Mosquito Jump - Leaving Saskatchwan

I learn to leap into the van at a running speed with vicious bugs coating my entire person, clicking my tongue urging Lexie in with me, doing my own version of a head-smashed-in mosquito jump. As I drive, clouds of mosquitoes get sucked out the window. Very early I make my way into the park. The road is rattling my fancy van to pieces, the gas level is alarming, and the sign says I am on a 30 km scenic ecotour. I could  not figure out where the bison were or where the tipi camping was. It seemed to me ranchers were working the land on either side of the road. After a time of this I decided, enough was enough, I am getting out. What if I have a flat? I understand that the night before has given me taste enough of what this place is about. I turn around. I pass three men with Metis-type faces and handle-bar moustaches examining what looked like dirt on the side of the road. They could have been from a heritage sepia-toned photograph. Gratefully I make my way past Val Marie as dawn advances. Lexie and I stop for breakfast and I see an antelocapre bound away with a tail like a huge pom-pom. I have heard the lower highway is open in spite of the flooding, from two reliable sources and decide to take the more scenic route. Initially it was little towns but as I progressed I saw wheat farms with huge moonscape-type vehicles transition into oil drilling bobbing donkey-thingies, miles of them, stretching endlessly, and many are in the wheat fields. Gluten-free anyone? The tall stacks blowing fire was an indication there was fracking here and I pass two of these. The ponds seem to sport the occasional reluctant duck and the air smells wrong. I start to feel an urgency to cross the border.