We’re in Saskatoon, Canada, for a work trip for Steven. He has two days of conferences, while I have two days on my own, then we have two days of exploring the city together!

Some Saskatoon facts (from Wikipedia, of course):

• Saskatoon is the largest city in the province of Saskatchewan. An estimated 300,000 people live in Saskatoon.
• Saskatoon was founded in 1882 as a Temperance colony.
• Saskatoon is named after the berry of the same name.
• Saskatoon is divided into east and west sides by the South Saskatchewan River. The Meewasin Valley Trail follows the river through town.

Our trip began early yesterday. We had a 6:00 flight out of O’Hare to Toronto* and we’re the type that get to the airport early – so Steven got up at 2:00 am and I got up at 2:30 am. Eek!

Our flights and layovers were smooth, and we got to Saskatoon just after noon.

After getting our rental car, we headed straight to güd eats, an all vegan restaurant in town. It was warm enough to eat outside (!!!) and of course, we had a hard time deciding what to order because we were able to choose off of the entire menu! We started with the Southern Style Poutine (naturally, since it’s a Canadian delicacy!), and got the Bourbon BBQ Burger, Corny Beef Dog, and Mac N’ Cheez. Everything was amazing, and I enjoyed the poutine the most. The gravy was delicious. I’d like to take some home and dip everything in it.

I asked our waitress if there’s a place that makes vegan donuts in town and GUESS WHAT THERE IS – Darkside Donuts! Finding vegan donuts in a new city is kind of tricky. A lot of shops don’t list ingredients or if they have vegan donuts on their websites. I search their website and social media accounts and end up relying on reviews that mention vegan donuts, and calling to confirm they actually exist. All that is to say that when I travel lately, I’ve just been asking at a vegan restaurant for a recommendation, instead of researching in advance, since it’s often pointless. Of course, had I looked, I would have seen Darkside Donuts mentions vegan donuts over their page. Duh. And yay!

Now that that long pointless side is out of the way – we also asked the waitress at güd eats if there was anything she recommended we do in town, and she ended up giving us other restaurant ideas, which I appreciated, since it’s technically their competition!

After lunch we went to The Running Room, a running store. I wanted to look for a Saskatoon running shirt (despite not having run yet, and being kind of superstitious about stuff like that…) and ask about popular running routes and safety. I found a shirt AND a Canada tank (!!!) and the clerk told me what side of the river she thought was safe (apparently it’s a bit east side vs west side here) and didn’t have any other route ideas.

We drove around a bit in the Riversdale, Central Business District, and Nutana areas before heading back to our hotel. We weren’t initially impressed with the architecture of the neighborhood areas. It felt random and time stamped. BUT, the city is being revitalized, and we knew we needed to see more areas and quit being so judgy.

Neat street grate in Riversdale!

We hung out at the hotel for a few hours before dinner because we’d been up for a looooong time without any sleep (we couldn’t nap on the plane).

For dinner we went to odd couple, an Asian fusion restaurant with a few vegan options on the menu that the güd eats waitress recommended. We knew the food was going to be amazing just by the smell when we walked in! We ordered the Vegan Spring Rolls and Sweet Potato Postickers, and the Spicy Tofu Lo-Mein and Vegan Kung Pao 2 Ways.

The spring rolls were different than any I’d ever had! Thicker, shorter, and crispier. Doughier. Amazing-er. The tofu in both dishes was delicious – crispy on the outside, then it would melt in your mouth when you got to the non fried part. And the cauliflower (the “2 Ways” was tofu and cauliflower) was so good – just the right amount of crisp and sauce without overpowering the cauliflower flavor. NOM. What a great recommendation!

After dinner we walked to an ice cream place, Fable Ice Cream (literally right next to the donut place, which was closed) also recommended by the waitress at güd eats. I got the vegan lemonade and Steven got pistachio. Their vegan ice cream is made out of cashew and coconut milk. It was super creamy, but not my favorite two vegan “milk” base flavors. But I still ate it all. Of course. Ha.

On the walk there and back, we admired some local murals and cool residential architecture. On one street, every other house was rundown, for sale, being worked on, or modernized, and it really made me curious what is going on in that neighborhood! I was going to ask at the ice cream shop, but the line was too long to make small talk with the staff.

We also got a peek of the Meewasin Valley Trail on our walk and I got super pumped to run on it! Then it was back to the hotel (after a Walmart stop).

I feel like we saw a lot on the first day. The size of the city feels very manageable – like you can drive across it in 15-20 minutes. We can definitely fit in everything we want to see (okay, eat) in the two more days we have to explore together!

(I just realized I have NO pictures of us! Well, our faces anyway. I’ll work on that! Also, can you believe my stomach felt fine after all that eating?!)

*So silly to fly east to go west but what can you do?!?
*This was my second time in the Toronto airport. We had a layover there when we flew to Spain in 2002!