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Phew!

Fred Bailey
Icon of the praires and sometimes a curse, in large numbers they can morph into locusts and destroy crops. In places I could not travel with my hand out the window. They hit like bullets.
They also tried hard to plug my radiator.

 

The artillery began just as I started to cook supper. It cracked overhead and all around. Lightening, pink blue and white, slashed in evil forks. That wonderful ozone aroma rose as rain turned the mud to dust. A little Asian boy in the camp site next door screamed in terror. Then rain hammered biblically and became mixed thickly with hail. The RV park was awash. The ripe grain is taking a beating.

The harvest is on, fast and furious. A whole year’s crop can be destroyed by a storm in a few minutes. Farmers are natural gamblers.
In days past this tiny contraption is what you rode night and day to bring in the grain. No GPS, no A/C, no stereo.
My aunt has stories of driving a grain truck through the night after a days work in the house and barnyard.

I have been here all day. I have not turned a wheel but still feel exhausted. I’m going to bed as new thunder rumbles and approaches. Rosetown Saskatchewan has a great municipal campground, many prairie communities do, but it’s westbound for me again tomorrow. I was going to simply park for a few days but I have a sense of urgency about things at home. This blog will be a photo essay. It is impossible to convey the vastness of this place. The land holds a magic and beauty I try to convey. I hope you can sense it.

Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen.
On top of everything else you had to obe able to fix it too.
Inc luding welding. It looks like hell but it held!
The ubiquitous farmer weld. i’m told that at times pieces of fence wire were all there was to use as welding rod.
Back in the day.
A quiet industry. It was very peaceful. Each photo has the background music of wind.
They were happy bees and tolerated my intrusion.
Can you hear the faint echo of children playing? Perhaps the slam of a door on a dark winter night? A cloud would form inside the door when it was opened at low temperature. Can you smell wood or coal smoke, perhaps the aroma of baking? There might be a whisper of snow blowing past in the eternal wind.
Always a view. There is a story about an old prairie farmer who did not like his vist to the West Coast. “Couldn’t see anything for all the damned mountains in the way!” Beyond the slough a church stands on the ridge.
This church! The nearest community name is Smuts.
Family and church is what made the whole story work through some very hard times.
Swallows
And growing all over the grounds.
In downtown Hudson Bay. A few doors away was the town funeral service…in a mobile home.
In downtown Alvena. It is sadly crumbling.
Did the priest have to get up early on Sunday to light the stove? Did the elderly get to sit closest to it?
Yet another.
It has been there a while.

Even death didn’t part them.
A peak through a window.
The bell tower, after renovations.
Inside the original log structure. Note the welding repairs on the bell’s clapper.
Clearly hand-made. You can see the axe marks. Everything is assembled with mortise and tenon joints and pegs. I believe the wood used is poplar. It is a testament to old-world skills, fortitude and belief in the future.
Still cherished today. I am not at all religious but I admire a communal faith which continues to sustain these hardy people.

Sunday morning finds me waking up in Cochrane Alberta, It was a long haul to get across Saskatchewan and Alberta. There was a vicious SW gale blasting on the nose. Walls of dust rose in the fields. If I were on a boat I’d be sailing on a storm jib but we weren’t and gas consumption was atrocious bucking into that wind. I pulled into one gas station with the low fuel light on. The station was closed. Thank goodness for the jerry can I insist on carrying. We staggered into Hanna on fumes. It kept this old pilot on edge. I’m turning my determined meander into a marathon. Next weekend is Labour Day and BC Ferries will be a hellacious five day gap to try and avoid. This morning I can see mountains. The ocean is just over on the other side. I’ve backed the trailer into a spot fringed with signs forbidding parking. I’ve left my tracks in the mud, so find me if you can.

I cannot help but try to imagine the wide open prairies before we white folks invaded them. Imagine the sense of unbridled freedom. No wonder the first nation peoples felt a little pissed off.

I end up in a campground in Salmon Arm, a long weary day complete. The traffic was horrific but smooth. The Trans Canada is being widened. Completed sections are fabulous with four lanes of whoosh. I prefer the low slow way but that’s my problem. Imagine if old Colonel Rogers could see it now. As I sink into a weary sleep a train passes. I wonder if it is one of the same I heard from my bed in Virden.

Canadians love to brag about their distant exotic vacations. They often tell me how dreadfully boring it is crossing the prairies. Then there is the endless arboreal monotony of Northern Ontario. I guess you have to want to see your country and if you won’t look, well…! I didn’t see half of the place, west to east. If I ever made it all the way across to the East Coast, our country also runs as far north and south. We’re free to see it all. It is ours, the whole place.

A dip in the crick. A lovely pastoral view among the eternal undulating plain. More photos next blog.

No matter where you are, it is important to remember that you are “Almost there!”

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