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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-12-14, Page 5a Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1994. PAGE 5. 11 What springs to mind when someone says ‘Prairies’? Question time, sodbusters: what’s the first word that springs to mind when somebody mentions ’Canadian prairies'? Lots of possibilities. If you've ever driven off a prairie road and found your car up to its leaf springs in a dark brown goop with a consistency somewhere between molasses and Portland cement - the word 'gumbo' might sum up the Prairie experience for you. For others, the word 'grasslands' might do it - although it's a pretty wussy word to describe the billowing, endless ocean of green and yellow that stretches from horizon to horizon and beyond. Some folks think 'gophers' when they think of our west. Or maybe 'sunsets' (sub­ section: spectacular). For me, it's elevators. Those austere and elegant wooden highrises that have dotted the Prairies for more than a century. Sometimes, driving across the Prairies, a grain elevator is all you can see. And you see it for hours, rearing up out of the flatlands, just up the road apiece, tantalizing you. It's amazing how long you can see a Prairie elevator before you reach it. The first ones went up in the 1880s. They 11International Scene Short cut through U.S.A. I recently had some business to attend to north of Sault Ste. Marie and decided that the easiest way to get there would be to drive. However, I found myself frustrated when the Ontario Northland Railway adamantly refused to take the Chi-Cheemaun out of the harbour in Owen Sound to ferry me across to Manitoulin Island from where I could drive to my destination. I reluctantly admitted that the quickest way there was not by slaying in Canada all the trip, but to go by way of the United States. It turned out to be very much a time­ saver and for those who might like to drive out west from southern Ontario and how are in something of a hurry, I will tell you of my experience. If you arc going to enter the States by way of Windsor, the best thing to do is to pick up No. 75 highway and stay on it all the way to Sauli Sic. Marie. If you arc going by way of Samia/Pori Huron, go over the bridge, keep on No. 94 for a couple of miles until you sec the lum-off to Flint No. 69. For the next hour or so you will sec very little traffic and nothing much of anything to look at but eventually you will gel there. To go around Flint, turn north on to No. 475 which is the Flint Bypass. Ten minutes or so will bring you to No. 75 North and you arc now on the way north for the rest of the trip. The traffic is rather heavy from Flint to Saginaw/Bay City but do not worry since anything you encounter will be a real improvement over 401 which to me is becoming something of a nightmare with all the trucks. After Bay City the traffic clears out and were convenient places to store wheat crops along the railway lines. All the farmers in a district would haul their grain down to the elevator and 'pool' it with their neighbour's crops. Pretty soon a general store would go up, then a livery and maybe a cafe. Before long a little cluster of buildings were hunkered down around the elevator. How many Prairie towns were seeded that way? Hundreds, perhaps thousands. They didn't all become big or even middling places, but they were there. People farmed and fought and prayed and played and loved and lived and died in those tiny settlements. And none of that would have happened without the elevator. I visited one such town last summer - Piapot, in Saskatchewan. Piapot is just off the Trans-Canada Highway, roughly half­ way between Swift Current and Medicine Hat, Alberta. It's a wonderful town, full of characters who look and act like they walked straight out of a W.O. Mitchell novel. It's a fascinating town, but it's dying. It thrived back in the middle years of the century. Now, the population has shrivelled to 43 - many of them oldtimers planning to leave for a town with a doctor when their health starts to fail. Trouble is, there’s not much to do in Piapot, now that the train doesn't stop there any more. Next year, another nail in the coffm. The Piapot grain elevator is scheduled to close. It's a depressingly familiar story on the By Raymond Canon you will be able to maintain a steady speed of about 110 km per hour. If you like trees you will really enjoy this stretch. I counted 5,463,745 1/2 of them and I probably missed a few. I passed the time when not counting trees by listening to my cassette tapes which I had brought along for the purpose of writing the Great Canadian novel in my head. There are a few oddities. Highway officials are obviously death on litterers since every so often there is a sign urging you to report any culprits. They even provide you with a telephone number 1-800- 44-TRASH. Not wanting to spend the night in some American version of a jail, I wisely refrained from throwing even one idle thought out the window. Then again there were signs advising you not to pick up hitchhikers since there was a correctional institute in the vicinity. Judging from the number of signs, Northern Michigan is a favourite place to lock up offenders. I must say that the highway is good. It has a paved shoulder on each side and it is virtually impossible to be hit by a car crossing the median as has been the case along stretches of the 401. The north and south roads are built quite far apart with copious number of trees preventing any wandering car from going more than a short distance in the direction of oncoming traffic. When there are no trees, there are frequently deep ditches which would overturn any vehicle. To me the only really scenic portion of the trip was the long bridge at the Straits of Mackinac where Lakes Huron and Michigan come together. It is obvious that in the summer the whole area caters to tourists although in the late fall most things arc shut down. The price for crossing the bridge is a pleasant surprise $1.50 U.S. since it is far Prairies these days. There's a contractor by the name of Don Wilcox who has spent the past 15 years pulling down grain elevators all across Saskatchewan. It wasn’t Don's idea - the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool hired him to do it. Saskatchewan wheat farmers are consolidating - moving their crops into huge centralized concrete bunkers that can hold 100 times the volume of those rickety old wooden elevators. The new structures aren't called elevators. They're called Marketing Centres. It's progress - but it's death for the old style elevators, and death for the communities that flourished around them. So far, Don Wilcox and his demolition crew have felled nearly a thousand wooden elevators across Saskatchewan. They expect to have the species fully exterminated in the next five or six years. A few will survive, preserved as tourist attractions, souvenir shops, or funky little Chamber of Commerce offices. Maybe some entrepreneur will tart them up and sell some of them off as weekend retreats for Yuppie lawyers from Regina and Moose Jaw and Winnipeg. The poet A. M. Klein wrote a poem about a grain elevator once. Up... it rises blind and Babylonian like something out of legend. That's what our Prairie elevators have become alright - something out of legend. I wonder if anybody will ever write a poem about the new Prairie Marketing Centres? longer than the one at Port Huron or Detroit. After you have the bridge behind you, it is only about an hour until you come to another bridge (also $1.50) that takes you from the U.S. right downtown in Sault Ste. Marie and you are back in Canada. On your left you can see the giant Algoma Steel mill of which Ontario taxpayers own part. On the right are the locks for the freighters to go between Lakes Huron and Superior. Actually the locks are on the American side of the border but who cares at this point. I concluded that this must be a favourite route for truckers from western Canada since I saw a considerable number from Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It is nice to see a Canadian licence plate every now and again. The time? It took me six hours from Samia to Sault Ste. Marie with slops for gas and coffee. Incidentally buy gas south of the bridge at Mackinac. It goes up 6 - 7 cents from there to the border. After your arrival at the border it is only 700 kms to Thunder Bay but you are on a two-lane highway so count on a longer time. I got my work done and came back the same way with almost the same lime period. I didn't bother counting the trees on the way back. You can if you want and let me know how close you arc to my figure. You can also let me know where you see the sign that tells you that you are precisely half way between the equator and the North Pole. All I can remember is that, if it were in Ontario, it would be half-way between Tobermory and Wiarlon. Support local merchants Shop at home The Short nf if By Bonnie Gropp For posterior’s sake There are some things better not recorded for posterior's — er, rather posterity's sake. This past week I was busy making the rounds of our area schools covering their annual Christmas concerts. Always an enjoyable task, it is however, just one more thing that has gotten a little trickier with age. I first began running around with a camera in the late 80s, when keeping down in front was not as difficult as it is today. Now, as I duckwalk to the front of the hall or auditorium, doing my best to be discreet, I am uncertain, not only whether I will make it, but whether I will, when finished, be able to stand upright again. And with the recent popularity of video cameras, as parents attempt to record this picture perfect event for a keepsake, keeping low to the ground has become imperative. Unfortunately, it is not something I am always successful at. I will, therefore, take this opportunity to apologize to all the parents on whose video tape has been preserved for posterity my posterior. Our household does not own a camcorder, something I regret a bit, because though we do take a lot of pictures, there are just some memorable moments best caught in motion. My first introduction to live photography was through my brother-in-law, a camera buff by any description. Every visit, every occasion was recorded, often to the chagrin of his subjects. As a 10-year-old ham I was seldom reluctant to appear on camera, actually taking great pleasure in mugging and not at all embarrassed to see my image projected on screen. But, there were those less enthusiastic, who inevitably put on more of a show, cowering in comers and covering their faces when Jim came zooming in on them. The old joke about being forced to sit through someone's home movies was never a problem for me either. I was fascinated to see people I knew up on screen, even though it was just in the living room. And when things got dull, a little bit of rewinding could always be counted on to bring some giggles. While this ritual provided much family amusement for awhile, there did eventually come a time, a couple of decades ago when it seemed home movies had become passd, and as camcorders were not as yet a household name, family events were captured by the 35 mm. Then a few years ago my brother-in-law transferred his home movies onto video and I once again joined my family in the living room to watch — this time as a grown up-with my children. What happened was interesting. Thanks to an aunt, who spent many hours sorting and filing, there are many old pictures of me at home, but seeing their mom as a living, breathing, moving and mouthy youngster was a different experience for my kids. Resemblances were more obvious — we certainly realized where our one offspring got her energy, believe it not — and memories were vivid for those of us who were part of those scenes. While a picture may paint a thousand words, live film defines a personality. Seeing how someone walks and behaves or hearing them speak gives the best insight into who they arc and who they were. Now, when J see parents capturing a moment in their children's history I can't help being just a bit envious. These arc keepsakes for the entire family that will bring a lifetime of pleasure. And when you’re watching in years to come please try to forget whose backside it was that ruined your shot.