The blessings of a vast and ignored land

Walking the hills and buttes of the Grassland National Park is, at times, a sublime experience. This high country, rising above the flat prairie surrounding it, has survived four ice agea without ever being covered - and then scraped - by mile-thick panels of ice. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Laurentian shield, there is no other land space in Canada that can say the same.

The hills roll and rise like the rounded tummies of pregnancy; the buttes lift high in the air, baring short cliffs of clay, perfect for the bison drives used by ancient aboriginal residents to slaughter the animals in large numbers for processing for winter food. A hike up the hills takes you through knee deep native grass, sage and many tiny wildflowers of all hues, brilliant yellow, ochre, violet and deep purple. They are tine, and unobtrusive, but a glance down reveals the blaze of subtle colour.

The "saddles" atop the hills reveal many tipi rings of stones, laid perhaps one or two thousand year ago by the people who roamed these hills. A perfect place to rest and live on a hot summer day. Here, the wind is a constant, keeping black flies and mosquitoes from landing and biting. In the Frenchman River valley below, a sheltered spot suitable for a winter camp out of the wind, the biting critters feast on bare skin with intense abandon. No wind does more than ruffle the grass down low.

The butte trails twist and curve around corners, the trail always clear through the foot-crushed sage and tiny cacti, revealing the absence of the taller waving grass which is delicate and cannot maintain itself if trod upon regularly. The trail is almost always a clear narrow path through grass and around sloping corners.

Every now and then, on the lower slopes, one comes across badger holes. A mound of dirt two feet high, with a hole at one end perhaps eight inches across: the home of the prairie badger. We saw not a one all week. I'm sure they saw us and let us pass their home in peace.An endangered species of black-footed ferret roams the high country as well, and was also invisible to us. Beatrix has been relieved that invisibility has also been the mode of the prairie rattlesnake. I wanted to a least see one, but blazing hot July is the time that brings them out to bask.

Reaching the top of a hill, or the edge of a butte in this country, provides a spectacular view of the river valley and the surrounding prairie in a 360 degree swath. What a boon for the ancient hunter! Bison could be spotted many miles away in any direction and tracked until the hunters were ready to move.

One day, driving north along the Eco-trail to a north-end walk, we met the huge grazers of the ancient prairie grass. Three or four of them, leisurely chomping their way toward the ruts of the road, blissfully unaware of our presence. We stopped and waited, like polite drivers, while the giants scrunched their way across the roadway without so much as lifting a head in our direction. Dusty and surrounded by swarming flies, they were majestic in their passing: this is their land, and they possess it with dignity and in peace. We imagined thousands, millions even, plodding the hills in the blessed wind, feeding as they move. Currently, the park supports over 300 head of bison. When the herd reaches 350, some of the adults are transported to other parks, keeping the herd static at a number that can be easily sustained by the native grass, so delicate and tasty.

Not every day has been "hike-able." Rain, sometimes light, now and them a downpour, comes and goes. One day, even large hailstones blanketed the earth in a nearby village, as well as south into Montana. A hard day's rain turns the park roads, most less than a decade old, into tracks fit only for four-wheel drive trucks, or SUVS. Park staff close the park on these days. Truck traffic on the infant roads makes them impassable for days. The trails on the buttes become dangerous if walked, because the shale and mud can slide under pressure, and off you'd go on a trip that likely would not end well. The grassy hills are safer, but access is difficult, and the critters are always waiting!

The sky in southern Saskatchewan is massive  and draws the eye upward. When you are on the flats, there is little to see but clouds and blue sky. As well as being huge, south Saskatchewan skies are wildly dynamic. It charges from minute to minute, hour to hour. Yesterday's forecast for the remainder of our stay was for rain every day. This morning, warm sun is the menu for the same time. While hiking or driving, you watch the sky: your immediate future swirls above you in clouds that produce racing shadows on the lower land when you are in the hills.

When it rains, we are not bored here. Our digs - quite spectacular and new, contain hundreds of books (if we had forgotten our own!), and two or three hundred DVDs. The little village of Val Marie, population 137, just down the gravel road from our cottage, boasts a terrific little Art Gallery, which hosts the work of twenty-three local artists. Nearby, the converted old brick schoolhouse is "Prairie Winds and Silver Sage" - small and interesting museum of the region, plus a creditable bookstore of information about the region, the animals, the night sky - one of the largest dark-sky preserves in the world - as well as information about the peoples who have lived on and off this land for thousands of years. It also boasts the "Prairie Ground Espresso Bar"! Best latte south of Swift Current, and homemade treats to tempt you. Afternoons find a steady stream of tourists in and out. It is a great hangout for a person with a book, or a desire to talk to the odd researcher who stops in for a latte and a spot of paperwork or computer time. WiFi makes it a haven for the techno-tourist.

We have happily stepped into the social life of Val Marie. The Harvest Moon Cafe, recently opened, is run by young people who provide a limited menu (7 or 8 item), with special days - "Asian Night", "It's Greek To Me night", "Father's Day Special." The food is really good, and the portions prairie size (huge). Special treats: curried soups for lunch, and homemade on the spot ice cream; Green Tea, Rhubarb or Saskatoon flavoured. Try getting that in Calgary, or Regine or Ottawa, for under $2.00  a scoop!

Friday night this week is Grad - four students! - and of course we have been invited and will go! Saturday this week is movie night at the local theatre. One night a week, with an almost-first-run movie, sometimes right off the screens of Calgary or Regina. Popcorn and ancient theatre seats
for $6.00. And great conversations with people you've never met who will talk to you like neighbors while you are among them.

This vacation is turning out to be exactly what i hopped for Beatrix: a time away, no phone calls or funerals, no deadlines, and a rest. I get lots of down time at home, but I am enjoying the change as well. Today, if the sun holds, we'll tramp the Broken Hills before changing our shirts for "clean" to go to Grad, where jeans and boots is dress enough for these folks.

Back again soon, hopefully before we head home on Monday morning.

Relaxed raging…niot a vacation, really.

Windy day, with perhaps some sun. Possibility of a hike at Two Trees (where there is more than two trees!).Reading the news this AM, I am very disturbed by our Federal government's actions. The omnibus "Budget Bill," which will surely be passed because the Conservatives have a solid majority of the votes, contains buried within it a number of small Bills which cannot or will not be debated because of the size of the whole bill to be voted on. Some of these measures are actually sneaky ways of sliding in policies that would infuriate many Canadians, but will not come to light until after they become law.

For example, the Fair Wages Act will be repealed. This act, born in the 1930's, guarantees that workers on construction sites must be paid wages commensurate with the going wage in the community where the construction is taking place. With this repealed, the government is supporting the hiring of foreign temporary workers at substandard wages, while cutting out unionized construction workers. Big business will love it: screw the locals, it's called.

This Act also brings in the change in retirement age, from 65 to 67 years, although this won't come into effect for a few years - long enough down the road that people will have forgotten about it. Harper and Co maintain that the current system is "not sustainable." The Canadian Council on Policy Alternatives published a paper on the economics of it that demonstrate that sustainability is not the issue. The move threatens those who become vulnerable seniors with two more years of mandatory work. "Plan to take care of yourself," says Flaherty (Finance). But what about minimum wage workers, or those periodically unemployed? Adding to an RRSP is out of the question for them. It surely won't bother MPs with their fat pensions, or the PM, but thousands of Canadians will face hardship and perhaps welfare while they wait to retire!

The oil spill in Alberta last week (Jackson Creek near the Red Deer river) underlines the gutting of our environmental protections act. Oil companies need only slight environmental reviews, and then Cabinet support, to move ahead with controversial projects. Surely this deserves long House debate? It won't happen. Democracy be damned!

Spending time in a National Park also underlines the gutting of the Park system. Staff cuts make the service of the public very difficult, and compromise the integrity of the system. This also was slipped through in budget cuts. By constantly crowing about the importance of supporting the economy, Harper keeps everybody distracted to getting or staying wealthy, and allows the democratic process, and the well-being of many Canadians, to be eroded and even destroyed. These are not relaxing thoughts to harbour on vacation, but they fill my mind, so here they are. Sorry!

Grasslands experience

Grasslands National Park - the only national park on the Canadian prairies - came into existence in 2001, Parks Canada received a donation from the old Walt Larsen ranch. Since then, many more parcels oif land have been added, so that the expanding park consists of two large blocks of land, which will be joined as more land is added to the park. The hilly land formation which constitutes the park runs along the edges of the Frenchman River valley. The river meanders through the countryside, its flow determined by the rising hills and buttes that mark the landscape.

The Frenchman River Valley is the canvas upon which the park's West Block is painted. This glacial meltwater channel features deeply dissected plateaux, coulees, and the conspicuous 70 mile Butte which rewards the adventurous with an impressive view.

The park's East Block features the Killdeer "Badlands" of the Rock Creek area and is representative of the Wood Mountain Uplands. The landscape is characterised by the exposed layers of Bearpaw, Eastend, Whitemud, Frenchman and Ravenscrag formations. The Killdeer badlands untouched by glaciation, reveal the multicoloured hues representing 60,000 years of eroded strata.

This striking geological landscape with hundreds of metres of exposed sedimentary rock has opened a window to the brief interval of geological time representing the extinction of dinosaurs. Indeed, the revealing landscape of the Killdeer Badlands led to the first recorded find of dinosaur remains in Western Canada in 1874, by Sir George Mercer Dawson, a geologist and naturalist to Her Majesty's North American Boundary Commission.

Native habitation dates back to 10,000 years ago. By the 1600's, the Gros Ventre followed the bison herds in this area. More recently, the Assiniboine, Cree, Sioux, and Blackfoot also inhabited this grassland area on a seasonal basis. Campsites, tipi rings, vision quest sites, medicine wheels, and bison drive lanes are some of the cultural heritage.

By the 1880's, Euro-Canadian settlement had pushed farther west, bison herds were declining and so were other native species. Cattle herds replaced bison on the open range. Large ranches, like the 76 Ranch, held lease to thousands of acres of grazing lands. The cowboys who worked these ranches were the cowboys of the old west, their lifestyles romanticized on the silver screen.

The park contains a herd of over 300 bison, which roam freely over the grasslands on the prairie, and on the hills and saddles above. there are two large prairie dog "towns," horned lizards, rattlesnakes, prong horned antelope, badgers, and black footed ferrets throughout the park. The rising land provides a number of easy to challenging hikes upward to the tops of buttes and extensive saddles of high land, where ancient tipi rings over 1000 years old.

Hiking trails are reasonably well marked…most of the time…and can be quite challenging. There are steep sections, edged by small cacti and wild roses, as well as a kind of juniper bush that is common to the area. Fine shale covers parts of the rising land, which can slide when dry, or stick, when wet (as it is today). Up you look up, you can see hawks hunting the hills above, and at least one place, the nest of  a family of golden eagles can be seen. The eagles themselves are much harder to spot.

Walking up the hills is, in spots, a pleasant and slightly upward stroll. Then, quite suddenly, you are leaning into a steep stretch, and the walk becomes a climb, up and around hidden corners leading onto breathtaking views of the whole valley in all directions. The hikes, while challenging to amateurs, are not "difficult" in terms of terrain. They tax the energy, however, in terms of their length. Fiftenn to twenty kilometrre hikes require some training, preparation, and a willingness to sweat!

Parks Canada is still developing hiking trails in the park, so that it will become more interesting and challenging as time goes by. An exciting educatioinal program has also been developed, which sees school children from all over southern Saskatchewan spending whole days learning about their cultural and geographic heritage in the park.

Because of the extensive opoen prairie in the area, Grasslamnds is deemed one of the primary "dark sky" preserves in the world. As well, in daytime, it is a mecca for birders, who can kind many rare - for them - species of birds in the park.

So far, we have hiked six trails, with more to come as the weather clears. We have plans to spend a day in the East Block, where the terrain is different from the West Block land. So far, this has been a satisfying and relaxing vacation. The townsfolk we have met in Val Marie have been typical prairie folk: friendly and welcoming. We have shared "Asian Food Night" at the Harvest Moon Cafe, "Friday Roast Beef Dinner" night at the hotel, and Movie Night at the local theatre.

Today, it's pouring, so we are off to Ponteix and perhaps Swift Current, to hike in a different clime!

Vacation as holy-day

"Where are you going for vacation?"
"South Saskatchewan."
"Oh, you have relatives there?"
"No."
"Then why would you go there?
"Because it's so beautiful…"

You can't imagine how many times one of us has had that conversation with a Ponoka local. We discovered some years ago that this is an overlooked province when it comes to beauty and to vacation enjoyment. This is the fourth summer in less than a decade that we have spent one or tree weeks in Saskatchewan south of the Trans-Canada highway. This time it's Val Marie and the Grasslands National Park.

We are staying in a spectacular B&B, a fully equipped cottage, solar and wind powered. Great bed, hot shower, movies and books, and an overwhelming, light-free dark night sky. Our hosts live nearby in a converted Church (pun intended), also solar and wind powered, and beautifully finished, like out cottage.

The nearby park affords a unique experience of hills, bluff, draws and rocky crags rising up from the flat land all along the Frenchman's River. For miles, the valley wends its variegated way along the land. As the hills and valleys unfold under your feet, you may see black footed ferrets, prairie dogs, badgers, rattlesnakes(!) and free roaming bison munching their way across the landscape. Mule deer are everywhere, and down on the prairie, pronghorn antelopes scoot along.

Yesterday, we passed by an eagles nest (no eagles visible), and had to proceed carefully down one road to avoid startling the grazing bison. A two-hour climb (moderately difficult) gave us a view of miles of the valley and prairie in all directions, as we stood among tipi rings laid down over a thousand years ago by aboriginal people seeking the high land to catch the wind, avoid the bugs, and watch for game…and enemies, I imagine.

Arriving at the trail head yesterday, we met a woman, nut brown and western-ly dressed, who was crossing prairies on horseback. She had just broken camp, and was loading her packhorse for the day's journey. Later in the day, we met her in town and shared a coffee table with her. Summers on horseback in Canada, winters with her retired mother in Thailand. A contemporary version of the drifter, seeking a place to settle to pursue her music more regularly. (see fiain-skuld.blogspot.com)

Who was it said Saskatchewan is boring?

Over coffee in Val Marie (home of Brian Trottier, of New York Islander fame), we met Asian tourists, flitting through with their camera, hunting knife toting hippies, complete with waist length dreads, two pencil thin women from California who were driving and biking slowly all the way to Philadelphia. All for the price of a $3.00 latte! The town sports a surprisingly good art gallery of local art, a very good prairie bookstore dealing in animal and human history of the area, and a passable museum! A new venture on the main street is the Harvest Moon Cafe - actually a restaurant which serves extremely good food in a simple and friendly atmosphere. And it's quiet on the street. Quiet. Peaceful. Is there more that I could want for vacation?

Next time: the hikes and the topography.

A faith renewed

An amazing weekend; not at all what I expected, or hoped for. It was the weekend of the annual meeting of our church's Conference - the larger-than-provincial judicatory. I went with Beatrix mostly because we were going straight to vacation afterward. Otherwise I would stayed home. So I had planned to spend most of my time outside the meetings, reading a book. I was looking forward to this uninterrupted time. To be polite, I attended the first gathering of table groups. It turned out that there were two or three people I knew at the table. Before I knew it, I became engaged in some of the discussions - mostly about budget crises and staffing cuts. From being engaged, I became involved, and before I knew it, my reading time was gone! At first I was annoyed at this, but gradually I came to see some of the positives in this turn of events.

Because I live most of my life in the milieu of profound conservatism, theologically speaking, I have become chronically angry at my theological surroundings. Most of what I write for the papers is against the fundamentalist mindset. I get 'bent out of shape,' theologically speaking. At our Conference meeting, I began to realize that I was suddenly at home in the midst of a less conservative, more open and joyful faith, a view on the world that is liberal, if not radical, in its orientation. I discovered that I was being fed just by the milieu, by the perspective on the world that my denomination takes. Before too long, I was not missing my novel, I was involved and contributing to the discussion and decision-making! It became quite wonderful. I didn't even spend much time in the display room. I bought only two books. I ordered a summer stole for worship; I purchased a design for another tattoo.

When the four candidates for ordination or commissioning were introduced and told us a bit about their personal pilgrimages, I was quite moved, and catapulted back into my own youthful enthusiasm for the faith and for ministry. As Wesley said many centuries ago, my heart was 'strangely warmed' by the experience. All of this came together on Sunday morning, at the Celebration of Ministry service. During this worship time, retiring ministers were recognized and honoured, departing staff members were bid farewell, and four people were set apart for ministry. All of this was happening on Sunday, June third. It struck me partway through worship that this was the exact same date on which I was ordained to ministry fifty-three years ago! I was quite overcome with this realisation, swamped by profound feelings. brought to tears as I watched these (relatively) young people taking the same step I had taken so very long ago. Memories of my early days in ministry came up, of days of decision-making about taking the family south so I could study in a psychiatric hospital, of moving into hospital ministry, and then into teaching and supervising ministers  preparing for chaplaincies of one kind or another. The whole thing was extremely emotional for me, but in a very positive way. I felt nourished by the memories and by the observation of commitments being made by others. In some ways, it was an experience of renewal of faith, of re-embracing (is there such a word?) my own passion for ministry. During communion, I found myself standing in line for the bread and the wine at two separate stations, so that I could receive communion from the two newly minted ministers with whom I felt some strong fellow-feelings.

I came away from the weekend experience with a renewed appreciation for my own denomination - with all its faults, and with a new and deeper appreciation for the ethos and theological stance of our liberal and left-leaning faith group. Although I didn't get to read more than a few pages of Jo Nesbo's latest thriller, I was a satisfied and happy man Sunday evening.

Poised for flight

Back home, preparing to attend our annual Church Conference and then scoot to southern Saskatchewan for a two week wilderness holiday in Grasslands National Park. The Church Conference has little appeal for me, after all these decades of mandatory attendance. It will struggle with restructuring in the face of shrinking resources, as well as nominal nods in the direction of social action regarding "resource development" - Alberta-speak for the Athabasca Tar Sands and the oil it produces at the cost of millions of gallons of irreplaceable water.

I become frustrated with the church's approach to 'shrinking resources.' At a time when our people are earning more money than ever before, and going into debt more deeply than ever before, I do not see why we can't confront them with stark reality about the institution: either we come up with enough money to run it, or we shut it down. Why not ask them, as the ancient Hebrews did, to tithe of their net income. "Tithe" means a tenth. But even if people committed to sharing 2% of their net income annually with their church, we would have no financial issue. Islam requires 2 1/2%, Judaism 10%. The old Methodists - Charles and John Wesley - used to say of the tithing business: "the Jews give only ten percent. Clearly, the expectation was for more than that. We seem to be so timid, as though what we have isn't worth claiming their support! People appear to be willing to 'invest' in all manner of toys - ATVs, hot cars, big trucks, snowmobiles - but we are afraid to ask them to invest in their religious institution? Bizarre.

The oil sands issue - it really is more than that. It's really about the wilful degradation of our whole environment in the interests of making money for large corporations. The folks who work in the oil patch quickly become 'economic slaves.' They are very well paid, and they spend themselves deeply into debt almost immediately. At that point, they are trapped. They can't possibly leave, because then they couldn't service their debt. And having toys and homes re-possessed is beyond imagining. Some of the folks in the industry come from impoverished backgrounds, and have painful memories of having very little. The prospect of that shadow is enough to keep many a man working punishing hours for many years. Albertans work more hours annually, and take fewer vacation days, than people in any other province or territory. In some real-time ways, we are a slave state, though a wealthy one.

Some of my colleagues try writing about this dilemma, and do it quite articulately. However, their passion becomes overlaid with the rage they feel at the powerlessness of their position - our position. Our federal government - one of the worst we've ever had - keeps pounding away on our "recovering economy" - the most crucial issue of all, they tell us. They urge everyone on to greater riches through "resource development," and keep all other other issue on the back burner, including the erosion of democratic processes like free speech and the right to protest. Any oppositional view is labelled "radical," and therefore dangerous and 'to be avoided.'

Believe me, I can get really aroused about this, as more people in our deluded country need to, before we are irreparably damaged. BUT…I'm glad to be going on vacation in the wilds. Two weeks with no TV, no street lights to pollute the night sky, virtually no other people to interfere with movie watching, reading or walking! It all begins on Sunday evening. I'll keep you posted on the experience.

Vacation 101

Home from Ottawa, preparing for Grasslands National Park. Strange vacation this summer; two weeks in a teeming capital city, two weeks on the vast plains of southern Saskatchewan, star gazing, hiking, and enjpying the peace and quiet. Vacation has to be early this year because granddaughter Emma is arriving at the end of June to spend the two off-school months with us, working at her first job - Tim Horton's. Exciting for her - first time away from home for an extended period - and for us - first time a grandchild has chosen to live with us for a time. All in all, an exciting summer for us.

While in Ottawa, I had the opportunity to visit with all four grandsns who live in the Ottawa/Gatineau area. The younger boys, Danny and Nico, who live with their father, had dinner with me one evening, and shared time with me while I was being tattooed by another grandson, Diego. The younger boys spent two or three summer visits with us a few years ago. That ended when I wasn't able to bear the full cost of bringing them to us, and their father declined to assist in any way. It's unfortunate that relations between us are such that I am even unwelcome at their door. The boys, however, maintain a good relationship with us. Danny, 16, has expressed a desire to revisit Alberta in the future. I imagine when he is a bit more independent from his family.

Rapha and his partner Melissa had just moved into a new apartmemt in Ottawa, and I visited them there. Mel is lovely, but very shy and quiet. Their lives became complicated just after I saw them, as they have some major personal and financial decisions to make.

Time with Diego, the oldest grandson, was very pleasurable. He designed and applied a new tattoo for me. Time spent with him this way always produces deep conversation. It helps that he begins by telling me that he is "honoured" to be tattooing his grandfather. His brothers were interested spectators to this process. Later in the week, we had the exquisite pleasure of spening most of a day with Diego and his 3 year old daughter, Danyka. She is lively, verbal and a happy child. The day was spent at an animal park, where we actually got to feed animals in the open - young deer, ibexes, and elk. For the latter, we stayed in the car, and handed carrots out the window. My experience with elk in the past (in Banff), makes me highly leery of them. The wild pigs ate vitually anything handed to them or dropped on the road beside them.  Bison came right up to the car, but there was an instruction sign which forbade feeding them, so we looked at their huge heads through the window.

I have decidedly mixed feelings about such a park. Animals live in a protected area, apart from one another - even coyotes! But they become total panhandlers. The elk line the roadway like young street people in Victoria, mooching food all day. They even get in front of cars, so no one can move. And we aren't supposed to honk at them and startle them. With elk and bison, I cncur totally. A ticked off bison would be no fun to deal with, even inside a car!

But these animals are wild, but no longer wild, no longer able to hunt or even forage. The young deer, for exaple, allowed children to paw it and hug it while it ate. The boundaries were gone. And children could easily get the idea that this is how these wild animals are when they are in their normal habitat! That seems highly unsafe to me!

Despite all this, we had a great day with Danyka, who is a charmer and and a cutie. I took lots of pictures. The drive was long, however, as the park is roughly halfway between Ottawa and Montreal. We were all tired out by the time we reached Diego's home. Danyka was whimpering and hungry, and despite that, her dad, Diego, remained the most patient and supportive parent! I am amazed over and over again at the way in which he has matured, and takes responsibility for his child on the weekends when she is with him.

The Ottawa time povided good times with Jose and Jennifer as well. I had a couple of long and deep conversations with Jennifer that helped me connect with her in a differet way than prevuiously. We had a "Clint Eastwood Movie Night" whenever American Idol or Dancing with the Stars was not on TV! I got in two lovely bike rides, the second being marred by a crash caused by a spteep drop in the path and two obese ladies who filed the path and were the cause of my veering off and crashing. Some cuts and bruises remain my share of the trouble, and a "shakeup" long enough for me to walk the bike for the next kilometre or so.

Ottaw also provided wonderful walks and great coffee houses! I put many km on my legs, back and forth to the Parliament Building and the Byward Market. Lots of reading in coffee shops with brews of varying strength and flavour. I had a visit with Marg Uhrich and caught up on old times with her about home (Transcona) and Ottawa, where we lived from 1988 until 1990.

A lovely vacation. Let's see how different the next one is, and what reflections it produces in me!