Prairie Grass

by Joan Soggie

  The frozen laundry did not flap in the wind. Instead, the shirts and towels swayed crazily like cardboard cutouts. Catherine carefully pried clothespins loose from the ice gluing them to the sheets and eased the frozen fabric from the line. Pants and shirts, she stacked on top of the sheets, carrying the frozen heap like cordwood back through the snowdrifts to the house. Her face felt bitten by the wind and her hands ached from the cold.

  When did winter stop being fun? I used to love tobogganing, ice skating, singing in the sleigh as we drove across the fields to Grandma and Grandpa’s. Helping Mama bake cookies, Daddy reading to us by lamplight in the evening.

  The door banged behind her and she heard the tinkle of the piano and children singing. Carol was playing one of the tunes Grandma Tollerud taught her. Catherine dropped her frozen bundle on the kitchen linoleum and peeled off her boots.

  Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Kathy had a nice clear voice for a six-year-old, and Carol could even harmonize a little. Johanna joined in enthusiastically and tunelessly. James chanted Jingle jingle jingle and pounded on the only keys his pudgy fingers could reach.

  Catherine laughed at them from the doorway to the living room. The girls turned and beamed at her, and little James ran to hug her as gleefully as if his mother had been gone for days instead of a few minutes.

  “Oh, what beautiful music! Keep on playing, Carol. That is just what we need on a cold winter afternoon.”

  She turned back to the kitchen, swinging James as he clung to her swollen middle. Only another six weeks until the baby is due. And if this winter continues as nasty as it’s begun, it would be crazy to start out for town with me in labour. I’ll have to stay in town at Gramma Flodens when my time is close.

  She had been secretly looking forward to that brief respite from the unceasing labour of the house, her constant care for Eric and the kids. But suddenly she felt an overwhelming dread at the thought of leaving them, if only for a fortnight. How could they manage? Of course, Eric’s mother had offered to come for a few weeks. (Catherine winced at the thought of her mother-in-law examining the contents of her sewing-basket, filled with delicate yarn and patterns for baby sweaters and doll clothes instead of the wool socks, mittens and mending that Abigail would expect.) And they’d already arranged that cousin Lorraine would come to be her helper for as long as needed. Carol was old enough to help as well. But Catherine knew she would be missed by Eric and the children. Who would laugh with them, tell them stories, make their favourite chocolate pudding?

  She set James firmly on his feet and bent over to give him a conspiratorial wink. “How about we make something special for supper? What do you think Daddy would like?”

  “Pie! Let’s make him a pie, Mama!”

  As the short December daylight faded, Eric stamped the snow from his boots and hung his coveralls and parka in the mud-room. The door to the kitchen was always kept closed in winter, to prevent heat from escaping, but the fragrance of apple pie filled the narrow, cold, room. As he opened the door happy voices spilled out with the warmth and light. He grinned and rubbed his chilled and calloused hands, then pumped water into the sink to wash up.

  “We made you pie, Daddy!” shouted James from the high stool by the counter. His hands and face were sticky with sugar and cinnamon, and his heels beat a happy tattoo. “It’s our favourite!”

  “M-mm! I could smell it clear to the barn!”

  Carol was setting the table. She held up a plate of sliced cheddar. “And we even have cheese, Dad!”

  Catherine smiled at him over the pot of potatoes she drained into a tin can. Potato water makes the most tender bread. Eric circled her bulging body with both arms, rubbed his face in her wavy hair, kissed her gently, lovingly.

  Johanna and Kathy giggled.

  “Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.”

  Ah yes, she did love Winter.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Smooth Brome Grass. Dark green flat blades, mostly smooth, veined below. Open panicles with purple to brown spikelets drooping to one side. Horizontal sod-forming roots. Common in moist prairie, roadsides, disturbed areas. Introduced as forage crop. Invasive in natural sites. Gabriellas’ Prairie Notes

  Gabby (2012)

  After a full day immersing myself in a time over sixty years in the past, it was a welcome relief to hear Andy’s voice on the phone. I realized I missed his solid down-to-earth presence. For a fleeting moment I glimpsed the kind of life we might have together, as satisfying and uneventful as the world Eric and Catherine had fashioned for themselves.

  “We didn’t make any plans for the long weekend,” he was saying. “I get four days off. You too? I know we talked about camping in Cypress Hills. But I’ve got some buddies wanting me to go fishing with them up north and …”

  I interrupted him. “You should go fishing. Definitely. I was just about to call you myself. Something has come up and I’ll be busy for the next few days. Might be going north myself.”

  I congratulated myself. Not a trace of disappointment in my bright tone.

  But was that a hint of annoyance in Andy’s voice?

  “So, you’re going camping without me?

  When I didn’t respond right away, he continued. “Are you searching out some more long-lost Indian-Metis stories?”

  “I might do that. Give me a call when you get back from your fishing trip and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  With the coming long weekend suddenly and dismally open, I emailed Madeline Hirondelle telling her that a change of plans had freed up my entire weekend, so I would be available if she had more time to give me.

  I would spend tomorrow as planned, at Mammoth Pioneer Home with Eric Tollerud. After that, with my camping gear already in the trunk of my car, I would head north to Big Bear Lake. Google maps told me it was a four-hour road trip. It would be dark before I found a campsite, if I found one at all, right at the beginning of the busiest weekend of the year for provincial campgrounds. But I preferred tenting in the wild over campgrounds anyway. No worries.

  I walked into Eric’s room at ten in the morning to find him sitting in his wheeled recliner looking out the window, a glass of juice untouched on the table beside him.

  Excellent. With no daughters, brothers or other relatives shaping the conversation, Eric seemed invigorated, purposeful. It was as though he had been thinking, time is short, and there’s a lot of history, the kind of history that he believed mattered, that he still needed to tell me. He fixed immediately on that persistent theme: the drastic change in land use he had seen in his lifetime. Not only changes in agriculture, but changes in attitudes.

  He started out by telling me about his parents moving off the farm, and then got momentarily side-tracked answering my questions about his brothers and sister.

  I knew Derwood had continued in the army after the war. He’d married and raised his family in Ontario. Gerald had married his sweetheart before he went overseas and returned home to raise a family of blond and rambunctious daughters on his farm near the home place.

  As for Eric, he and Catherine had continued farming the homestead that had always meant home to him. Their small house went through periodic expansions. The breakfast nook of their honeymoon days had expanded into a dining room with a big window looking out over the south pasture. More bedrooms were added as their family grew, and, wonder of wonders, a real bathroom complete with running water and flush toilet, thanks to the deep well that supplied their household needs. Their children rode horse-back to school just as Eric himself had, until 1959 when the country schools closed, and the country kids were bussed into town.

  His voice grew strong as he talked about his farm. He told me how he had added a quarter here, a quarter there as land came available, although lessons learned in the hard years of the ‘30s made them cautious.

  “I guess I could have been a rich man if I’d wanted to take more chances,” he mused. “That last quarter section, the Hudson’s Bay man came
to the door and offered it to me.”

  This was in the mid-50s when the Hudson’s Bay Company sold off its remaining holdings in the vast region it had once claimed.

  Eric told with pride of improvements he’d made over the years, adding grain bins and a workshop, building dams to conserve the precious water that ran from the hills each spring. The dams held enough water to keep his herd of white-faced Herefords healthy and profitable, so the grassland paid for itself even during the foot-and-mouth disease panic of ‘52, when the States closed the border to Canadian beef.

  The big flat below the hills, where buttercups used to grow, became a hay field seeded to brome grass and crested wheatgrass. But wheat remained the farm’s main crop so long as he was farming. It was sold under a quota system to the Canadian Wheat Board, handled by the farmer-owned Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, and shipped to the far corners of the world.

  “I always entered a sheaf of wheat in the Hillview Agricultural Society Fair,” he said, “and sometimes came home with a ribbon. Catherine almost always took first prize for her whole-wheat bread. She made it from our own grain. I ground the flour for her in the feed mill.”

  He recalled the 1950s and ‘60s as a time of change coming in small bites, gratefully swallowed. The decades-long transition from manual labour and horse-power to gasoline-powered machines, from outdoor to indoor plumbing, from dirt roads to gravel and from gravel to hardtop highway, were welcome improvements. Life on the farm grew more comfortable than it ever before had been.

  Or would ever be again, it seemed. His voice grew hoarse and his words more abrupt as he struggled to explain what happened over the next decades, as agriculture grew more and more dependent upon big machinery and costly chemicals. That cost had to be spread over more and more acres. Only large farms made a profit. By the 1990s, the average farm encompassed land that had supported three or four families in the 1960s.

  His voice was bitter. “You can’t have neighbours if you want to farm the whole country yourself.”

  And without farmers and farm families, small businesses and schools closed. Villages that had sprung up a hundred years ago were turning into ghost towns.

  “I watched this country grow. And now I am watching it die.”

  I could not leave him on that heartbreaking note.

  “Eric Tollerud, what are you saying? Do you really believe that? That the country is dying? Just look at that field outside your window. Canola, a crop you’d never even heard of when you were a boy, and now half the country is blooming golden with canola blossoms and the oil from those plants is used all over the world. You should know better than to be afraid of change after all the changes you’ve seen in your lifetime!”

  He was listening to me, really listening, a little smile playing with the corners of his mouth. And I was on a roll.

  “You remember what you said to me that first day? That before anything else, there was the land? Well, the land is enduring. And you and your family helped it endure. You told me the last time you were out to your home farm, the hills looked just the same as you remembered them almost a hundred years ago. Now, isn’t that something to be proud of? That your family has cared for that prairie and protected it all that time, and the same needle and thread grass and prairie sage and blue grama that grew there when the buffalo roamed still grow there today, the same long-billed curlew and sharp-tailed grouse …”

  He settled back on his pillow, chuckling, and raised his hand in surrender.

  “Okay, Gabby, I give up. I’m a grouchy old man and you’re right. Change is inevitable. Just so long as we hang on -”

  I joined him in the last words

  “to the things that matter.”

  And we both knew what that meant. The land. The water. The people.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Canada Wild Rye Grass. Dark green to blue-green blades, distinct veins, purplish base. Bristly, nodding spike. Bunchgrass with fibrous roots. Grows in sandy or wooded areas near water. Good forage, decreasing in disturbed or over-grazed areas. Gabriellas’ Prairie Notes

  Gabby (2012)

  Before I left Mammoth, I called my boss. It had been over a week since I’d last touched base with Diane, and although sure she would be pleased I’d pursued the Indigenous contact, I wondered uneasily whether the information Madeline Hirondelle offered could be stretched to fit the parameters of the Centenarian Project. After all, I had no guarantee Madeline would let me meet her mother or research her story. Madeline invited me with the clear understanding that my focus would be on Annabelle’s ancestors rather than on Annabelle herself.

  Diane suggested I confirm the family’s link with my district, as I would be stepping beyond the geographical boundaries of my assignment. I assured her that at least one member of Annabelle’s family had lived here and may have had scrip land in this region. I refrained from telling her more.

  “Just want you to understand,” Diane continued, “Some of my colleagues are pretty territorial. I know, it’s petty and foolish — after all, whatever happens in one place affects everyone in the adjoining area — but if anyone questions you, play up the fact that Annabelle spent her childhood near Swift Current. And mention that scrip land. That will legitimize your interviewing someone outside your district.”

  I told her about my plans to visit Madeline at Big Bear Lake. Diane urged me to make the most of that.

  “Get as much information as you can from Madeline as well as her mother, Gabby. It will be another opportunity for you to use your research skills to fill in the gaps. This is a great stroke of luck. Have fun! And keep receipts for your expense form.”

  That would be helpful, I thought. Camping over Canada Day weekend seemed to involve a lot of unplanned expenses. Since it might be a bit sketchy to find a safe place to pitch my tent, arriving in an unfamiliar place at night, I’d called campgrounds in the North Battleford area to reserve a site. The only camping spot I could book at the last minute turned out to be in a private campground along the North Saskatchewan River and would cost a lot more than I’d expected. I would be paying for electricity, sewer and water hookup for my RV, security fence around the perimeter, and a view of the river. Since my camping gear consisted of a two-person tent, flashlight and camp stove, it seemed a bit excessive.

  But when I got there, I had to admit the scenery was almost worth the price. The campground was surrounded by poplar thickets, on a hillside sloping down to the silvery expanse of river. I found my site, nestled cozily between a motorhome and a camping trailer, and set up my tent. Now to find the necessary facilities. Glad for the lingering twilight, I located the bathroom and showers, and decided to further explore my surroundings. A trail past the children’s playground led to a grassy area along the crest of the river breaks. On the opposite shore city lights twinkled, so far away that city noises drifted only as faint echoes through the cool evening air. I relished the peacefulness.

  Then a sudden gust of night air raised goosebumps on my arms. I shivered and turned back to seek the coziness of my tent and sleeping bag.

  But when the couple in the adjoining site invited me to join them at their campfire, it seemed churlish to refuse. I accepted the Budweiser and the camp chair and prepared for the typical Saskatchewan pastime of Getting Acquainted, beginning with “Where’re you from?” and not ending until we discovered mutual friends or acquaintances.

  Already, after only one year in the province, I was getting pretty adept at the game. Their names were Bob and Donna, they farmed near Beauclair and had a daughter about my age. It took less than ten minutes to establish that Donna’s sister Annie (or was it Bob’s?) lived “just down the road” from my friend Andy’s folks.

  “Oh, the Wiebes, yes! They brought us some of their deer sausage last time we were at Annie and Jim’s. Good people. Salt of the earth.”

  I murmured an assent.

  “Too bad about all the thieving that goes on in that area. Hear the Wiebe’s had a quad stolen last year, found it wrecked in the bot
tom of a coulee. Did Andy tell you about that?”

  I shook my head. “No, he didn’t. Did they find the culprit?”

  Bob pulled a long face. “Are you kidding? The RCMP are too busy chasing down yahoos high on meth to have time for a stolen quad. But everyone knows who did it.”

  I put on my quizzical face and waited.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it. Right next to the reserve.”

  Not sure how to respond to that, I wondered how quickly I could swallow the rest of my beer. Donna seemed to feel it wise to move the conversation in other directions. She mentioned she’d noticed that I had walked to the hilltop overlooking the river.

  “Pretty view, isn’t it?” she asked. “Did you go down to the cairn?”

  “The cairn? No, I didn’t see it. What kind of cairn?”

  “She would have had to walk further down the hill to see it,” Bob said to his wife.

  She ignored him. “It’s a historic marker. Not very conspicuous, though. Guess it is not exactly the kind of history we like to remember.”

  “What does it commemorate?” I asked, trying in vain to recall anything significant I’d read or heard about North Battleford.

  “It was a pretty gruesome event,” Donna replied. “This was the execution site for several Indians who took part in the Northwest Rebellion. Back in the 1880s. They were hanged here.”

  I recalled that sudden cold draught. The chill I had felt might have been more than just a breeze.

  Thanking my new neighbours for the beer, I said goodnight and walked the few steps to my tent.

  By getting an early start Thursday morning for the drive to Big Bear Lake to meet Madeline Hirondelle, I’d hoped to miss the worst of the Canada Day traffic. But no such luck. It was already high summer in lake country. On the narrow highway north of Battleford, I merged into a steady stream of vehicles pulling campers, or boats, or both. I was aware of the changing landscape, melding from prairie to parkland to aspen forest to spruce, but could not enjoy the scenery. It was not a relaxing drive.