One of my favourite places in Canada is the Qu’Appelle Valley in Saskatchewan. My father had a small ranch there, so it’s a place that’s dear to me. We used to ride up and down the hills. We would come up on top of the hill and have this straight vista: if you looked in one direction, you could see the trees from the slopes of other hills; if you looked in another direction, you would see the valley bottom. The valley bottom was cultivated, so at different times of the year, you’d see either the crops growing there or fallow land that was black, recently turned and waiting to be seeded.
There were sights that you saw, but also felt, as you wound your way through trees. I remember the scent of the bark of the bur oak, which always seemed to have a dusty fibre smell to it. If you looked up, you could often see hawks, suspended above the hills, above the valley. At different times of the year, you would be riding along, and as you passed by bushes of saskatoons or chokecherries, or whatever was in season, you would just reach out and grab a handful of them. Saskatoons were always my favourite — and I still love that berry — but I even liked chokecherries, which sort of puckered up your mouth when you ate them.
My fondest memories of my father are in the Qu’Appelle Valley. I think they were happy memories because he was happy there. He loved the place, and he gave us that sense of loving the place.