My rental car bullets north down a straight prairie road in the biting October chill leaving Saskatoon in the dust. The dull overcast sky is suitably ominous for the mission ahead:  search for a mysterious forest of dubious origin. It’s also the afternoon of Halloween, an apt occasion to explore a stand of trees sprouting like a botanical nightmare.

“Y’all ain’t the first driving these parts lookin’ for trees.” A teenager at a gas station in Hafford, Sask., hands me a leaflet with information about my unusual destination. It reads: “The Crooked Bush is a group of wild aspen trees that twist, loop and bend into the eeriest of forests.” Then, for dramatic effect, it adds: “Courage of stone is necessary to visit at night.”  With the supply chain crunch, I guess nobody can source steel balls anymore.   

In a sprawling landscape ruled by gravel roads, Crooked Bush is a challenging place to find. The GPS coordinates I picked up online are pinging me all over the prairies, hence the gas station detour. Maybe there’s a Bermuda Triangle causing havoc in the endless wheat fields. Eventually, I follow another car which leads me down a dirt road to a parking lot with a pockmarked sign helpfully signalling I’ve arrived in the right place.  “Welcome to the Crooked Bush,” it reads, followed by “botanical mystery” and “natural treasure.” A cracked boardwalk that has seen better days leads into the small aspen forest, which is immediately distinguishable from other small aspen forests because aspen forests typically resemble giant upright pencils poked into the earth. Here, the trees are warped like the arthritic hands of an evil witch, knotted in confusion and about as straight as cooked spaghetti. Silver bark is cracked and peeling, battered by the elements and scarred by the imagination. The piercing breeze picks up to add a warm layer of goosebumps.