Douglas Provincial Park is a

provincial park Ischigualasto Provincial Park A provincial park (or territorial park) is a park administered by one of the provinces of a country, as opposed to a national park. They are similar to state parks in other countries. They are typically open to the ...

in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

. Established in 1973, it is named after

Tommy Douglas Thomas Clement Douglas (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who served as seventh premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961 and Leader of the New Democratic Party from 1961 to 1971. A Baptist min ...

, the seventh

premier of Saskatchewan The premier of Saskatchewan is the first minister and head of government for the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The current premier of Saskatchewan is Scott Moe, who was sworn in as premier on February 2, 2018, after winning the 2018 Saskatch ...

and father of Canada's first

single-payer Single-payer healthcare is a type of universal healthcare in which the costs of essential healthcare for all residents are covered by a single public system (hence "single-payer"). Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from ...

, universal health care programme. The park is located along the Gordon McKenzie Arm of

Lake Diefenbaker Lake Diefenbaker is a reservoir and bifurcation lake in Southern Saskatchewan, Canada. It was formed by the construction of Gardiner Dam and the Qu'Appelle River Dam across the South Saskatchewan and Qu'Appelle Rivers respectively. Constructio ...

and at the

Qu'Appelle River Dam The Qu'appelle River Dam is the smaller of two embankment dams: which created Lake Diefenbaker in Saskatchewan, Canada. The larger dam is Gardiner Dam, the biggest embankment dam in Canada and one of the biggest in the world. Construction of b ...

, which is the source of the

Qu'Appelle River The Qu'Appelle River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba that flows east from Lake Diefenbaker in south-western Saskatchewan to join the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, just south of Lake of the Prairies, near t ...

. The closest community is

Elbow The elbow is the region between the arm and the forearm that surrounds the elbow joint. The elbow includes prominent landmarks such as the olecranon, the cubital fossa (also called the chelidon, or the elbow pit), and the lateral and the media ...

and access to the park is from Highway 19. Attractions to the park include access to Lake Diefenbaker, camping, hiking, and the Elbow Sand Hills. Less than 10 kilometres north of the park and just south of Elbow is Harbor Golf Club & Resort.

Attractions and amenities

Located on the shores of Lake Diefenbaker, the largest body of water in southern Saskatchewan, Douglas Provincial Park has many recreational activities associated with the lake from swimming to boating to fishing. Inside the park there is a campground, hiking trails, picnic area, and

sand dunes A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

. There are 150 campsites in total, 140 of which are electrified. Campground services include laundry facilities, potable water, washrooms / showers, sani-dump, convenience store, concession stand, and a fish cleaning station. Douglas Provincial Park has two different trail systems–the

Trans Canada Trail The Trans Canada Trail, officially named The Great Trail between September 2016 and June 2021, is a cross-Canada system of greenways, waterways, and roadways that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, Pacific to the A ...

and the Dunes Nature Centre Trail. The portion of the Trans Canada Trail in the park is about long and it begins at the beach. It winds its way around the campground through

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...

forests and flat prairie with views of Lake Diefenbaker. The Trans Canada Trail continues on out of the park and heads north for about 30 kilometres towards

Danielson Provincial Park Danielson Provincial Park is located at the northern end of Lake Diefenbaker in the southern part of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The park surrounds the Gardiner Dam, which was built in 1967 and is among the largest embankment dams ...

. The Dunes Nature Centre Trails system is made up of different trails that traverse different parts of the sand dunes.

Elbow Sand Hills

The Elbow Sand Hills, also known as ''Sand Hills'' and ''Douglas Sand Dunes'', are glacially deposited

that cover an area of about at the head of the Qu’Appelle River. The tallest dune is almost high and more than a kilometre long. The Elbow Sand Hills, and neighbouring

Great Sand Hills The Great Sand Hills, also spelt Great Sandhills, are sand dunes in the south-west region of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The Great Sand Hills are the second largest active dunes in Saskatchewan, after Athabasca Sand Dunes, and ar ...

, were formed about 12,000 years ago near the end of the last ice age. As the glaciers were retreating, they created

proglacial lake In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine during the retreat of a melting glacier, a glacial ice dam, or by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around the ...

s, spillways ( South Saskatchewan Valley and

Qu'Appelle Valley The Qu'Appelle River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba that flows east from Lake Diefenbaker in south-western Saskatchewan to join the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, just south of Lake of the Prairies, near t ...

), and huge piles of sandy debris,

glacial till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

, and

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...

s. This debris is what makes up the sand dunes. Flora found in and around the dunes includes prairie grasses, western spiderworts,

aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species; some, but not all, are classified by botanists in the section ''Populus'', of the ''Populus'' genus. Species These species are called aspens: *'' Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China ...

prickly pear cacti ''Opuntia'', commonly called prickly pear or pear cactus, is a genus of flowering plants in the cactus family Cactaceae. Prickly pears are also known as ''tuna'' (fruit), ''sabra'', ''nopal'' (paddle, plural ''nopales'') from the Nahuatl word f ...

, and ball cacti.

References

External links

Why are there sand dunes in the middle of Saskatchewan?Douglas Provincial Park Sand Dunes
{{Authority control Provincial parks of Saskatchewan Dunes of Canada Hills of Saskatchewan Landforms of Saskatchewan Protected areas of Saskatchewan Maple Bush No. 224, Saskatchewan Huron No. 223, Saskatchewan

Attractions and amenities

Elbow Sand Hills

See also

References

External links