the water to Wartime, Saskatchewan from 1913 to 2025.

March 3

My last full day staying at the grain bin was low-key. I started off at the elevator at Sovereign, which is a morning shot this time of year and then photographed around there for a while before going into Rosetown to pick up sandwich makings for lunch. I rested in the afternoon and then headed back out to Glamis elevator in the late afternoon (that's an afternoon shot this time of year) to shoot it a second time. Whenever I spot an elevator I'm driving towards, I quickly look down at the GPS to see how far away I am. I could see the Glamis elevator from 12 kilometres away! That's just about my record. You often hear stories of a time when there were so many elevators on the Prairies that as soon as one was behind you, you could see the one in the next town maybe 8-10 miles (13 to 16 kilometres) away. That’s not true anymore, as so many of the old country elevators are gone, but the ones that are left can still be seen from many kilometres away - the reason they are sometimes called Prairie Cathedrals or Prairie Skyscrapers. Even though the temps were better than the two previous days, the winds were howling, which made shooting not much fun, but I still loved being out there. I walked in a bit closer to the elevator to photograph, through the canola stubble, which sounded like bamboo wind chimes as I walked - and that was the only sound other than the wind. It was just me and that beautiful old elevator out there.

March 4
The next day I moved on from my lovely grain bin home to stay in Moose Jaw for two nights. A drive that could have taken 2 1/2 hours if I had driven straight through took 8 1/2 hours! I stopped at elevators, schools and churches that I had marked in my scouting map and for anything interesting (barns, homesteads, minimalist scenes) along the way. The day was bitterly cold. It started off at -15C - but with a windchill of -24C! That wind never let up all day. It really did feel closer to -30 than anything else. I didn't have any interesting conversations with locals that day, but was greeted by a very enthusiastic dog at the Glenside elevators, and got dog fur embedded in my mitts from petting him. About an hour outside Moose Jaw, I hit a small area where everything was frosted - trees, bushes, shelterbelts. It was magical and I hope I got a few good images. At that point I thought those might be the best conditions I would get on the trip, but I got even luckier later on.

March 5
There was freezing rain overnight making for a slow start the next day, as it took a while to scrape the couple of millimetres of ice off all the windows of the car. I had beautiful soft light, so I headed east to find some snow - and I did. It was a great day with lots of cool finds and visits to old friends (churches and elevators) that looked beautiful in the snow and overcast conditions. On my return to Moose Jaw, about a half hour out of town, it started snowing. Apparently it had snowed lightly but steadily all day in town. I took a quick turn off the Trans Canada to shoot east of the city in the soft, falling snow and silence. I had dinner at The Mad Greek (which I had wanted to try since it was featured on the Saskatchewan food show Flat Out Food) and it didn't disappoint. After a bit of rest I headed out after dark to photograph a few gas stations around Moose Jaw, continuing the series I began last year.

March 6
The next day was a travelling day, as I headed from Moose Jaw to Weyburn, my last stop in the south. A drive that would have taken only 1 1/2 hours direct, took over 7 hours, as I visited some old favourites and checked out some locations pinned on my scouting map. The day started off around -13C, but by noon the temps were near 0C. To think that it had been -21C just a few days before! By the time I got to town, I was dragging, but I had to check out the Welsh Kitchen (for their Boston Creme donut) before heading to my hotel. After all the driving over the previous few days, I just took it easy that night - downloaded images, updated my scouting map and read a bit.

March 7
The next day was a great day. I started off the day heading south to the elevator at Maxim, only to find that it is now located on private property, marked with “No Trespassing” signs. It is a lovely old elevator, and it was a shame not to be able to get close to it. I checked out the elevator in Midale and the church in Halbrite and then drove some back roads looking for random finds. Then I headed north. The day before (which had had mostly bright blue skies) I had scouted an old church (the location of which was shared with me by Jim, a kind member of the Saskatoon Camera Club after I did a presentation for them a couple of years ago) and had found a beautiful barn nearby. I decided to head back there before wrapping up for the day. This time, I'd be coming in from the west, and Google Maps said to turn off Highway 35 and drive straight for 12 kms. I must have been a bit distracted, because I didn't look closely at the road before I got onto it. After a moment or two I thought, "Oh, boy, I DO NOT like the look of this road". It was soft and snow-covered, with deep ruts, but if Stan Noble (my friend and favourite Saskatchewan farmer) has taught me anything, it's NOT TO STOP on a bad road, and just gun it through. I kept thinking, "12 kilometres! It can't be this bad for the whole 12 kilometres. When I visited yesterday, the road in front of the barn was fine, so this dicey part will end soon". After about 9 kilometres (9!) of white-knuckle driving, I finally got to the good part of the road and breathed a sigh of relief. No getting stuck in the middle of nowhere for me today, I thought!

I pulled up to that beautiful barn and got out to photograph it. I didn't see any ‘No Trespassing’ signs, so I walked a little way up the access drive. At that point, a truck came roaring along the road and did a quick turn into the drive. "Uh oh," I thought, "I bet he's not going to be happy about me walking in off the road". Well, I couldn't have been father from the truth! When I asked, holding up my camera, "Is it OK to take pictures," he replied, "Sure, take as many as you want". Jeff, the owner, then said, "Do you want to go inside? I can take you". He gave me a tour of the barn, which he said he was planning on moving closer to his home. "Can you just pick it up and move it?" I asked. "Sure," he replied with a smile, "You can do anything if you're stupid enough". He also showed me around the building behind the barn, which had been moved there in the '50s and which had originally been used to store coal for steam trains by the railroad tracks. It had a pronounced lean to it that he said hadn’t been there when he last visited. “Once the windows have been broken or the door left open, usually by kids, the wind can really twist these buildings,” he said. He then offered to show me around the church, which was also on his property. He told me about his family growing up in the little town of Talmage (where the church was now one of the only buildings still standing), how the last elevator had come down when he was maybe 5 or 6 years old, how the church had been the centre of the town, where everyone gathered for services and special occasions. When we walked into the basement, he said, "I remember us kids used to love playing down here". On the main floor he remembered services and events and taking a break in there on hot days on the farm after it was closed down. "It isn't going to last much longer," he said as he noticed multiple areas that had deteriorated since his last visit. Every time I see an old elevator or an old church, or homestead, I always think of all the lives that building once contained and all the stories it could tell if it could speak - and here I was, standing in front of someone remembering all those stories. We stepped back outside and, before he went off to get back to work, he gave me directions to a couple of old barns and homesteads (including his own family's old homestead). When he pointed down the road, and described where to turn south, I said, "I came in on that road from the highway. It was a bit dicey". "That road?" he said, "From the highway? Really?" Then he laughed. "That's probably the worst road around here. I'm surprised you made it!" He gave me permission to enter both places he suggested and assured me, when I asked, that there weren't any wells or cisterns I could fall into. They turned out to be great sites. What luck and what a wonderful encounter that was! It was definitely a highlight of the trip.
After a bit of a rest, I went out after dark to photograph gas stations and cardlocks around Weyburn. I had just left my third stop when the 'check engine' light came on in the rental car (a Chevy Equinox). UGH! Of course, there's no manual in car, but I looked it up online and it seems a steady yellow light means 'book diagnostic soon' rather than 'EMERGENCY', which was a bit of a relief. I managed to get hold of Budget in Saskatoon that night and they told me to drive up to Regina (an hour and a half away) the next day to drop off the car and pick up a new one.

March 8
First thing the next morning, I made a detour to return my rental car and pick up a new one in Regina. It just seemed safer to exchange it than to worry about something happening on a rural road in the middle of nowhere. Once I picked up the new car, I headed north east of the city, towards my next destination - Yorkton. In Fort Qu'Appelle I checked out the Valley Bake and Coffee Shop. It was hopping with customers! I picked up a loaf of bread for sandwiches and a very flaky (yup, all over the new rental car) cherry turnover. Not far north of town, in temps of about 2C, it started to rain. Then it started to pour. I had come north for snow and now I had rain! It poured for about an hour and a half, which made the backroads a bit of squishy, but not impassable. I had marked two remote Ukrainian churches to visit and photograph and I made it to both of them. I photographed a few abandoned homesteads, as well, on my way into Yorkton. As I was photographing a lone electrical pole behind a pretty fence, a car pulled up next to me. "We just wanted to check and see if you needed any help," the man of the couple in the car said. "We were worried you had broken down." "Thanks so much," I said, "but I'm fine. I'm just photographing this beautiful minimalist scene". They looked at me a bit skeptically and then he said, "Well, stay here long enough and you'll see all the deer and moose come out". After that, I kept my eyes peeled for moose (you sure don't want to hit one of those with your car - very bad for the moose, but also very bad for the driver!) all the way to Yorkton. At that point it had been a long day, but I grabbed some dinner before checking into the hotel. I should have realized how tired I was when I walked right past the hotel elevator and had to ask a puzzled-looking staff member where it was. If that wasn't confirmation of how exhausted I was, then sleeping nearly 12 hours that night certainly was!

March 9
The trip had been great to that point, but that meant I had been going full out almost constantly since I got arrived. Luckily, the next day was a cold but clear day and I decided to run some errands in Yorkton and just relax. In the morning it was -17C with a windchill of -28 - after being 2C and having rained just the day before! Saskatchewan in March is nothing if not unpredictable. A full day was enough to relax, rest up and then get bored with relaxing, and eager to get out photographing again.

March 10
I woke up the next day to a lovely surprise: a new dusting of snow over everything in Yorkton. No snow had been predicted, but there it was. I got ready early, to be able to leave at sunrise, as one of my apps was saying there was a chance of fog and good conditions all morning. Driving out of Yorkton was a bit of a challenge, as it was still snowing and once I got on the Yellowhead Highway, there was a constant stream of trucks coming towards me throwing up not-so-brief white-outs of snow. I shot a few places I'd pinned on my scouting map north west of the city when the heavy fog arrived making driving on the highway positively unpleasant. When I had planned out the route for the day, I wanted to turn north off the highway at Sheho and drive along back roads up to Invermay. With the dense fog, the backroads - with few other cars - seemed much more appealing than the highway. As I drove through Sheho, I saw a man get out of his car near the post office, and stopped to ask him about road conditions to Invermay. "Oh, that road's no problem," he said, "And with this fog, driving on that road would be better than taking the long way round on the highway with all the idiots". Just what I was thinking! I thanked him and headed out of town. The GPS said it was 24 kilometres to the turnoff to Invermay and as I got out of town and the road got worse I thought, "Hmm... I wonder if I should turn back", but I kept going. For the first kilometre or two I was hoping that the 24 kilometres would go quickly but very soon I started to wish it was longer than 24 kilometres to Invermay. The conditions were gorgeous: fog and snow and wide-open space. A minimalist's dream. I didn't check the clock, but it definitely took me longer than an hour to do those 24 kilometres, as I was stopping constantly to take pictures and to enjoy the silence. At one point, off in the distance, I thought I heard a snowmobile, but other than that for almost that whole drive I was the only person around and there was not another manmade sound. The silence out here in the winter is profound and powerful and I love it. Near Invermay, I passed a farmer moving a tractor and one car coming the other way. That was it for traffic on that road. After Invermay, I dipped into other backroads, but nothing quite matched that stretch from Sheho to Invermay. It had been magical.

Later in the day, I stopped in Wadena to visit the Wadena Bakery - a place that had been on my list for ages. I noticed on the car dashboard that on that morning outing I had travelled 129 kilometres - and it had taken 4 hours and 50 minutes! Lots to stop and photograph. A really joyful day. I spent that night in Humboldt.

Loved this mural with the elevator row, the train and the old cars!

March 11
The next day dawned clear and bright, but not long after sunrise fog rolled in and I grabbed my camera bag and went out shooting. I drove to the nearby Burton Lake elevator, but it is now located on private land, up a road that hadn't been plowed. It was a barely visible - just a ghost - in the fog. From there, I just explored different backroads, looking for minimalist scenes - of which there were plenty in the snowy, foggy landscape. The wind was bitter, though,making the -10C temperatures feel much, much colder. The fog eventually lifted and that wind convinced me to head back into town. I wanted to check out The Sweet Spot, a new bakery in Humboldt. The raspberry cupcake was delicious - it was at the top of my list of delicious baked goods from this trip. After dark, I went out to photograph a few cardlocks and gas stations around the city and then called it a day.

March 12
The next day was my birthday. I planned to head slowly back west (to complete the circle I had done from Rosetown to Moose Jaw to Weyburn to Yorkton to Humboldt, back to Rosetown). Conditions were great - clouds and more fog. After days of fog, there was thick hoarfrost on the trees and bushes making for magical scenes. What luck to have such incredible conditions on my birthday! In a moment of confidence, I decided to do a long detour north to visit Fish Creek Church. I have photographed the church a few times, but never got an image I really liked. Since the conditions were so lovely I thought it might be worth the detour. I was wrong about that! First of all, the roads were rough and snow-covered. In the wide open landscape, I could barely see what was road and what was field/ditch and was constantly worried about veering off the road. Secondly, the fog lifted and there was no hoarfrost in the north. And, finally, when I arrived at the church (after that nail-biting driving) I was greeted by the most vicious dog! He barked aggressively at me and even tried to bite the tires of the car as I turned around. I sure don’t remember him from my last visit. So, in the end, the detour was not successful, but at least I didn’t end up in a ditch on my birthday!

I went into Saskatoon for lunch and to visit the Nutana Bakery, which has been in business since 1951! The woman behind the counter was just delightful and when I told her it was my birthday, she said, “Well, you get a free donut!”. Who was I to say no to that, so I got two! With lovely ‘happy birthday’ wishes ringing in my ears, I headed off towards the grain bin, where I would be spending my last night.

The welcoming committee - April and Darryl’s dog - came out to greet me and it felt like a home-coming to be back there. April was kind enough to invite me over to the house for tea (and a brownie!) for my birthday where she told me some amazing stories about her grandparents who had homesteaded north of Meadow Lake and lived in a sod house when they were first married! I finished off my birthday with a soak in the hot tub - it was around -8C outside, but about 40C under the water!

March 13

The next day my flight home was delayed, so I spent a nice, relaxing morning at the grain bin before heading into Saskatoon for lunch. On the way, I stopped at the amazing Mel Rose Bakery outside Delisle. It was another one of those bakeries that had been on my list for a while. It was packed! As I was standing in line, a fellow behind me said to the woman next to him, “Imagine going into the bank and saying, ‘I need money for a bakery in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure it’s going to make a fortune’ - and being right!”.

Further delays meant I didn’t get back to Toronto until after midnight, but all I was thinking was what an amazing trip it had been. The grain bin had been a joy to stay in, I had had many lovely and serendipitous meetings with local people along the way, and great conditions for photography (fog, hoarfrost and snow). In fact, when I got home and downloaded my images, I had shot more on this trip than any other Prairies trip except one in 2016 (when I was shooting regular and infrared images so double shooting most scenes). I have done over twenty trips to the Prairies (including ten winter trips) and I think I can easily say this was one of my best Prairies trips ever.

I can’t wait to go through the images from the big camera!

If you’d like to comment, please feel free to leave one below. You don’t need to make an account, just enter a name and click ‘comment as guest’.

Travel Stories

Latest Posts