Jottings West, Day 6

March 21st, Buffalo 

The man at the Gas Station stared former Prime Minister Mackenzie King up and down and straight in the eye. “Do you often get fake bank notes”, I asked him, wondering why he was so skeptical of my $50 dollar bill. “All the time”, he said. “I have to check every one”. After filling up my tank, and being cleared of any suspicions of currency fraud, I rushed out of the city, eager to visit a friend to the west. 

Leading up to its provincial ascendency alongside Alberta in 1905, a bid to merge the soon to be prairie governments into a single ‘Province of Buffalo’ gained momentum, which, if successful, would have led to Saskatchewan, Alberta, and parts of the Northwest Territories united as a single Province. The reasons for doing so revolved around increasing the capabilities of the would-be provincial government, exciting the ambitions of frontier leaders of the era, but scaring Ottawa, who had been engaged in a prolonged struggle with Ontario over competing spheres of jurisdiction and influence since virtually the moment the British North American Act was signed. A united Province of Buffalo would surely make their own, damaging demands. 

For many decades following Confederation, the Northwest Territories (including what is today Saskatchewan) were regarded as a frontier, where crafty, imaginative and daring people from a variety of areas and disciplines would flock for a new life, often leaving everything they had in places formerly called home to do so. This is a story within a branch of my own family history. My great-great grandfather left London, England to settle and build a farm near Yorktown, Saskatchewan during the ‘free land’ policy of the early 20th century. The frontier promised opportunity, but not necessarily success. Risk was always part of the deal. 

An organization recently founded in Tompkins, Saskatchewan, is working to bring this version of Saskatchewan back, in a 21st century context. Its name is the Frontier Initiative (FI), and its founders aim to attract capable and “vital” young people who are looking for opportunity. One of the figureheads of the organization, Connor Shaw, told me he moved to Tompkins a couple years ago from Lethbridge Alberta, and was assisted by the FI in finding work at the nearby theatre. Collaborating and developing relationships with a variety of different businesses in the region, the Initiative is positioning itself as a hub of the community. It also wishes to be a centre of culture, boasting a library and coffee shop in ‘The Frontier Trading Post’, an affiliated business. 

{A picture of the Frontier Trading Post during the Summer}

After an extended chat with the group at the Trading Post, I was invited to a gathering up about an hour northwest, hosted by a family from the Baháʼí Faith. I could not say no to such an offer. Driving down a dirt road for nearly 20 minutes, we eventually reached a property of grand proportions, having on its grassland houses belonging to a few different branches of the extended family. Off to one side, there was a field full of farming equipment, and, to the other, a field of Buffalo.

I was welcomed profusely almost immediately, taking a seat at the long dinner table amongst the large family and many other guests of the evening. By the end, I was told I had work as a farmhand and labourer if I ever so chose to return to these parts. Connor may be on to something with this talk of ‘opportunity’.