Reading Not Reading

I had been happily reading some library books mostly about the fur trade and the indigenous peoples of the Canadian West, a topic of abiding interest to me. I have described the origins of this interest here.

https://thatsjustthewildwood.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-beaver.html

However the world as too much with me, and my concentration not all it should be at present so I returned them. I will borrow then again. I am holding on to library books on the history of the Madan and the history of the Anishinaabeg peoples for better days.

So instead I reread a couple of novels by my beloved Andre Norton and have set my sights on reading Johnson's "Preface to Shakespeare". I have been watching a youtube series on reading the classics by a young man using the "name" Drunzo" and want to make the reading a few classics part of my routine, with definite goals.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC72a8QL142vdH3s6Dn3NVRA

Helen and I discovered a youtube series on the history of Godzilla, and we follow each episode by watching, in my case, often rewatching the movie.

https://www.youtube.com/c/BigActionBill

I leave you with one of my favourite quotes and a photo from this summer at the cabin.

"I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours
of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres,
meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns
taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia,
Poland, &c., daily musters and preparations, and such like;
which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many
men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights;
peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarums. A vast confusion
of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws,
proclamations, complaints, grievances, are daily brought to our
ears. New books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole
catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions,
schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c. Now
come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments,
jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels,
sports, plays ; then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons,
cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals,
burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical,
then tragical matters. Today we hear of new lords and officers created,
to-morrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours
conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one purchaseth, another
breaketh; he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then
again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs,
weeps, &c. Thus I daily hear, and such like, both private and public
news, amidst the gallantry and misery of the world"


from Anatomy of Melancholy
by Robert Burton

Cabin June 3 2021

 

Last year we did not stay at the cabin. Instead we spent two weeks at the farm and the rest of the time in Calgary. We have been here a week and I have some observations. It is incredibly dry. We have noticed green popular leaves falling from the trees and blowing in the wind. I have only seen one Franklin’s Ground Squirrel in front of the cabin. Whether the colony has been reduced or whether some are  still denning I cannot say. We have not seen the Snowshoe Hare so far. For many years we only saw one. Two years ago we had a pair who produced several litters. Typically they take longer to habituate to the presence of us, dogs included. (one just showed up and was soundly barked at)  I have not seen a Red Squirrel but we can hear them. I have seen a couple of Least Chipmunks.

Catbird

Red Necked Grebes have nested in the slough in front of the cabin every year we have been here. This year the only visible nest seems low in the water  and I have only seen one bird so I wonder if something has happened. There seem to be more species of ducks at least visiting the slough including Scaups, Canvasbacks, Buffleheads, Goldeneye, Mallards, Blue Winged Teal, and a pair of Ring Necked Ducks which is a new species for us. We have seen the Bald Eagle, Turkey Vultures and Franklin’s Gulls flying overhead. The first morning we were here I photographed a female Oriole on the porch and one or more pairs has been around most days. We also have had Hummingbirds, Goldfinches, Chickadees, and a female Rose-breasted Grosbeck at the feeders. There are Phoebes and a Robin nesting on the cabin. Again there do not seem to be any Barn Swallows. We have had three pairs nesting on the cabin in one year in the past. There appear to be Tree Swallows by the hayfield, as well as Kildeer, Song, Vesper and White-throated sparrows, a Catbird and a Great Blue Heron. The beavers are omnipresent the number of trees continue to decline. 

I initially came to western Canada to participate in an archaeological field school excavating at Fort George, a Northwest Company post. Every year at the cabin I try to read some history books to expend my knowledge of the subject. Primarily these books focus the fur trade in western Canada and the culture and history of the indigenous people of Western Canada including the events of the North-West Rebellion. Sadly the discovery in Kamloops did not come as a great surprise to me. I would recommend the book Loyal till Death Indians and the North-West Rebellion by Blair Stonechild and Bill Waiser if you want to get a sense of the attitudes leading up to the situation we find ourselves today. I am currently reading Waiser’s A World We have Lost  Saskatchewan Before 1905. 

The Beaver

I first came to Western Canada to participate in an archaeological excavation at a Northwest Company post. I stayed for three months living in a canvas tipi and came to love the parkland. Every summer at the cabin I try to read books (often shared with my mother-in-law) about the fur trade and the Native People of Western Canada both pre and post contact. I am trying to learn a history other than my own, I find it interesting, and it seems the least I can do.

"The slow current
of the life below tugs at me all day.
When I dream at night, they save a place for me,
no matter how small, somewhere by the fire. "

from Remembering Mountain Men

by William Stafford

Road Trip Krydor to Hafford Part 2

“…this country would always be populated with presences 

and absences, presences of absences, the living and the dead. 

The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, 

and of the world that is to come.” 

from Jayber Crow

by Wendell Berry

After our visit to Krydor we drove to Hafford about 21 km away.

A 2016 photo taken from outside the bistro in Hafford. 

These are typical prairie towns with beautiful skies and 
landscape that stretches off forever.

Hafford with a population of  360, still maintains the normal small town

businesses, a CO-OP, credit union, pharmacy, grocery etc. I noticed that

in 2017 the sign has been removed from this business I photographed 

in 2016 and it as been boarded up. Hafford does have a K to 12 school a 

vital link in maintaining community health. 

We also had to stop at the Hafford Ukrainian church, the distinctive

silhouettes of these churches are a beautiful feature of the 

Canadian prairie.

Photos of the church in Krydor taken in 2016 can be found here.

https://thatsjustthewildwood.blogspot.ca/search?q=krydor

An extensive article on Nykyta Budka can be found here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nykyta_Budka

“Some of the best things I have ever thought
 of I have thought of during bad sermons.”

from Jayber Crow
by Wendell Berry 

Road Trip Krydor to Hafford Part 1

“You may say that I am just another outdated old man 

complaining about progress and the changes of time. 

But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, 

and am prepared to submit to correction by anybody who cares 

about a community, who can show me how the world is 

improved by that community's dying.” 

from Jayber Crow

by Wendell Berry

Last year we went through the town of Krydor, we spent 

most of our time at the church, a link to those photos will

appear in Part 2. I noticed the boarded up stores then and so

we came back this summer to look around. There are signs of

life, the community hall is maintained, the church kept up,

there are recycle bins. But as you can see the main street consists

of boarded up stores and vacant lots. My brother in law pointed

out that most have metal roofs so some attempt has been made to 

maintain them. Founded in 1911 the town now has 25 residents.

As you drive through you see houses that have been abandoned

and a few with signs of life or an RV plugged in indicating some

seasonal occupation. As I said to my wife, it would be very

eerie to be a child in such as town at night, with all these dark 

overgrown homes and the vast dark prairie sky above.

Demographics can be as relentless as any tsunami. A few 

years ago the rural high school I attended closed after 112

 years in Harrow ON when the decision was made to consolidate to 

large towns. This immediately affected local businesses and the 

sale of town lots.

A link to other photos and some very interesting 

comments about the community of Krydor.

http://www.pbase.com/impalass/krydor_sk

"There was a river under First and Main, 

the salt mines honeycombed farther down. 

A wealth of sun and wind ever so strong 

converged on that home town, long gone. 

At the north edge there were the sand hills. 

I used to stare for hours at prairie dogs, 

which had their town, and folded their little paws

to stare beyond their fence where I was. "

from Prairie Town

by William Stafford

"Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams;

I crown me with the million-colored sun

Of secret worlds incredible, and take 

Their trailing skies for vestment when I soar,

Throned on the mounting zenith, and illume 

The spaceward-flown horizons infinite. 

Like rampant monsters roaring for their glut," 

from The Hashish Eater -Or- The Apocalypse Of Evil -

by Clark Aston Smith