Tag Archives: prairies
What Are These?
Reid Dickie Here and there across the Canadian countryside you’ll see these bright blue shelters placed in patterns in pastures. Their openings all face the same direction and their presence has a rather otherworldy feeling about it. What are these things? … Continue reading
Filed under Accommodations, Critters
1870s TV Ad for Free Farms in Western Canada
Reid Dickie A delightful impossibility! In 1870 the Dominion of Canada bought Rupert’s Land, which was pretty much all of western Canada, from the Hudson’s Bay Company. After passing the Dominion Lands Act in 1872, the government embarked on an advertising … Continue reading
Filed under Pioneers, Prairie People, Humour, Hope, Manitoba Heritage
2420 Summers Ago
Reid Dickie Rustakoomaw crouched in the shade of the cottonwood that grew next to a dry streambed. It was the only tree for miles, an imposing sentinel against the sky. He held a small round drum made of hide and … Continue reading
Big White Combine
Fiction by Reid Dickie Bruno Insinger is having The Dream again. He started having it before Christmas and here it was the middle of summer. Though seeding was delayed by a cool spring, the rains came at an opportune time and … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction, Pioneer Village
Eternal Romance
Reid Dickie “I was a key that could use a little turning.” - Soul Asylum Water and wind and their eternal romance with rock, etched into the weary flesh of stone, glowing eloquent beaches appear and disappear in a flash. … Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Wisdom, Hope, Linda, Natural Places, shaman, Spirit, Wisdom
Bull Snake
Reid Dickie Out on the Saskatchewan prairie on a ridge above the Big Muddy Valley, I encountered a bull snake. Huge but not venomous, it was coiled and formed into the S-shape of more dangerous snakes. Enough to give me … Continue reading
Filed under Critters, Day Tripping, Natural Places, PRAIRIES, Saskatchewan
Hebron School – 1 Room 8 Grades 30 Pupils 1 Teacher
Reid Dickie HEBRON SCHOOL Part 3 of 3 Though I was home schooled early by my teacher mother, my formal education began in Hebron School, a one-room schoolhouse. This sounds like a pioneer situation but it was actually the 1950s. … Continue reading
Continental Divide
Reid Dickie Continental divides define watersheds and can be found on every continent except Antarctica. The Great Divide, which stretches from Alaska through the Rockies into Mexico, and eventually along the Andes in South America, is the best known continental divide … Continue reading
Canada West – Homes for Millions
This promotional poster touting western Canada as the last and best place in the world to farm came out between 1896 and 1911 while Sydney Fisher was federal Minister of Agriculture. Still offering free farms and stooks as far as … Continue reading
Filed under Local History, Pioneers, Prairie People
