Prairie Wanderings

So I had some interesting prairie wanderings this trip home. I actually visited a nice chunk of Saskatchewan that I hadn’t seen in quite some time: Moose Jaw (home of too many fabric shops for someone as broke as I am); Southey (home of…mmm…”Pizzas and Cream”); Qu’Appelle (home of 2 gorgeous clothing shops which provided me with 2 marvy new skirts); Indian Head (host to the stinky but “crafty” elevator); Lumsden (er…home of a big valley); and of course, Punnichy.



The latter city, no…town…no…village, holds a special place in my heart though as it’s where my dad was born and raised in a wee little shack of a house. My sister and I visited last week and though it was disappointing to see that many more of the houses of our (but especially her) memories had been torn down, we were at least a little heartened to see that the place was still alive and not in quite as dire a shape as we’d thought it might be. Amongst the poverty of that little town though, it’s really quite something to think that our dad was amongst the very poorest and our family was generally treated like trash there. My grandfather would never be paid for his smithy work; they wouldn’t let me dad watch TV through the windows with the other kids; they wouldn’t extend any credit to the family at the shops. But the kicker was a story my mom told me the other day that I totally hadn’t remembered.

After my grandfather died (he was only 57 when he died suddenly), the family was in dire need of food. They just wanted to buy some beef or something, and were a nickel short but the store wouldn’t allow them a cent of credit. Apparently to keep their house warm in the winter, they used to layer wallpaper over the walls (couldn’t afford insulation or electricity), and someone recalled that a nickel might have been caught between the layers. So what they ended up having to do was literally rip down their walls to find the nickel so she could feed them all. How heartbreaking is that? It’s no wonder my dad had just a wee bit of a chip on his shoulder about people in that town…oops, I mean village.

Anyway, it really was nice to get out onto the prairies again. I’ve flown nearly every time I’ve come here in the last 6 or 7 years, and I’ve really missed being able to just sit and look at the prairies rolling by. Some of this province really is quite stunning, and if you haven’t taken the time to drive through it, I think you’ve really missed out. If it weren’t for the ticks (*shudder*) I honestly could have just sat out on the hillsides near Punchy (sic) for days.

I strongly suggest you take the opportunity to spend some time wandering these Prairies if you haven’t yet. Hurry, before bovineclassifieds.com takes over the whole damn thing.