Krydor 2016

“All the world, as a matter of fact, is a mosaic of little places invisible to the powers that be. And in the eyes of the powers that be all these invisible places do not add up to a visible place. They add up to words and numbers.” 

from Jayber Crow

by Wendell Berry

My wife and I enjoyed driving about the countryside this summer stopping in small towns and looking for birds. Just outside Krydor (the name is an amalgamation of parts of the names of two early founders) we stopped at this church. The first Ukrainian Services in Krydor started in 1921 in private homes, the present church appears to have been completed in 1945. The sign outside identifies it as the Ukrainian Orthodox Mission of St Peter and St Paul. The current town of Krydor (first postmaster 1918) has 25 residents. I did not take any photos of the town itself which I regret. There was small main street of a couple of blocks with a number of the small wood frame false front stores and businesses common in the Canadian prairies from 1900-1930's. All appeared to be boarded up, the only sign of activity a new super-mail box outside one building. I hope to go back next summer but for now here are photos of the church. There was one headstone from the 2000's and the grounds are well maintained.

"He sees that they are the dead, and they are alive. He sees that he lives in eternity as he lives in time, and nothing is lost. Among the people of that town, he sees men and women he remembers, and men and women remembered in memories he remembers, and they do not look as he ever saw or imagined them. The young are no longer young, nor the old old. They appear as children corrected and clarified; they have the luminous vividness of new grass after fire. And yet they are mature as ripe fruit. And yet they are flowers."

From Remembering

by Wendell Berry