Let's be honest- we drove the long distance to MooseJaw, Saskatchewan because we were told that the filming location for the most outdoor scenes of one of our favourite TV shows was in a neighbouring town, ...... And what is that TV show?? The very Canadian classic- Corner Gas. Admittedly Corner Gas is something of an acquired taste, and the premise of a glacier slow life experience in a very small Prairie town isn't normally the source of belly laughs but there is something very humorous and Canadian about it. Similar to riding a scooter, it was one of those shows that always got good ratings and was lots of fun, but no one would actually admit to watching it. It's been in reruns for a few years now and the town isn't quite sure what to do with the prefab sets it inherited (apparently it's not particularly lucrative to cater to oddballs like us who spend money carefully and see the deteriorating TV set of Corner Gas as a national cultural icon).

We parked Billy Thunder at the gas pumps at Corner Gas (minus the pumps which were probably stolen and are sitting on EBay as we speak), checked out the Ruby Restaurant which was missing it's sign (see above comment), and we even found the home for the Dog River police station (as she was peering through the front window, DH discovered, to her Peeping Tom horror, that the station was actually a private home owned by a guy with colourful boxer shorts). Add in the Dog River Hotel and the offices of the Dog River Howler Newspaper, and you get a pretty good reminder of this classic TV show. With apologies to our non-Canadian readers, we had to make the pilgrimage.

We made sure to spend time in Moose Jaw on the recommendation of my Star Trekkie Uncle. He thought we would enjoy a wander through the tunnels under the city. You are lured in with the suggestion that Al Capone used these tunnels to feed his booze empire during Prohibition and even visited periodically. I've always thought that there are quite a few places that might incorporate a few tall tales in order to create more interest but the trick is to not tell porkies that can be easily fact-checked. Apparently Al didn't even know where Moose Jaw was, and even the suggestion that the tunnels were built by the Chinese in order to hide from racist authorities isn't quite accurate. I'm sure the Chinese built these tunnels, but they did it after experiencing a Saskatchewan winter and decided that they weren't going outside in -40C weather in order to visit their neighbours. And to top things off they wouldn't allow photography in the tunnels and make-believe rooms which is never a good thing.
 
On the way out of town we did stop by the Visitors Centre to get a couple of pics of Mac The Moose. We were lured into the building with the offer of free cake and coffee and we became part of their annual tulip planting ceremony with both the mayor and local press in attendance. Since there was only 8 of us in the 'audience' we thought we'd at least get a prize for coming the furthest but wouldn't you know it, there was a couple from Australia who made the same mistake we did. After the ceremonial handshakes and ring kissing we were back on the road.