I’ve been away most of the day – dog show in North Battleford. I took a winding country highway, a favourite route this time of year. There is no good way to describe prairie light and colour, but some of these come close.
The route from Asquith to Maymont winds through farm country that has never seen prosperous times. Rocky, alkali, and frequent drought. But it’s a photographer’s dream – a lot of ambandoned farmsteads and wildlife. I tried four times to capture a pronghorn I encountered, but he was a little too far away to register on the digital camera. Saw the first meadowlark, lots of ducks and Canada geese.
The church parking lot at Arelee was full of cars. You’d never know that this old church was still in operation, driving by any other day of the week. It sits at the edge of town in a wooded, overgrown lot. The town, obviously, isn’t, though a handful of people still live there. Quite typical of the hundreds of small villages that once dotted the province.
The ice is still coming off the rivers – this is from the Maymont bridge.
Hope you enjoyed this little slice of back road Saskatchewan. Not all farming areas are this desolate, but it’s not atypical, either.
I’ve put the full sized images in the extended entry to save bandwidth. They are worth checking out. The thumbnails don’t really display the full colors – and these are true, not photoshop enhanced.
Kate – Thank you for these..My Dad grew up in Bangor, just off Hwy 9 bet Whitewood & Yorkton. My Dad’s family owned the general store – moved there in the 20s when it looked like it might beocme a divisional point for the CNR. That didn’t happen & the rest is history. My Dad left in the 30s and never went back, although my uncle stayed in Yorkton.
I saw Bangor in 95 while driving cross-country. About 75 people left (1000 at the height) – small old folks’ home is the only business in town, one derelict silo, lovely old empty brick school and one-sheet curling shed. The store still exists, sort of – opens one day a week & is the post office. Lots of empty houses. The inventor & entrpreneur George Morris was from there & personally ensured Hwy 22 remained paved (more or less) bet Bangor and the main Hay 9. Hw also paid for the old folks’ home.
There is a sad beauty in the emptying of Sask, and I sometimes daydream of what Bangor and other towns might have become. But half the folks there keep voting for the NDP and everyone else -especially today’s & tomorrow’s George Morrises, moves to Alberta, so these will just remain dreams…
Thanks for posting these pictures… I grew up in Saskatchewan (south-east corner) and now live in the heart of Montreal. This is my first year in university here, and I only get to make it home twice a year (Christmas and summer) so I really miss all of the in-between times. And unfortunately not enough people seem to appreciate the stark beauty that the province has to offer.
It’s odd, but how many other provinces (excepting maybe Newfoundland) would have an election where one of the campaign promises is to increase the population? However, it is a sad fact that not everything is available in-province, in much the same way that not everything is available in small towns. Maybe there’s a parallel between the dwindling of small prairie towns and the dwindling of the province itself…
Anyway, thanks again!
Ran across this site by accident. I was born in Arelee in 1935. We left there in 1949. How well I remember all the buildings shown. What a shame that all these small towns have died away, as they truly were the Spirit of Saskatchewan.
Thanks a lot for a trip down memory lane.
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