The prairies

I spent a large portion of my growing up years on the prairies, in Saskatchewan for four years, and in Manitoba for six years, with another two years in the foothills of Alberta.  When I moved away, thirty plus years ago, I left a little bit of myself there, and I have never really felt whole since.

This summer, to celebrate our 30th anniversary, my husband and I decided to return to the prairies, where it all started for us.  We had an amazing, refreshing, nostalgic twelve days in Manitoba (including a weekend foray to Regina), spending time in the city, the country and the beautiful Riding Mountain National Park, with friends, family, and with each other. 

While we were there, I compiled a list of all the things I miss about Manitoba.  Some of these things do not in themselves make Manitoba different from other places, but the sum of them all is uniquely prairie. 

So here, without further ado, and in no particular order, is my list.

•    Ukrainian churches
•    Mennonite food
•    Stucco houses
•    Enormous old trees rising out of the fields, probably elm or oak...
•    Black, black earth
•    Brilliant yellow canola fields stretching literally as far as the eye can see













 


•    Ditto for wheat fields (at this time of the year, a gentle green, but slowly ripening to a soft golden colour)
•    Decent highways... the worst highways in Manitoba are still better than some of the best highways in the Maritimes
•    Watching an oncoming vehicle for 5 miles
•    Oceans of flax
•    The slightly skunkish smell of canola and the sweet smell of clover
•    Dusty gravel roads – and being able to watch a vehicle’s path by following the dust trails on the horizon
•    Crops we saw: flax, canola, wheat, barley, beans (soybeans?), sunflowers, potatoes, alfalfa, corn

•    Hutterites
•    Jackpines
•    Back alleys in the cities
•    Gophers and meadowlarks
•    Electrical sockets in parking lots for block heaters

•    Sloughs and bluffs
•    Fallow fields
•    Grain elevators (there are some old ones still standing)

•    Super long freight trains
•    Hawks.  Lots of hawks.  More hawks in two weeks than I see in a year in Sackville.
•    Wildflowers everywhere: clover, Indian paintbrush, wood lilies, anemone, prairie smoke, harebells, black eyed Susans, gallardia, and a gazillion others

•    One million dragonflies
•    Endless blue, blue skies... with the fluffiest white clouds.... that go on forever
•    Cities and towns that suddenly turn into wheat fields, and wheat fields that suddenly turn into cities and towns
•    Roads and streets that go north-south or east-west.  Most of the time, you can figure out where you are.
•    Riding Mountain National Park
•    Whiskey jacks

•    Oil pumps
•    Thunder and lightning
•    Summer evenings that last forever, with a sun that takes forever to set.  At 10:15 p.m. a week ago, the sky was still light.
•    Beaver dams
•    Driving through flat prairie, rolling hills with tree bluffs, and forest all in the same day

What I don’t miss:
•    Horseflies
•    Hornets/wasps
•    Ticks