♪ bouncy mandolin ♪ add bass I'm a journalist and I am traveling across my home country Canada.

On this journey I'll be visiting some iconic Canadian experiences.

My next journey begins in western Canada in the Province of Saskatchewan.

♪ ♪ gentle, country beat (cow moos) ♪ I've come to southwest Saskatchewan to the historic Reesor Ranch because I want to find out what it's like to be a rancher in this beautiful landscape.

♪ One of the fun things that you can do here at the Reesor Ranch is get to know your horse before you get on it.

I'm with Julia Fairbrother; she's a wrangler here.

What are we going to do with this guy?

What's his name?

This is Windy.

Well his real name I guess would be Wind Warriors.

So I don't know where that came from but... Wind Warrior?

That sounds a little bit fast, like the wind.

Should I be scared?

No - he is a good boy.

You can brush your horse if you want.

Thank you.

OK.

Here we go.

How ya doin', Windy?

So what's the next step?

Well I can teach y'how to saddle and you can saddle'im up.

All right, let's do it!

Let's go - one two three.

There you go, Windy.

I'll center that up.

How's that?

That's good.

All right.

Then you can grab your saddle.

Quite heavy.

Yeah, saddles are pretty heavy.

Wow.

All right.

So you'll just swing it up and put it so there.

Like that?

Yep.

OK. Just bring everything down so it's hanging, Breast collar... And then the white thing is your front cinch.

Front cinch.

And the other one that it's tied to is the back cinch.

Back cinch?

Yep.

Everything's hanging nice so we can go back to the other side and do everything up.

Okay.

A'right, so the first thing I like to do is, I like to put my stirrup up over the horn.

Stirrup, this part?

Yep, that part.

Stirrup up over the horn.

That way it's just out of your way.

Okay.

And that long piece there, that's your Latigo so you can bring that down.

So it's all hanging.

My Latigo.

So your front cinch is that white one so you'll do that up first.

And how do I grab it?

Just reach underneath?

Yep, just reach underneath.

And the horse doesn't mind?

Horse doesn't mind.

He knows what you're doin'.

OK.

Put that in there?

Yep.

And you'll go through the bottom one more time.

That hole there is probably good.

So there you go.

Okay...

So do it tight like here?

Thank you, Windy.

And just like that you have a horse that's saddled!

All right.

And I just put my foot in there?

Left foot in there and swing yourself over.

So you're, where you're holding the knot is you can put this back and forth like so where you want to go.

That's called "neck reining".

So if I need him to stop I just pull this back.

Just pull on the reins, hold on and say "whoa".

Whoa.

[Brandy] Scott, this is so beautiful right here.

Tell me about the cattle operation you have.

[Scott] We are what's called a cow/calf operator.

OK.

Which means that we have a herd of mother cows that we raise calves with.

And then the calves are sold to market.

Somebody else buys them and we'll feed them and finish them before they go to the consumer.

It is so wonderful to be horseback riding in this environment.

The colors are beautiful and I think the landscape speaks to you.

It makes me feel so confident and Windy, he's so happy!

(laughing) He's a little greedy, always wants to eat.

But you know what?

It's wonderful here.

And I just feel so, so great.

I feel like a real rancher.

♪ funky elecric guitar ♪ add drums I've come to Regina, which is the capital of Saskatchewan.

I've come here to make mead.

I've never made it before and I'm here with Dave Holowaty.

He is the brewer at Rebellion Brewing and I've never made mead before.

I don't really know too much about it.

What is it?

Mead is one of the oldest fermented beverages on record.

It's a simple mixture of honey and water and yeast.

Okay and you've got all of these cherries here, which makes me think there's another ingredient.

Yeah.

So this is our Saskatchewan twist on the classic mead, we use Prairie cherries, grown out in the Lumsden Valley.

We put five hundred pounds of them in with our mead mixture and yeah, we let it ferment away and it's a big hit with our customers.

Beautiful, and I understand its connection to "Honey Moon" and mead.

So when people get married they were given a bottle of mead or maybe more than a bottle.

Boxes of mead.

Boxes of mead to drink for a month, a cycle, during their honeymoon because the mead was made with honey and they are hopefully going to come back with the baby.

Yeah, I've heard that it increases your fertility and acts as a natural aphrodisiac.

OK!

Well let's jump in and make some mead for people!

Awesome.

So... What's the first step?

First thing we're gonna do is we're gonna take these bags.

that we've been soaking in sanitizer and I'm gonna hold this open and Zul is going to dump two buckets of cherries per bag.

Wonderful.

Whoa.

Can I help here?

Yeah, getting right in.

Still freshly frozen.

I want to eat them now and the colour is delicious.

Keeping them frozen just preserves the freshness.

So they are picked, washed and frozen immediately.

A nice, dark colour.

Yeah.

Yeah!

There you go.

Well thank you so much for showing me this step.

[Dave] My pleasure.

I can't wait to learn the next one.

What do we do next?

The next step is gonna be mixing honey and water.

[Dave] You got my thumb!

There you go.

(grunt) Awesome.

So now that we have our cherries loaded into the fermenter we need to get our honey barrels prepped and ready to go.

OK.

So these are full of honey.

These are full of raw, unfiltered Saskatchewan-made honey.

Beautiful.

And why do you have these heaters on here?

These heaters just keep the honey in a liquid state so we can actually work with it or else it's hard as a rock and you can't get it out of the barrel.

♪ Sticky.

The joys of working with honey.

[Brandy] Wow.

Look at that honey.

[Dave] That's good stuff right there.

That's liquid gold.

A little higher... A little higher.

That's good.

(chain rattling) That should be good to start.

[Brandy] Alright, ready?

Get in there Brandy, yep.

Ta da!

Whoa, look at all that honey!

Wow.

A little more, Zul.

It's actually not too bad, it's flowing really well.

[Brandy] It's looking good.

Yeah.

So we're just about done this process here.

All we need to do is we need to get this into the kettle.

Add some water to get it to the gravity and then we'll add it to the cherries, pitch some yeast on and it's done.

I'm not going to be part of this whole process.

But can I taste the final product please?

[Dave] Yeah, let's go to the taproom.

I'd love to do that.

Okay!

So this is a cask-conditioned braggot.

Braggot is a mix of beer and mead.

So we have our cherry mead mixed with some of our beer.

And we also added chocolate and vanilla to it.

So we're calling it Cherry Chocolate Braggot.

Wow that sounds like a dessert.

That's exactly what it's supposed to be.

Wow.

I made it especially for you.

Wow, that's very nice.

Let me ask you: every time you bring out one of these, is it different?

Every time, yup.

So there isn't a specific recipe that you can replicate?

Well, the really, really good ones we do again but most of them are just experiments.

Experiments?

Okay so how do I get involved in this experiment?

All right.

So you've got the tap there.

Yes.

I've got the hammer.

OK. And this is called a "spile".

So this is naturally carbonated inside the cask.

So what we need to do is vent off some of the excess pressure through the bung.

OK .

You're just going to line this up over the center.

OK. And just keep tapping it in.

OK.

I can do that.

It might shoot beer out.

You might just fly right out of your hands.

Do not hit your fingers.

Just keep hittin' it.

Yep.

Harder.

You really got to give it a good whack.

There you go!

Aaaahhhhhh... Keep goin'!

Keep goin'!

Keep hittin' it.

I'm scared.

Just keep hittin' it.

I'm really scared.

There you go.

You want it to go right in.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good!

Keep hitting it.

Yeah.

Keep goin'.

Just don't stop.

Keep goin'!

Yup!

Aaah!

Oh, yeah... easy!

Keep goin'!

(loud banging) There y... Yup!

Good.

Good!

All right.

Very good.

We can use our fancy mead glasses.

Ooh, our fancy mead glasses!

Look at the color.

[Dave] So it might be a little bit murky because we did put some whole Dutch cocoa in here.

Whole Dutch cocoa.

Yeah.

Sounds amazing.

So I'll give that to you.

I want to do it.

You want to pour it?

Yeah, of course I do.

For sure.

Just open that wide up.

That's so satisfying.

Yeah and it's - close her off.

Excellent!

Well, cheers to your experiment!

Smells like chocolate.

Well it tastes like chocolate.

Mmmmmmm... That does taste like dessert.

It's beautiful.

Yeah!

Thank you.

That's a successful experiment we call that around here!

(chuckling) ♪ My next journey takes me northeast over 700 miles to the Province of Manitoba.

♪ I've come to the town of Churchill in northern Manitoba.

Only around nine hundred people live here year round.

And this place is known as the polar bear capital of the world and it's also famous because thousands of Beluga whales migrate here.

Northern Manitoba's Hudson Bay coastline attracts the world's largest population of Beluga whales.

Between mid-June to mid-September more than 54,000 Beluga whales come to the region.

The Beluga whales stay here throughout the summer feeding on fish and giving birth to their young.

The second half of July and first half of August are known to be the best time for Beluga whale-watching tours.

It was so exciting.

There were four different Beluga whales just weaving beside each other in and out of the water.

It was so great.

I don't know what they're doing but it looks like fun.

To get an even closer look at the Belugas I decided to go on a zodiac whale-watching tour.

We're in the Churchill River estuary looking for belugas and I'm with Remi Allen.

He's our guide here.

How many Belugas do you think could possibly be in the water?

So, peak season, which is what we're coming up to right now.

The count that we believe is most accurate is thirty-five hundred to four thousand whales.

[Brandy] Wow!

How come they're here?

[Remi] Number of reasons, there's a plentiful amount of food, these are sheltered and secured waters.

They're here because it's warm and shallow for calving.

[Brandy] And what kind of fish are they eating here?

[Remi] They're eating a little fish, it's about yea big, called a Capelin.

It's about the size of a smelt or a sardine.

And these Capelin come to the estuary and they spawn by the millions.

The Beluga whale's main source of food, when they're here, is that Capelin.

And it helps them get nice and fat for the wintertime so they have a lot of energy reserves when times are a little tougher.

[Brandy] And I've heard that Belugas are quite noisy.

Yeah.

They've developed a nickname - the "sea canary".

They have a vocal range that is second to none.

[Brandy] So this is like a little microphone.

Yeah, it's an underwater microphone.

Yeah, it's called a "hydrophone".

Underwater microphone that we're gonna stick under here so we can hear these Belugas.

(assorted squeals,clicks) (assorted squeals,clicks) [Brandy] That growl, wow!

So Remi, how do you know that the whales aren't going to get hurt by coming close to the boat?

[Remi] We've implemented a couple safety measures to keep the whales as safe as possible.

We have prop guards, which is a cage that's wrapped around the propeller.

All of our larger vessels were custom built and they're all jet drive so there's no moving or exposed parts that are below the surface of the water.

We also limit our vessels in terms of speed.

So every one of our vessels is one hundred percent Beluga whales safe.

[Brandy] Now we're in the summer months now is it possible to see polar bears?

[Remi] It's almost every day that we see polar bears out in the water.

They're all off the pack ice now, land-fast ice.

They're migrating their way to Churchill so when we're in a boat.

We can cover quite a bit of ground along the Churchill River Estuary, the Hudson Bay coastline.

So yeah, we do see polar bears quite frequently.

It's not long before I see a polar bear on the road right in front of my car.

The Canadian Wildlife Service says there are between nine hundred and one thousand polar bears in the western Hudson Bay population.

Polar bears come to Churchill from July until late November.

They migrate here waiting for ice to form on Hudson Bay, so they can hunt for seals.

Prime polar bear viewing is in October and November when the lower temperatures come.

You can still see polar bears in the summertime though because some stay after the ice melts.

Everyone wants to see a polar bear when they come to Churchill.

And it's not that easy in the summer because there's not as many as in the fall.

But I am so fortunate because behind me are two polar bears wandering around, doing their thing, we are at a safe distance and I get to enjoy their beauty.

Safety is a priority when you are in polar bear country.

Always be alert and aware of your surroundings.

It is recommended that you hire a guide who is trained on polar bear viewing.

Always travel in daylight in groups of six people or more to increase your safety.

Polar bears are the biggest carnivores among land animals.

Male polar bears can weigh up to around eighteen-hundred pounds and are twice the size of females.

They can measure up to more than nine feet long.

For my next experience in Churchill, I took a boat across the Churchill River to the Prince of Wales Fort National Historic Site.

Tell me about the history of this place?

The history of this place is really interesting: you've got a deep Aboriginal presence in the area you have First Nations you have the Inuit and then you have British traders arriving in the 1700's and they built Prince of Wales Fort here.

The fort is made to be a defended site and so it's got cannons, it's got big walls, but its main function was a trading station.

So they were trading with the Dené.

What they were doing was they're buying furs from here you know you look at the backcountry here - the forests are deep and dark, the lakes are horribly cold, and so the furs are just beautiful.

The British traders are buying those they're taking them back to Britain and they're selling them to make hats out of.

Wonderful.

So how long did it take for the fort to be built and when was it built?

[Steven] They started building it in 1729 but it took about 40 years to be built.

[Brandy] Wow!

[Steven] Yeah.

[Bransdy] And... what happened?

How come the fort is no longer in the same condition it was then?

Well it, the fort was intended to be defended.

It was a great idea.

The idea was that Britain and France, you know, they declare war on each other once a generation back then, I guess.

And when they found out there was a war the Hudson Bay men would they'd be collected from around the bay they would shelter their ships in the estuary here and then the big guns of the fort and Cape Mary Battery which sits across the river would keep the French out.

It was a great idea, but it didn't work.

There was a French sea captain named La Pérouse was sent up by the French government to destroy this fort.

He pulls into Button Bay- he's got three heavily-armed ships you get hundreds and hundreds of men.

Samuel Hearne, who is the governor here at the time, only had thirty-seven men and some of them were probably out goose hunting.

He surrendered the fort, the French seized everything that was in it, they blew up the powder magazine and they sailed away with the governor and the fur traders as prisoners.

Wow!

And today you know, there is some work happening on the fort.

What are they doing to maintain its condition?

What they're doing is they're taking out some of the old concrete and old repairs.

They're bringing it back.

So it looks like it would have in the 1730's.

Well let's have a look inside this fort.

Sure thing.

How come there are so many cannons, Steven?

These cannons are here because they're original.

Most historic forts in Canada had their cannons stripped for World War One.

The war industry needed a lot of iron so they took them away.

These ones were just too far away to get.

So we're lucky we still have them here.

[Brandy] No kidding.

There's like, almost twenty.

[Steven] There's closer to forty cannons on Prince of Wales Fort.

[Brandy] Where are they all?

They're all in these bastions.

The fort's in the shape of a star.

And so whichever way you approach it from, you're going to be covered by some of the cannons.

[Bransy] Fascinating.

Forty cannons.

Well I feel sorry for them that they didn't win because they were prepared but they didn't have enough men.

Absolutely.

Wow.

[Steven] This cannon is a gem because it dates from the reign of Queen Anne, it's got this rose cipher on them.

And so sometimes on the cannons we've got we've got markings that indicate when they're from.

So we've got some Queen Anne cannons we also have some George II cannons up here.

[Brandy] Oh, neat.

You can actually see inside there.

[Steven] Oh yes!

Wow.

What are we looking at here Stephen?

Well down here we have the remains of where the tradesmen were working.

Now most of the goods that the fur traders were selling to native people in exchange for their furs they were already made in England so your pots and pans and knives and that kind of thing.

But a fur trade fort still needed to have Coopers to make barrels and pails.

You needed to have the blacksmith to do things like fix guns.

There was a baker here and of course there was a stonemasons' shop in this row.

[Brandy] Interesting.

And then what do we have on this side?

This was originally a two story structure on the main floor there was where the men ate they called that the mess hall, sort of like in the Navy and then the men slept above them.

This was a hard place to live because the climate's really extreme here.

But one thing that was that these men had to their advantage was the food.

And so a lot of these men that came to work for the Hudson Bay Company they were Scots and they were used to a diet very low in meat, grain and kale and this sort of thing.

And when they came here it was meat, meat, and more meat and we're gonna have ptarmigan and then we're gonna have some caribou and then we're gonna have some Arctic char and so it was a huge change in diet for them.

No kidding.

Over here we can see right by the flagpole there.

That's where the fur trade itself... they're storing the furs and the trade goods in there, there's a small area inside there that was originally the governors quarters and so there wasn't a lot of space but what the governor had was privacy and nobody else here probably did.

Well, thanks Steven for sending my mind back in time.

One of the most exciting things here at the Prince of Wales Fort Historical Site is that they are finding remnants of the past.

And I'm with archaeologist Donalee Deck.

Tell me what you're finding here?

We're finding small broken pieces of artifacts that represent the Hudson's Bay Company, people that lived and worked at the fort.

[Brandy] How old would this bead be, possibly?

[Donalee] This fort was occupied between 1730 and 1782.

So those would fall within that time period.

We also get broken pipes.

We found a cufflink, structural remains.

One of the things that we're excavating here is how the wall was constructed, the base of the wall, stone... because it's helping with the restoration work that's happening here.

So as we're digging we're finding artifacts that have been thrown away.

Often the artifacts we find are broken.

And if we get enough of it we can glue them back together, reconstruct them.

But you know you're dealing with people's garbage that's kind of being thrown away, so.

But it's a treasure, it's garbage, but it's actual treasure.

They all tell a story - all the artifacts tell a really interesting story that we can piece together to learn more about 1700's.

Wonderful.

Well thank you so much for your time and your treasures.

No problem.

Thank you!

♪ I couldn't leave Churchill without meeting some sled dogs who enjoy taking tourists out dog-carting in the summertime.

♪ One of the fun things about being in the north here in Churchill is that you will need dog mushers like Dave Daley.

Tell us a little bit about what you do here.

And what's it like to have so many dogs?

Wapusk Adventures, we have thirty dogs ranging in the age from seven months to thirteen years old.

Ok. And what we consider living with dogs is that this is my dog family.

OK. Dog family is a pack.

OK, so they have to have a leader and so I'm the alpha male dog in this yard.

OK.

Living with these dogs is the most unique thing in the whole world because dogs are the best friends of humans.

We raise our dogs on love and respect.

[Brandy] And Dave how did you get into dog mushing?

[Dave] Growing up and being raised and born in Churchill.

I've been here for almost fifty-six years.

When I was a kid there was lots of dog teams around Churchill like there is now.

And, and I grew up Metis in a Metis family and dog sledding was very cultural within this community.

[Brandy] So when people are coming here from all around the world to Churchill, are they interested in learning about your Metis culture?

Well yeah there's a lot of interest in Indigenous tourism right now.

And and being indigenous to this area and to Manitoba and the philosophy is that we have with animals is a lot of people are interested in how we raise our sled dogs.

A lot of people have a perception that, you know sled dogs of old, you know where it's like - "Don't go near my dogs - they're working dogs" and stuff like that.

Well dogsledding is evolving.

You know we have really social dogs you know and, and they love to meet the tourists you know.

[Brandy] Okay, I want to meet some.

So let me meet some of these little guys.

So this is Socks.

As you can see Socks is laying down relaxin'.

[Brandy] Hey Socks!

Socks is very handsome boy.

He's nine years old.

OK?

And he came to us from Rankin Inlet in Nunavut.

Wow.

Hi Socks!

We had to teach him English because he speaks Inuktitut.

I love him.

Yeah.

What a sweetie.

He's very friendly.

Oh yeah.

They, they're so friendly.

This is Solo.

Oh Solo's eyes are wonderful.

Yeah.

We just lost her mother Venus.

Oh, I'm sorry.

And she's going to be the next Mama dog of our yard.

We race our dogs, long distance races so our races are between 300 and 450 kilometers so, we're long distance specialists.

So these dogs train all year long to go to these long distance races and they're pure athletes.

[Brandy] Are they tethered because they would just run away?

[Dave] No.

They're tethered for their own protection because this is like a community like a neighborhood.

There are some dogs in here that don't like other dogs.

[Brandy] Oh I see.

So if we have dogs running around loose we have, well if Solo was 'in season' the boys all get kind of antsy.

[Brandy] I see...

So, you know, we... [Brandy] A bit of a distraction.

Yeah.

So, so we don't let that - let them run loose and within these confines.

OK. Because it's very dangerous for them.

[Brandy] What a sweetie.

He looks so welcoming.

Yeah, well come over and hug him.

Can I hug him?

He loves people.

Hi buddy!

Oh look at your eyes, you seem like such a sweetie.

Right into your heart, right?

Like they know how to get you.

Everyone wants to take Dexter home - 'till they see him go to the line.

And he's just like...

He turns into a raving maniac!

We're gonna go on our cart ride.

We call this the "I-did-a-mile".

Our carts work the same way as our tour sleds, OK?

One person sits here... like this, and while the person is sitting here they're free to take video or take pictures.

But I always ask people to, don't ride like this "in awe" because the dog's paws throw up the odd pebble.

Close your mouth.

Close your mouth.

OK.

Smile like this.

So this is where you will ride.

OK?

And you'll, for one mile, you get to pretend that you're a dog musher.

You won't be running the team.

I'll be running the team 'cause I'll be on the back controlling the ride.

OK?

Where I have steering I have a drag mat to control their speed with my weight.

Good idea.

OK. And I have a brake that when we stop I can put the brake on.

If we have to stop but it doesn't really stop them.

They'll pull this thing with all of us on here and the tires skidding in the gravel.

That's how strong they are.

[Brandy] So I'm looking forward to this Dave!

I'm gonna get in my position.

[Dave] Yeah.

And we'll be ready to go.

[Dave] OK. OK I'm ready.

Hey hey hey hey!

[Dave] Well we have Laila on the left, Specks on the right in lead.

The next in line we have big Goldie.

And then in wheel on the left we have Chewie and then we have Skunky.

Good dogs now.

♪