The Saskatchewan Traveller…
Today we start on a new journey into Alberta, it’s a beautiful day for riding as we head west on highway 14.
We breeze through Unity and make a quick stop in Macklin.
Did you know that the town of Macklin hosts a “Bunnock” tournament every year.
Bunnock is sometimes refered to as the “Game of Bones” and is thought to have Russian origin.
The game is simply this, it is played with two teams of four players opposite each other, and you set up a row bones, or what look like bones, in front of your team. The object of the game is to throw some bones at the opposition line of bones and try to knock them down and in as fewest throws possible.
The team that knocks down the opposition bones in the correct order wins.
The town of Macklin host this tournament every first weekend of August and is a huge draw for many people from all over Western Canada. The world’s largest Bunnock stands at the entrance of Macklin.
This year’s tournament only has room for 320 teams at $200 per team.
The monies raised through this tournament goes to local charities and the economic spin-off created by this tournament is huge in the way of hotel rooms, restaurant business and overall money spent in the community. The tournament is usually sold out each year so that is over 1200 people just in participates.
The game of Bunnock is catching on as you will see other communities trying their hand to become a Bunnock Champion.
The population of Macklin is around 1250 people and was named after an executive of the Winnipeg Free Press, Harry Macklin, who was following the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and reporting his findings. The naming of the streets in Macklin followed the tradition of the newspapers by naming the streets after newspaper publications.
The original settlement came about in 1906 and the original post office was a mile out of town and was a landmark which stands as an old shack that was used in the trading of goods with the First Nations people that lived in the area.
Macklin in the early years had several disasters that threatened the community. but over time Macklin overcame those disasters to become a prosperous town of mostly agriculture, oil and natural gas exploration.
If you are into recreation, Macklin certainly enjoys their hockey and curling in the winter time and in the summer time Macklin has a regional park that consists of over 160 campsites that sits on the edge of Macklin Lake. The land for the regional park was donated by the local Rural Municipality.
The park also has a nine-hole grass green golf course, a beach for swimming and the lake itself is stocked with fish so that you can enjoy some leisure time fishing.
The community itself has a vibrate downtown as it sits on the intersection of highways 31, 17 and not far away Alberta number 13, which is the direction that we are heading.
Stay tuned next week as we continue our trek into Alberta.