Google gave me the choice of three routes as I looked up how to go from Prince Albert to Regina. Randomly picking one, I then tacked on an extra detour just to make sure I was on an obscure enough route to ensure there'd be abandoned houses to check out.

Except there weren't any. I counted a grand total of three abandoned houses, during the entire four hour drive and none of them were worth breaking through snow to explore.

Away from a small town hockey arena exterior and a couple grain elevators, the only other thing I photographed was this impressive herd of deer.

Without anything pulling me off the road, I made it to Regina early in the afternoon. In hindsight, one thing I wish I knew was that there are a lot of great lunch spots in the old hotels of small town Saskatchewan. I found one of these north of Prince Albert and thought it was special to Snowden SK, but I've since learned of so many others.

Not knowing about those old hotels, I was early enough that I sat in my car for a few minutes before trying to check into my B&B. During that time, I wracked my brain as to whether I'd ever been in Regina before. Back when I was 17, my buddy and I drove our two bikes out to Edmonton and I remembered riding Chicago, Kenosha, The University of Winnipeg, Yorkton SK & obviously Edmonton; but I wasn't sure about Regina. I know at least in my video part from that time, there weren't any Regina clips.

My Regina B&B (The Dragon's Nest) was reasonably priced and within an easy 25 minute walk of Regina's arena.

Dropping off my stuff, I figured I'd pop by the nearby Empire Hotel as it looked like a great place for a cold one.

The Empire was closed, but I'd also have some time after the game.

While walking around photographing the Empire, this sweet lady introduced herself and asked me to take her photo.

The walk from the Empire over to the arena was terrible, with uncleared sidewalks and melting snow banks forming puddles that forced me to scurry away from the road to avoid getting splashed. I got all upset about this and car culture and no one walking in this stupid town, but looking at Google Maps, it's all a grid system and there were countless better routes if I just went one, two, or three blocks south.

(Maybe it also wouldn't have been so bad if I had winter boots on as well, eh Yaz? Haha.)

The Regina Pats play at the Brandt Centre, which should be named for LA Kings defenseman and star of my fantasy club, Brandt Clarke, but is actually named for some farming equipment manufacturer.

Actually, as cool as Brandt Clarke is, Regina's arena really should have stuck with its original and fantastic name, the Agridome.

With a strange exterior and slanted walls that looked amazing to ride a bike on, I dug the Agridome's exterior.

As for that Avalanche Area sign, some old timer came up to me inside the arena and asked if I was with the local newspaper due to my Fuji S4240 bridge camera. Apparently he was trying to get my attention as two "avalanches" had occurred near his car and gave it a good shake.

Speaking of using a real camera, I was taking a picture of these banners when some guy ran up acting wacky as he must've thought I was a reporter? Or with the team?

I don't know, but as much as I want to fight to preserve being able to use a real camera at these games, it's harder and harder to fight against just using a cell phone camera with how much I love laying low.

The excitement for this trip wasn't solely because I was seeing three rinks threatened with abandonment, I was also excited for the Connor Bedard show!

The biggest name coming out of junior hockey since McDavid, I was psyched to be here scouting for my perpetually lost fantasy team, which would surely have a shot at this upcoming superstar. Sure enough, about eight minutes into the first period I had to write Roach and let him know this Bedard guy was incredible. He was stick handling around everyone and bringing everyone to their feet with regularity. It was a lot of fun to watch.

Sneaking down to get a better view, I almost paid for it dearly as a puck came slicing into the stands, but thankfully the teenager in front of me snagged it to a round of applause.

I asked a security lady about these black screens and she said, "it's our club level." "Oh, so you don't want people standing here." "yeah, it's the club level and if you're in the club level, you don't want people right around you."

I could understand replacing Saskatoon's arena because hey, maybe it's worth $50 million taxpayer dollars to move an arena to a preferred location. Replacing Prince Albert seemed totally silly as it's well maintained and the fans love it - but I guess there's local issues with spending money to help out the homeless or build a second bridge across the major river there, so city councillors probably figure let's just spend money on a new arena. They have to do something after all.

Regina seemed like the craziest of the three. The Agridome is in great condition and a 2010 renovation means lovely, modern concourses. Of course lately they've deferred maintenance and some water got in during The Brier from a leak around a rooftop antennae, which means Regina really should spend $40 million on a new rink. They were early to paperless tickets and those self-serve convenience store-like stands, so maybe Regina is just the Atlanta Braves of the WHL and they need a new stadium because reasons.

Regina easily took town the visiting Calgary Hitmen by a score of 4-1.

Connor Bedard was responsible for two of those goals in front of a crowd of 4150 sitting in their 6484 capacity arena. The excitement of Bedard and the huge bump in attendance clearly shows that Regina needs a 10,000-seat arena, as the Agridome neared 64% capacity for my Saturday night game.

It's also important to remember that Saskatoon is building a 15,000-seat arena that will capture all the travelling acts and even if Regina has a new arena, that's a really weird sweet spot for a band to be big enough to play a 15,000-seat arena but also play the 10,000-seat arena that's only 2.5 hours away with a limited population base.

Back at the Empire Hotel, I was disappointed to find the door still locked. I went to the attached liquor store and the clerk told me that the old man who owns the building used to open the bar all day and no one ever came. He now only opens it for a few days near the end of the month, as that's when the welfare checks come in.

Turning the bleak knob back down, I have to admit that my B&B was lovely and the hosts were so great, that I was later kicking myself for how long I stayed and chatted over breakfast, instead of getting out of there to go see more of southern Saskatchewan.

At one point the woman asked me what "the most amazing place I'd ever been" was, and I did my usual thing where I have to run through every place I've ever been in my whole life, but reading the room, I just settled on Hawaii as an acceptable answer. I thought she might judge me when I said I kept costs down by sleeping in my rental, but she instead replied that she saved money in Banff by sleeping in the ditch out front of the Banff Chateau. Cool!

Eventually hitting the road, I was still puzzled as to whether I'd actually been to Regina before - until I drove right by the 4-gap-4 that my friend Jeff jumps in succession in Mortar! Well, that solves that mystery.

Next up was the ghost town of Dummer, located about an hour due south of Regina.

Learning the town's history from a plaque affixed to a rock by former residents of Dummer, this townsite was chosen by the Canadian National Railway (CNR) as a midpoint on their new rail line between Moose Jaw and Radville. Early settler W.J. Patterson named the town after the township where he used to live, Dummer Township, near Peterborough.

Dummer had a population of 65 in 1913 and blossomed to a peak population of 243 in 1916. Three grain elevators were built, year after year from 1912 to 1914. Unfortunately for Dummer, CNR built a spur line out to Grimlock, which caused the towns over there to receive grain at their local elevators instead of farmers travelling and bringing it to Dummer.

1929 to 1942 brought long droughts and poor farm returns. Many families gave up and left the area, bringing the population back down to approximately 50 people. Power came to Dummer in 1956, but people still steadily moved away and the population continued its decline to 25 by 1960.

The Lawrence Brothers Garage closed in 1965. The United Church closed in 1970 and the buildings were moved to Minton. Saskatchewan Pool closed their grain elevator in 1987 and later disposed of it through fire. The Elwood Nesbitt Store closed in 1988.

The last residents, direct descendants of the first homesteader, were the last to leave in December of 1993.

Relatively close by is another ghost town I visited back in 2007. I sometimes look at it in Google StreetView, amazed at how much still looks the same after all these years.

I would guess it has to do with the isolation of these places and the fact that a fair number of people wouldn't go this far out of their way for a few abandoned homes?

That being said, all of Dummer - two homes, a handful of sheds, a school - was demolished soon after my visit.

I would also guess that the internet and social media isn't the best for these places and they're now much more of a nuisance than a ghost town in the 1990s or 2000s. Although, there's so little information on Dummer on the internet, that who knows if visitors and vandals are what caused the landowner to take it all down.

I peeked into the school and even though I can't get enough of old abandoned schoolhouses, the Dummer Schoolhouse had a questionable enough floor that I thought better of it.

Dummer didn't look like it had a ton to check out from what I found online, but I enjoyed my time here and it wasn't too far off the main highways for my Dodge Charger.

Happy with my visit, it was time to continue south.

Continue to Part 5...