DanOCan

It’s done.  Last day of vacation.  Tomorrow morning I will be waking to an alarm clock, adding my work email account back onto my phone, and start paying attention to the text messages telling me when services are down.  It’s back to endless meetings, dealing with some projects that don’t go anywhere and other projects that come straight out of left field and into production.  I even took a quick peek at my calendar to discover I have a budget meeting, scheduled after my normal quitting time no less.

For the last four weeks none of that has mattered.

The bulk of vacation was spent on the road.  Windshield time.  Countless miles.  Landscapes that varied from breathtaking to mind-numbing.  Endlessly scanning the radio for something that will help pass the time.  (How many years have I promised myself to get an iPod connection in the truck???)

“If I describe hiking in the mountains as ‘soul cleansing’ then driving dusty backroads is ‘soul liberating’.” 

It’s one of my favourite quotes.  It should be considering I said it.  There is another variation of driving that has an impact on the soul that also needs to be considered — the marathon.  Those times when the destination is the goal, not the journey.  When you are putting in hours and hours between stops.  When all you can do is make mental notes about the places you see whipping past at 110km/h hoping you can remember them long enough to file them away for future trips.

The difference between walking and hiking is simple:  When you walk, your mind wanders from subject to subject whereas when you hike your mind starts to narrow its focus to whatever is most important at that moment.  That focus gets sharper and sharper the longer you go.  Go long enough and eventually you end up focusing on the most basic instinct — survival itself.

Driving is similar.  Country road driving liberates the soul — it is allowed to go wherever it pleases.  You dream, you laugh, you explore everything “out there”.  But marathon driving isn’t about “out there”, it’s about “in here”.  Deep inside of you.  What matters to you at your very core.  It’s all about introspection not speculation.

I was very fortunate that in between bouts of marathon driving there was lots of time for other things, including some absolutely fantastic exploration time in Wisconsin.  I guess if I ever became eligible to work in the U.S. I think Oregon has some competition in terms of where I would live.  Easy access to the ocean might be great, but the land of Cheeseheads did something to me. 

This trip was about friends and family.  Chris is Shaunavon, the in-laws in Regina, Dale and Helen in Manitoba, Emily in Illinois.  Catching up with Graham and Maureen, our former Priddis neighbors now living in B.C., in Indiana. 

The trip was about rust and moss.  Lichen and stone.  Ticks.  Abandoned railcars on side tracks.  Concrete silos and the inability to find an ice cream shop in Baraboo on a Sunday.  The Forevertron, which today I can’t adequately describe other than to say “The normal rules don’t apply there — time seemed to lose all meaning.”  Rick’s White Light Diner — never seen the cook put his feet up on the counter and bring out a baseball bat to illustrate how he threatened a priest once.  From classic landmarks like Mount Rushmore to tacky roadside attractions like Carhenge.  Dirt roads to Interstates.

The trip was learning that commerical radio in Montana consists of both kinds of music:  country AND western.  (Nod to the Blues Brothers fans in the audience.) 

Three provinces, twelve states.  Hundreds of photos.  Memories and friendships to last a lifetime.  A renewed DanOCan who is more ready to experience life now than ever before.

Where do we go from here?  Only the road knows…

Wind at my back and the sun on my shoulders
Pushing me moving me a little bit closer
Sometime a little trust is just enough to take you there

I love this feeling of freedom running through my veins
Been too long at the crossroads waiting for the light to change
Even if it takes forever and I never find out where it goes
Heaven knows
I love this road

— “I Love this Road”, Emerson Drive (2009)

Dorothy and Cecil never knew each other but their lives are forever linked.  I don’t know the story of Dorothy and Cecil but I can certainly imagine it. 

What remains of Dorothy and Cecil are two child-sized graves sitting on the forlorn Saskatchewan prairie.  Cecil was born first, coming into the world in June of 1943.  He would only live for three shorts days before leaving this world forever.  One can only imagine that in those days, in this place, he didn’t get to see much of the world he was leaving behind.  Before his loving parents would have even had a chance to really know him, Cecil was gone.

Dorothy wouldn’t come along until a couple of years later, just a couple of weeks after Japan had surrendered in World War II.  Just as the world was entering a period of cautious optimism, I can imagine so were Dorothy’s parents.  Undoubtedly the death of Cecil would have planted seeds of doubt in their mind but they would have welcomed their new daughter with all the love a baby could want.

Sadly, it was not to be.  Just three weeks later Dorothy was gone as well.  Two babies in a little more than two years.

As I sit on the ground near these markers to take my photo, it isn’t hard to imagine the family gathering around this spot to put little Dorothy to rest,  The memories of Cecil would flood back to their minds as they clustered near his grave, just steps away. 

Cecil, who would have been the protective older brother in life is instead tasked with the responsibility of shepherding his little sister into the afterlife.  Their markers have stood beside each other for nearly seventy years.  They never knew met, they never knew the other existed, yet here they remain – linked together forever.

I don’t know the full story of Dorothy and Cecil.  As the years pass, the living memory of them grows ever more dim.  Are any of those who stood on this spot all those years ago still around to tell us?  Sitting here under the vast Saskatchewan sky, it’s almost as if the Shaw babies are able to tell their tale for themselves.

It has been a long time since I’ve had time to write anything.  We were exploring some road allowances south of Lloyd Lake tonight in the Jeep and I came across this view.  I thought it was post-worthy, just for some new content on the site. 

It’s a backroad I’ve traveled dozens of times in the past.  It’s a fairly straight stretch of blacktop that runs from Highway 22 at Hartell to Highway 2A just north of High River.  Straight as an arrow, it’s a pretty nondescript roadway.  I thought I had seen it all and there was nothing new to discover.

As we zipped along I made a passing remark about a series of trees planted along the south side of the road.  “There must have been a homestead there at one time; check out that windbreak.”

Then, I saw it.  Sitting at the back of the property through the trees I noticed a swing set.  Your standard A-frame swing set.  Rusty and alone. 

With a quick glance in the rearview mirror I slammed on the brakes and made a three point turn right in the middle of the highway.  As I turned down the grid road running beside the plot of land I saw the sign – a sign I had never noticed before.  “Former Site of Tongue Creek United Church 1916 – 1994.”

Grabbing the camera bag from the trunk I scanned the fence for the gate.  Before long I was tromping through the yellow prairie grass, still waiting for the warmth of Spring to come and turn it green.  Sure, I was looking for signs of a cemetery or a foundation or something tangible besides the sign to show me a church once stood here but my real goal was that swing set. 

I knelt down in the mud and clicked the shutter.  I repositioned and clicked again.  Then one more time.  Capturing the landscape but also connecting with the history.  Visions of children, dressed in their Sunday best, came to mind.  Children laughing and playing on that old swing set while nearby their parents stood visiting with their friends, casting the occasional glance to make sure the kids weren’t dirtying or tearing their clothes as kids are know to do.

Countless stories took place at this spot.  Secret crushes were revealed to friends, veiled under the vague promise of “Don’t you dare tell her!”  Teenagers hid back here to sneak a quick puff of a cigarette while comparing who had the fastest car.  Weddings.  Funerals.  Stories that are lost to the passage of time – except for that one brief moment when I was able to connect with them once again. 

Walking back to the car I couldn’t help but feeling pleased with this discovery.  That plain old backroad revealed something new to me after I thought I had seen it all.  Those are the moments that make this exploration worthwhile.

No, not some long lost love from junior high – Laura, Saskatchewan.

Dubbed by Mike Stobbs as “The Town That Leans”, Laura was home to a church with a noticeable tilt, along with a pretty badly broken spine.  It was one of those places I had driven past many times and I had even taken note of the interesting church since it was quite visible from the highway.  It wasn’t until the second Ghost Town Convention stopped by Laura that I actually had a chance to really check out the ole girl.  I’m glad I did too, for the church has since collapsed, presumably under its own weight.  The last time I drove by the only thing still intact was the steeple.

Laura wasn’t on my mind when I caught a glimpse of an old church sitting in the town of Aldersyde last Friday.  I made a note that I would have to investigate that church the next time I was passing by.

The Laura Lean, Saskatchewan Style

Well, “the next time” ended up being today.  I was northbound on Highway 2A and I decided I shouldn’t waste the opportunity.  A quick detour off the highway and soon I was parked across the road from your typical old prairie church.

The first three things I noted were the stained glass was intact on the west side, completely missing on the east.  Then I noticed all the rabbits.  It would appear the Aldersyde church is home to a ton of the furry creatures.  The third thing was the  property was marked with multiple signs warning people to stay away as the building had been deemed unsafe.  Unsafe?  Sure, every abandoned building is unsafe at some basic level. 

 The Laura Lean, Alberta Style

The I noticed the lean.  A distinct lean to the east, as it were.  It is as if the church is finally giving up after fighting the chinook winds which have hammered it from the west since it was erected.  Slowly but surely she is surrendering to the ravages of time, the inevitable increase in entropy which is the ultimate fate of anything which is left abandoned. 

As I drove away I wondered how many more times I will be able to drive along the highway and see her standing there.  I drove away thinking of Laura.