The skies are sunny in Calgary today, so we decide to leave a day earlier than planned. We depart from Springbank at 2:00 pm accompanied by Ron Coutts and Chester Allan in C-FYAY. Heading east, we fly over the flooded farmlands of southern Alberta. There is an irony in the wet fields that the farmers are struggling to plant crops because of flooding in southern Alberta and the forest fires that are raging out of control in the dry conditions in northern Alberta.
Flooding worsens as we fly through Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The South Saskatchewan River is muddy and bank full. We land in Regina for fuel; newly formed lakes everywhere on the landscape as there is no where in this flat prairie for the water to go. On towards Brandon, houses and farm buildings looking like islands in a shallow sea. The Assiniboine River has also swollen to bank full; the only evidence of the normal meandering channel is the tops of poplars, looking like they are treading water. In isolated places, there are tractors trying to seed small areas of higher ground. Brandon is already a month past high water but the Assiniboine River is still very high, covering all the parks and campgrounds on the floodplain. A flying friend of a friend kindly picks us up at the airport and drives us into town to the hotel and returns us to the airport the next morning.
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