Jottings West, Day 4

March 19th, Portage La Prairie 

I left Winnipeg far too late in the morning for any sort of sight seeing, due to a combination of miscommunication, and several rounds of competitive Euchre the night before (my partner was not pleased with me, even though he was polite enough to hold back outward frustration). It was warm. I thought about what this cooling Spring weather would have meant in an earlier time, for those warm-blooded fur traders starting a trip from the Winnipeg forks, and up the Assiniboine river. Once the ice began to melt, and the waters re-commenced in steady flow, the highways of the pre-modern world turned on. Living and dying by the seasons, spring was a time of excitement, of new challenges, adventures and possibilities.

{The Red River system, eventually flowing into Hudson's Bay}

There was a sense of shame entering a town named ‘Portage la Prairie’ by car. It is believed the town derives its French name from the practice of portaging from the settlement up to Lake Manitoba, around 25 kilometres north (a very long way to portage for those of weaker fortitude!). But here goes me, “three centuries thereafter, taking passage over land”. In my car, I am virtually unbounded by natural restraints, making it all but impossible to understand and sympathize with the conscience of those who came before. The freeing of energies away from basic survival tasks has revolutionized our day to day lives, and in the process, cut us off from how people acted and thought in previous eras. 

{Not far away from the geographic Centre of Canada}

After passing the border into Saskatchewan, I stopped to take a look at the map. My destination for the evening was still a ways Northwest. So, I hopped on a Northbound highway, number 9. For the first few minutes, the site in front of me hadn't really changed. “Oh Saskatchewan”, I thought to myself, “a land to look on forever into the distance”. This is what the stereotype had told me, and, having only ever dashed through the province on a tight time constraint, I believed it, at least for the lands south of the Boreal Forests. 

Then it happened. Suddenly my sight ahead was of a curving road sloped downwards, dipping beneath the grassy hill. I got closer and closer, until I was in a place that I could hardly believe existed around these parts: a depression.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I had just entered the one and only, Qu’Appelle Valley. After reaching a low point, I stopped for several minutes to catch my breath, and admire. I knew I had happened upon somewhere quite special.

My eyes fell back into a comfortable part of their sockets, as after a shortened sleep the night before, it took real beauty like this to win back my rest. Yellowish, grassy mountains stood tall alongside both sides of the Qu’Appelle river, leading to Round Lake. But what I was about to learn still, was that this valley goes on, and on, and on, and on! I must have passed over a thousand deer driving along the side highway 247, looking up and around at the landscape uncontrollably while also wishing to avoid hitting dead. And kids! There are houses here too! Villages worth!

No words can quite describe the feeling of seeing a particular disfigured, yet proudly standing, hill north of the river. A rock garden in the shape of an eagle catching a worm had been crafted on its lower levels. I decided to climb to the top. 

Everything must come to an end, however, and the Qu’Appelle Valley does not go on forever. Just as fast as I had entered, a single turn led me out, back upon flat prairie like it had all been a dream…