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Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
One morning last September I drove from my city home into the countryside. After parking in an empty lot beside a small rural church, I set out down a gravel road, a new one to me. I walked past farms and acreages but the surrounding land was mostly wild. The sun warmed my back. I smelled grass and sage in the dry air. Only grasshopper chirps and the crunch of my footsteps broke the still silence. The quiet felt luxurious.
Curiosity drove my footsteps. I wanted to discover what was beyond the next coulee or over that distant ridge. Old, abandoned farmsteads far outnumbered active ones. In one corral I passed, a lone horse, brown with white patches, lazily swished its tail. With no humans in sight, I was alone in the proverbial middle of nowhere. Rural Saskatchewan. Flyover country.
I was also in Canada’s sunniest province. Sunlit land stretched off in all directions. As far as I could see it was a patchwork of straw-coloured cropland, treed ridges and rolling green hills. Distant pastures were dappled with cloud shadows. The sky dominated even this bold geography. A galactic bright blue dome, it loomed above, an overwhelming physical presence. The scene begged for a visit from a landscape painter.
My walk that morning had its surprises. One came in the shape of a large, pale grey-brown coyote. It emerged from some brush to cross my road. Fearless, open-jawed and baring its teeth, it eyed me sideways while it slinked past without a missed step. Next a pair of deer bolted from a nearby bluff. Panicked by my presence, they leapt and bounced off, their soft tan coats set off by tails they waved aloft like white flags.
This area – like much of this province – was a birdwatcher’s paradise. I constantly eyed some species or other. On other walks I’ve seen everything from bluebirds and crow-sized woodpeckers to pelicans and circling vultures. This day a lone hawk floated above a pasture, hunting for gophers. Mallard ducks lifted off of sloughs and gulls flitted past at regular intervals. At my approach a half dozen partridges exploded off the ground into flight.
I love my walks down random Saskatchewan byroads. They began years ago as a convenient substitute for wilderness hikes. In time I discovered they offered their own brand of adventure and discovery. My rambles through these lonely plains gave me a sense of freedom I didn’t find anywhere else.
They also delivered a special buzz. A cozy, nostalgic yesteryear feel pervades Saskatchewan’s countryside. It’s a place to find a vintage tractor or plough sleeping in some tall grass. One remnant farmyard I walked past was an intact, preserved relic from horse-drawn days. Even though no one could have lived there for 30 years, the yard was still enclosed within a caragana hedge and ringed with trim grass.
Its humble, unpainted farmhouse, set among a few stunted elms, had tiny windows, weathered wood roof shingles and a plain plank front door. Privation spoke from each rough-hewn board of its leaning, weather-beaten barn and sagging granaries. A small family cemetery finished the picture.
Canada’s Prairies are perceived to be flat and boring, devoid of any interest in their unremitting sameness. Few serious hikers would consider walking them. Most would laugh at the suggestion. Maybe it’s an acquired taste to stare down 20 kilometres of gravel road and think, “I want to explore this. On foot.” Still, as a tramping ground, Saskatchewan is underrated. I’ve trekked in Africa, Asia and Mexico, the Alberta Rockies and Vancouver Island. My heart still leaps each time I begin a stroll through these sun-soaked open spaces.
So this spring will find me exploring new backroads to the sound of red-winged blackbirds and meadowlarks. I’ll smell wild roses and watch filtered sunlight seep through moody mauve and pearl-grey cloud banks. Garter snakes, mule deer and badgers will show up. I’ll witness barnyard episodes like a tiny young donkey chasing a skulking red fox from its corral.
Come summer, mirages and heat hazes will shimmer above my roads. Ripening canola will add brilliant yellow to the countryside’s colour palette. My hikes in the burning Prairie heat, beneath mountain ranges of cumulus clouds will deliver a serious fitness challenge. I’ll end each baked and woozy yet oddly satisfied and recharged.
In autumn, I’ll witness the drama of a million migrating snow geese appear in the distance like pepper sprinkled across the northern horizon.
Near the end of that September morning walk no flocks filled the sky. I paused to watch just a single, solitary bird soar above me. The unhurried bald eagle floated past, its white head and tail set off by the brilliant blue. Wild and beautiful, it seemed a fitting symbol of flyover country.
Byron Jenkins lives in Saskatoon.
