A Watery Journey into the Prairie Countryside

It was one of those days when my mother used to say the weather was fit only for ducks. It didn't start out that way as I headed into rural Saskatchewan. You don't think your province is much different city from country. I should know better, it is!

In a small town just outside the Qu'Appelle Valley, you're right, Eva's valley, the
women are egging the men into joining them in a bit of two-step.



And in that same town lives a senior who was actually at Normandy and fought in that battle. In the city, that just doesn't happen. I haven't seen a two-step since my mother danced us around the kitchen as children and we know we have war veterans and we honour them, forever thankful for what they have done, but more than likely we will never know them personally - or if we do, we are very lucky. In the city we just don't know our neighbours - or to rephrase, not anyone more than five houses away. Not so in small town Saskatchewan.

As I pull over onto a country road to fix a windshield wiper and take a picture or two which quickly turns into a very soggy, bad idea, I look over to see another car has pulled in beside me. A woman rolls down her window, braving the rain driving in on hard nailed gusts of wind and asks if I'm okay.And that's the country, this is her road, probably on the way to her farm and I, well I have city glaring from every bumper. But I have to thank her, in the city, that would happen but it would be rare - I'm sensing this wasn't.

Sometimes getting wet is the only way to really touch life.

And you - has life caught you in the rain lately?

Ryshia