The road from Toronto to Jasper goes on forever, and mostly in a straight line. It makes you believe in the possibility of a flat earth, and I find myself watching the horizon fearfully In case we should tumble off the edge. And yet I know it is really a long. lazy curve meandering for mile upon mile along the rim of a vast, wintry lake, then sailing on, graceful as a galleon, across endless oceans of wind-tossed wheat and bright yellow canola, through Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Daunted by the distance, we weigh anchor at Portage La Prairie, where my grandmother’s cousin and her husband welcome their foreign cousins with incredible warmth and generosity. Their log cabin farm house has a ship’s wheel above the fireplace. We find this rather strange considering we must be further from the sea than almost any place on earth. It is only later – thirty years later – that we realize that Lake Manitoba – a vast inland sea – lies only 40 miles north. Meanwhile, the house is ankle-deep in shag-pile carpets, to mirror the sea of crops that stretch to the horizon in every direction. I wade through waves of pastel pink, lemon yellow and lilac, and gather my strength for the next long haul across the Canadian prairies, a northern Nullabor, bereft of trees and hills, on and on and on under vast blue skies…
… until the earth begins to rise before us like a stirring giant, and the Rockies erupt violently from the land, ragged and tree-laden, scarring the beige landscape with angles and peaks and colour and cloud, and at last we are back on dry land.
Have I mentioned that we drove across Canada many years ago, in a large avocado-coloured car with a small baby on the back seat? The boot (trunk) was laden with ridiculous amounts of paraphernalia for such a small person, including a pink washing up bowl she used as a bath. It was a long, long, long, long drive.
This time we are flying. (With no babies!) Yet, even by air, we see mile upon mile of prairies, covered by canola and low-lying grassland that turns swampy when wet. These vast plains are also responsible for 80% of Canada’s agricultural production, which has replaced virtually all the tall grass prairies in the region. And yet again, the distance has been relieved by some wonderfully hospitable relatives, wherever we touch down.
Winnipeg – perhaps a little short sightedly – is built on a flood plain. Today, a canal or floodway loops around the edge of the city like a giant moat, designed to prevent severe flooding along the Red River and Assiniboine River basins, as happened during the spring of 1950. Heavy snow melt caused the Red River to reach flood levels in Winnipeg by April 22. A fortnight later, unusually heavy rainfall caused the river to rise over 9 metres (30 feet), and remain at flood level for 51 days. ‘Duff’s Ditch’ as it was nicknamed by critics, cost millions, and moved more earth than the Suez Canal. However, it did not prevent further flood damage in 1997. So, in 2010, the government increased the capacity of the floodway. (Perhaps they should have considered moving the city to higher ground – it might have been cheaper!) As we experience a number of summer thunderstorms, I find myself looking about for sandbags.
The other thing to look out for – and there are signs everywhere – are the white-tailed deer. These are not native to the Canadian prairies, but migrated north from America, ignorant of passport control or customs. It seems they are also ignorant of road rules, so will often dash across in front of cars at dawn and dusk. According to Wikipedia, the earliest account of white-tailed deer in Manitoba was in 1881 along the Rivière-Rouge Red River – close to the border with Minnesota. (That must have been the one we saw, on our last night in Winnipeg, just near the Rivière-Rouge, as we were returning to our rural B&B after dark.) Apparently, the native mule deer are larger, but they prefer arid, rocky environments and they also prefer to sty away from humans, who are often bearing guns. Unfortunately, we were also in the wrong part of the state to spot an antelope, as these only grow further west, around the border with Alberta – which is a shame, as they look rather pretty in the photographs.
Once upon a time, the huge lakes north of Winnipeg covered most of the state and were home to the mosasaur – a marine dinosaur with a hinged jaw that could presumably swallow Jonah and his whale in a single gulp. Now they have become as legendary as the Loch Ness Monster to the Manitobans. Needless to say, we didn’t see one of these either.
We spend a sultry afternoon by the lake, however, watching dogs and kids splash through the shallow waters, trying to imagine this stretch of water turned to ice, the countryside, now lush and green, deep in snow, ice crystals frosting the windows. Now, Gin & Orange on the deck keep us cool, if slightly sozzled, oblivious to the bites of some vicious, unrecognizable insects. Better than a mosasaur bite at least!
To a girl from an almost waterless state, such an abundance of fresh water is almost overwhelming. Even the Crescent Lake in Portage la Prairie – an oxbow lake once a sharp bend in in the Assiniboine river – seems like a generous stretch, though locals consider it no more than a puddle. Similarly, an attractive housing estate to the west of Winnipeg is situated around a serpentine lake with walking paths, and the option to skate across it in winter.
We drive out to Burnside, where the shag pile carpets once grew, and find an old family homestead down a dirt road, squatting above the unromantically named Rat Creek. It wanders through a block of poor agricultural land, once sold to an ignorant pioneer who was eager to build his own kingdom reminiscent of the landed English manor houses from a rapidly vanishing empirical era. Today, the 640 acres has shrunk to a more manageable size for a hobby farm, its remaining fields better used for horses than crops, the rather grand house renovated to suit a modern family – although family legend suggests it was ahead of its time even in 1905, with electricity from a generator and hot running water from a cistern in the attic. One cousin recalls his father describing how the house could be all lit up like a Christmas tree with electric lights, when every other farmhouse in the district ran on candlelight. We chat to the new owners, take some photos, and head back to the highway.
Flying west again, we take a prop plane to Regina. The capital of Saskatchewan was once known as Wascana – in my humble opinion a much better name than one to rhyme with female genitalia. Nonetheless, it is a very pleasant city of moderate size (pop.250,000), full of parks and leafy trees and open spaces. There is a long, manmade lake shaped like a leafy sea dragon where the kids can canoe and the Canada geese gather in abundant profusion. Regina is considerably drier than Winnipeg, where we found the air as heavy and steamy as if it were on the equator. It seems a tad unreasonable that such oppressive heat keeps the locals inside as surely as the long, dark, snow-filled days of winter.
Here in Regina, however, an evening walk through the tree-lined streets is a joy, and we admire the unfenced front yards, the weatherboard houses, the Canadians basement rooms. (Why did we never think to make that a standard addition to our Australian houses?) Later, we sit comfortably on the veranda as the sun sets, with a cup of tea, watching the jack rabbits laze fearlessly on the lawn – at least until the interminable biting insects start using our limbs as dart boards.
And then it is time for another airport, another airplane heading west. Our next flight will carry us over the Rockies and down to Lower Mainland BC…
*Photos of artwork from WAG-Qaumajuq in Winnipeg, a fascintating gallery shaped like a slice of cake, taken by the One & Only.