Nicolle Flats Trail

April 3, 2021

The weather was nice, so we made a spur of the moment decision to pack up and have a picnic / hike at Nicolle Flats.

Nicolle Flats is approximately 20 minutes outside of Moose Jaw, a part of Buffalo Pound Provincial Park (without going through the park gates). The park features marshes, grasslands, and rolling hills, as well as the “homestead” an old stone home built by Charles Nicolle in 1903.

We know from previous experiences our kids hiking tolerance is 1-2 kms ish, fueled by snacks. The hike to the homestead is 1.5 km return. The boys walked, we let S free range there. I had to pick her up to catch up a few times, but it was tolerable. We brought our lunch and decided to eat at the homestead and carry on with the trail. To our disappointment there were no picnic tables (in previous trips there had been – not sure if it’s a winter or covid thing). We made due and ate lunch at the only bench. S dropped her pb&j on the ground approximately 26 times.

Post lunch S went into the hiking backpack and we set off. Immediately after the homestead is a cute little wooden path that goes over a creek. We continued on with some hills. We made it to one of the look out points on the trail, and decided to turn around ( this was key to surviving). At one point P had to poop (insert the “oh no” tik tok song here) and couldn’t wait, after explaining he’d have to go in the bushes he was ready (also I forgot the wipes). Ty took him in the bush after a few minutes he came back – only to explain that his poop was teasing him! Thank goodness- we were both like “what do we do?!” ….one of those things we’d just have to figure out. Never. Forgetting. Wipes. Again. We took the Dyke trail back from the homestead in hopes that we were going the right way.

The boys enthusiasm was slowly decreasing, and we knew things were going downhill fast, we had no idea how far we were from the parking lot (it wasn’t that far). Ty had to carry P for the last bit as “his legs were broken”. M upset that he was the only one not being carried accepted a secret Easter egg bribe for when we got home. I let S go free range when I knew the parking lot was close. She immediately started taking her shirts off, be free little one.

Ty had the boys buckled in the truck when I arrived with S. As I was buckling in S I saw a tick on her, Ty confirmed. I immediately freaked out and took off her clothes, we then got the nicely buckled boys out to dust them off.

There were lots of cars in the parking lot, but we had only met a handful of people on the trail.

Our adventures are very snack driven. Here’s how our pit stops looked.

• lunch at homestead
• snack request 5 seconds after lunch (denied!)
• snack at lookout point
• snack in a tree at homestead
• final snack at truck (used to motivate them to make it back )

Things I forgot this trip:

• Diapers and baby wipes

Things we saw that were interesting:

• Ticks ( yuck!)
• Prairie cactus
• Creek
• Homestead house
• Trees ( perfect for climbing)
• Horse poop

Overall it was a great trip, after 3 hours the kids were tired….we were tired. I guesstimate we did 2.5 km return, in typical fashion I forgot to drop a pin to have an accurate reading.

I personally look forward to going out sans children one day for the 10km loop.

https://www.tourismsaskatchewan.com/listings/311/nicolle-flats-interpretive-area