Grande Prairie, Alberta is about a 4 hour drive, or 1 hour flight, north of Edmonton. It has a population of about 50,000. What draws workers to the area is the oil patch and the forest industry. As a specific travel destination, I do not see much to draw a tourist except that it is along the route to Alaska.
Grande Prairie, or GP, is bleak when I arrive as the weather is snowy, chilly and unspringlike. The bright light at the airport is the vision of my daughter who I haven’t seen since Christmas. We bundle into her car and head to her townhouse to organize ourselves for the day.
We walk in the door and I meet Toby for the first time. He is supposed to be a Blue Heeler, but M thinks that there is some Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog mixed in. He is 7 months old and is very excited that M has brought home a visitor. He is very social, smart and doesn’t stop moving. He is a cutie!
Toby! (photo by MW)
We follow M’s normal weekend routine and chatter away, catching up with all the news. We walk Toby in an empty field close to home, buy groceries, go out for supper and M takes me with them to the dog park. For a non-dog person, this was quite the experience. Having 8 to 10 dogs racing around and coming up to me for a sniff and a hello is very daunting. I stick close to M! Toby loves it and makes a friend of another puppy.
Toby and Friend (photo by MW)
He runs and runs and sniffs and plays and runs some more and gets very dirty.
Toby, after the dog park (photo by MW)
I am back in Edmonton now and it is very quiet in the house without M and Toby to chat and play with. It was a great weekend!