Overwhelmed by Space
A visit to Saskatchewan
Recently I spent several days in a small portion of Saskatchewan and felt overwhelmed by the size of the province, and in turn by the size of Canada. I landed in Regina, rented a car, and spent some time driving through the open countryside south of Regina and on to Moose Jaw. When I look at the map, I didn’t cover that much territory but it is in sharp contrast to British Columbia, where I now call home. BC has so many mountain ranges that a great deal of the land cannot be farmed or built on. Here in the prairies there was unending land. Roads were generous and wide.
Perhaps because I was born in Prince Edward Island and lived there for the first 10 years of my life, I’ve always been aware that all places in Canada do not feel the same. My main impression from those early years on a potato/dairy farm is one of isolation. I had three younger brothers and no close neighbours (Canadian spelling). Living on a farm means there will always be a great deal of space between your farm and the next one. But in Saskatchewan this was magnified. I could not see any more than one group of farm buildings at a time. The sense of space was hard to describe.
A little community might have a school, a church, and a gas station along with several houses, and maybe a grain elevator. I thought of winters on the prairies and of young people growing up on those farms. I didn’t see any high schools so never had a sense of how far kids would be bussed to school.
Most of the farms I saw were growing crops, not raising cattle. It seemed strange to see fields without fences. When I travel outside the lower mainland in British Columbia, there are many fences as well as power lines or telephone poles running along side the roads.
I did a bit of checking on Google and was reminded that Canada’s land mass is slightly larger than that of the USA. I’ll include some other land size comparisons just for fun:
Saskatchewan is 651,900 sq. km in size.
Spain is 506,030 sq. km.
Texas is 695,662 sq. km.
France is 551,695 sq. km.
New Zealand is 268,021 sq. km.
The United Kingdom is only 243,610 sq. km.
The space made it difficult to comprehend distances. The sky seemed immense as well. I could encounter a short cloud burst with more threatening clouds but if I looked out to the south, there might be sunshine and clear skies. To the north, I’d find yet a different configuration of clouds. Sky, it seemed, was everywhere. In many parts of British Columbia, the road curves around mountains and the road is lined with trees. The sky is reduced to a small space directly in front of the car or a glimpse of sky over the top of the mountains which are also covered with trees. Many, many trees, much less visible sky.
The sky holds no secrets here. You don’t need to listen to a forecast to know a thunder storm is brewing.
As I drove on secondary roads through farm country, I couldn’t help thinking back to my childhood, and on to Nova Scotia where I finished high school before moving west. People from different parts of the country are not all the same. It is impossible for us to be. The many farmers and other self-employed people across the country are going to think about life differently than people who work for large corporations or the federal government. Children who are bussed to high school and attend 4H clubs are going to have very different experiences than kids brought up in large cities. And in those large cities, it will make a difference if they grow up in a struggling neighbourhood or one where most parents have good jobs.
The population of the entire province of Saskatchewan is just over one million people. The population of Surrey, British Columbia, where I live, is just over half a million people. We have more than 70,000 students in our Surrey schools.
Small towns, fishing villages, farms, large urban areas, Canada is a huge country. Each part has its own beauty. I have friends who have traveled from coast to coast, an epic vacation. I have also been across Canada several times but this is the first time I’ve spent a few days in Saskatchewan. Northern Saskatchewan, I’m told, is mostly trees and small lakes. It is always an adventure to explore different parts of Canada, and that part will have to wait for another year. I’d encourage everyone to become fully acquainted with our country.