Reid Dickie
For the second year in a row, February 1st is Grassland National Park Day on my 
blog. This year I’m offering two new videos, one of prairie dogs in GNP and a video tour of The Convent Bed & Breakfast in Val Marie, SK on the edge of the park.
Grasslands National Park is an enchanting place. Features of the park include its recent designation as a Dark Sky Preserve, in fact, the darkest Dark Sky Preserve in Canada. Critterwise, GNP is celebrating its first wild-born black-footed ferrets. The
park reintroduced black-footed ferrets without much success until last year when, for the first time in 70 years, a wild black-footed ferret was born in Canada. Watch a park video of the ferrets.
Another reintroduction to Grasslands National Park is plains bison. For the first time in 150 years, a herd of 
plains bison now numbering about 250 head are part of the prairie ecosystem. Adaptable and comfortable, the plains bison population is increasing quickly with about 75 calves expected to be born in spring 2012. The herd has increased from the 70 bison first released in 2005.
Read posts from last year’s Grasslands National Park Day.
I’ll be visiting Grasslands Nat Pk this July on a long distance solo motorcycle tour. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I’ll camp near Val Marie. I’m also looking for inexpensive accommodation options close by.