Crooked Trees of Hafford

Excerpt from Post by Paulie at 4:49 PM on September 6, 2004, fat Paulie "Travel" Blog:

Apparently there's more to see in Saskatchewan than endless prairie and the great big sky. Having heard somewhere about a mysterious group of crooked aspen growing on a farm north of Saskatoon, Ben and I decided to spend a Sunday afternoon drive investigating their existence.

It took a bit of doing, and a bit of googling, but I found a map on Virtual Saskatchewan that pointed us in the general direction. We headed north at Radisson, passed Hafford (a town full of road-signs in Ukrainian or something), and turned left onto the next highway. From there, the tiny gif map failed us.

We were headed north on rural road 13 (ooh, spooky) looking for the trees halfway to Alticane. Alticane, as you should be made aware, is a group of 6 houses comprising a village. 3 of the houses seem to be occupied. It was creepy as creepy could be. Having found Alticane (after passing it the first time and seeing a dilapidated old sign on the way back), we calculated where a turn-off should be, and drove south a ways. We finally found a turn-off that looked well traveled, and another 5k down the road we looked to our right and saw a sign that read "Crooked Trees, 2 miles north, 1/2 mile west".

Having finally arrived, we were somewhat surprised at how small the grove was (no more than 50 feet in any direction), but also that all the other trees, as close as 10 meters away, were growing normally.

Nobody knows why these aspen grow this way, but they do know that animals won't go into the mini forest, and that strange lights and sights have been seen in the area.

If you're ever in this part of the world, it's a great way to spend an afternoon. Take a look for yourselves:

(Photos courtesy of Deb J)