Road map Assiniboia and Gravelbourg city surrounding area (Saskatchewan, Canada)

Big Muddy Creek winds through a broad valley and badlands,  which contrast dramatically with the surrounding prairie. Bizarre buttes  and hoodoos, carved by ancient glaciers and shaped by eons of erosion,  punctuate the landscape in this ranching region. Historic sites and  museums evoke the memory of mythic figures of the past: Natives,  settlers, outlaws, and the police. The outlaws who once terrorized  ranchers used Big Muddy's caves and coulees to hide stolen livestock and  to evade posses. In the best tradition of the old West, the law  triumphed, bringing the outlaws to justice in the early 1900s.

Assiniboia [B2]       

Assiniboia and District Museum re-creates this community of  1912. A stroll along a boardwalk transports visitors to a prairie street  of yesteryear. Also displayed are vintage vehicles, including a 1928  Model A and 1934 Studebaker, and old-time farm gear.

Coronach [E4] This is the starting point for a tour of sites  in the Big Muddy valley and badlands, such as the 60-m-high Castle  Butte. The local museum has photos and items pertaining to pioneer days.  ® From Coronach, tour buses take visitors to Poplar River Power Plant  and Strip Mine, 8 km south of town. The plant was Saskatchewan's first  environmentally advanced thermal power station. The strip mine, Canada's  largest lignite producer, boasts of using two of North America's  biggest draglines. Guides explain the workings of both facilities.

Gravelbourg [Al]       

Saskatchewan's French-speaking hub, this community was cited  by Harrowsmith Country Life as one of Canada's most beautiful towns. Our  Lady of Assumption Cathedral, built in 1918, is renowned for murals of  biblical scenes, the work of the founding pastor Charles Maillard. St.  Victor Petroglyphs Provincial Historic Park [C3] A stairway leads to the  summit of a sandstone outcrop, where mysterious carvings, or  petroglyphs, have been etched on the surface. The carv-ings-possibly the  work of prehistoric native peoples-portray human faces and hands, and  animal tracks. Because there are no depictions of horse hoofs, experts  believe the carvings predate the early 1700s when horses first appeared  on the plains. The carvings are best viewed in indirect light, in the  late afternoon or early evening. At the summit, visitors may gasp at the  40 km vista of the encircling prairie.

Willow Bunch [C4]       

The museum honors the memory of the 2-m-tall Edouard Beaupre,  who was born at Willow Bunch in 1881. Items include a life-size statue  of the giant, his outsized clothes, and his big bed. At the age of 17,  Beaupre joined the circus to support his family. Although he died of  tuberculosis in 1904, his ashes were buried at Willow Bunch only in  1990. His remains, long believed lost, were discovered at the University  of Montreal's medical school. They were returned only after a lengthy  legal battle.

Wood Mountain [Dl]       

This hamlet of a hundred or so hosts Canada's longest  continually running rodeo. The event, first staged by local ranchers and  North West Mounted Police officers in the late 1800s, takes place at  Rodeo Ranch Museum, 6 km south on Hwy 18. (SWood Mountain Post  Provincial Historic Park, 2 km south of Rodeo Ranch Museum, re-creates  two buildings of an NWMP post that existed here from 1871 to 1914.  Exhibits recall how the Sioux chieftain Sitting Bull and his band fled  to this part of southwestern Saskatchewan in 1876 after the Battle of  Little Bighorn, across the border in Montana.       

Access to the east block of Grasslands National Park is some 8 km south of Wood Mountain on Hwy 18.      

ASSINIBOIA       

Assiniboia and District Museum

BIG BEAVER       

Big Beaver Museum and Nature Centre

CORONACH       

Coronach District Museum Poplar River Power Plant and Strip Mine

GRAVELBOURG       

Our Lady of Assumption Cathedral       

OGEMA       

The Deep South Pioneer Museum  

ST. VICTOR       

St. Victor Petroglyphs Provincial Historic Park Le Beau Village Museum

WOOD MOUNTAIN       

Rodeo Ranch Museum Wood Mountain Post       

Provincial Historic Park Grasslands National Park (access to east block)