The word around here is that most tourists never get off highway 1 long enough to see the real Saskatchewan.  I had the good fortune of being coerced 2 hours south of the Trans Canada highway, for some free meals and a bed to sleep in, all at the family home of two people I have never even met.  The hospitality that I have come to expect all over the world certainly can be expected in places like Claydon, Saskatchewan.  You can look it up on a map, but you may not find it; small town values and lifestyle isn’t prominent in our maps, but it still is in our culture. 

Everyone comments that when driving across the Prairies you get an awesome feeling of how flat it is, and the vastness of space along the horizon; I concur.  A more self centered perspective would be our own sense of smallness that is so overwhelming.  Besides the size differential, I am also influenced by an impending sense of remorse; it is evident that many of these prairie towns are coming to a gradual end.  Very much like our rural farming families in Ontario, many of the younger generation are not as attracted to farming as a way of living here.  That problem is intensified by the sheer size of the operations and commitment needed here.

The great wide open plains here were first severed by the railway that was laid stretched across the country following confederation over a century ago.  The distribution of the towns and communities was, and still is, based on the most efficient way to transport, cereal grains out, and supplies back in.  Traditional geographical meeting points throughout the west were always fixed, but the railroad was backbone for an emerging nation.  In almost all cases those rail lines run straight as an arrow.  It is a very efficient system.

Once again I have the good fortune to be sitting, talking, and imposing on a local family, that has owned and worked their stamp of land for almost 50 years.  I have visited some farms in Ontario, but nothing had prepared me for this.  They have a rail line that cuts across the back of their property.  Standing on the tracks behind the house, Dave gave me a quick visual tour of the property.  The rail line extends straight east and west as far as the eye can see, it is all his.  Then, looking straight north and south, it is all his property again.  With a full 360 degree panorama, the McCleod’s own everything as far as the eye can see.  The tracks are still used today to carry goods in and out.  The local grain elevator burned down in the 1990's.  The family’s machinery graveyard on the other side of the tracks would be comparable with an agricultural museum back home, complete with a half century old abandoned farmhouse and real cattle for effect.  The investment in equipment here must be unimaginable.  Most impressive of all is that this whole operation is run by one man and his wife, who still have time to cook me a great steak and play tour guide to my every wish and whim.

The investment, the lifestyle, and the effort of a prairie farm does not seem attractive enough to the younger generation.  Many of them are choosing to leave.  The face of the prairie is about to change, possible forever.  Many of the operations are now expanding, as investment, and controlling interests from big corporations.  Consolidating smaller interests for greater efficiency is not a new idea here.  Everything that comes out of the ground then goes to the Canadian Wheat Board, it has negotiated the price of wheat and the lives of these families for numerous generations.  The massive corporations that own and operate the majority of farms today is just another example of a middle man stepping in and taking control away from the homesteaders.  I definitely want someone to check my facts with this statement, but allegedly the farmers get only about four cents from each loaf of bread sold.  Transportation of the goods eats up a large share of the profits.  Many local communities took a larger stake in their own transportation expensive by building and operating local Co-op rail lines.  The line through Claydon is an example of such.

Besides the transportation issues, some towns here have also invested in the evolving technology of farming.  We visited the Honey Bee Combine factory in Frontier.  They employee about 200 people and ship their products as far away at Russia, Australia and Germany.  My only previous experience with harvesting grain was with a mortar and pestle in my history classroom.  Honey Bee leans towards the other end of the technology spectrum.  We toured the factory here that designs and builds up to 52 foot long grain belt harvesters.  The latest design has swivel runners to read and react to the uneven contours of the land.  As the song says, ‘the times, they are a changing’.  The cost of purchasing this new equipment related to the complexity of maintaining it is staggering.

I was also here to have fun.  This is not a big city to get lost and wander around and in, just wide open space for play.  I was offered either the horse, or the quad runner, for my exploring.  I have had too many dodgy experiences with horses in the past, so the quad runner seemed the best mode of travel.  What could be more fun that racing a four-wheeler around the wide open on the Prairies, chasing the sunset, and maybe some adventure?  Adventure I found.  I have never before experienced charging down Prairie dogs along dirt trails.  For the first time I raced birds in flight along miles of barb wire fencing.  Like every city boy in the first time in the country for the first time, I corralled   the cows into the far corner of the field.  It was my first chance to practice the safari driving and photography skills I studied in South Africa many summers ago.  I was feeling pretty invincible!  We all know where the story is headed now.  Full of confidence and enthusiasm, I drove down the narrow side of the railway lines to get a photo.  Coming back, the sun had set and I ended up sliding down that slippery slope and dumping the quad runner into the drink.  I had to make that long, and lonely, walk along the tracks back to the farm.

How would you react, when some kid from Ontario shows up at your door in the middle of the night, eats your food, sleeps in your basement, and then drives your four-wheeler into the pond; all within the first 24 hours of you meeting him?  I think Dave took it pretty well.  The family is in a good mood since their daughter is marrying a elementary school friend of mine in a week.  I think owe him a few beers at the wedding.  Dave’s friend, Ken, and he get the opportunity to share a few laughs at my expense from then on.   I am sure it is not the first time they towed out a vehicle out a tough spot.  I was the only one to grab some gloves from the barn when we were organizing a rescue party.  Dave and Ken did all the rescuing once we got the tractor backed up for a tow.  I think my part in the plan was to provide comic relief.  There is something incredible good natured about the attitudes of the people here; I hope it lasts.