The Saskatchewan Experience

During our recent week long trip back to Saskatchewan I simply did not make time for writing. One reason is because I usually only blog when on vacation, and going home to visit doesn’t feel like a regular vacation. A second reason is that there was simply no alone time during this trip as we were constantly surrounded by family and friends, which is a very good thing, but makes it difficult to devote any time or energy to the literary arts. Most of my time was focused on the culinary arts (shucking and then eating delicious fresh corn) or the beverage arts (drinking Saskatchewan beer) or the hunter/gatherer arts (shooting guns, catching fish, raiding gardens).
 
It had been five years since our last visit to Saskatchewan so Stella really didn't have any memories of it and Magnus had only a few. I was quite excited for the kids to spend some time there to get in touch with their "Saskatchewan roots" and believe me, Saskatchewan is a very different place than where we live in southern Ontario. In fact, it's been so long since we've been there that I too had forgotten much. When we lived in Calgary over ten years ago we used to visit Saskatchewan frequently, so it did feel like our second home, especially since we owned a cottage there. But at that time the kids were infants, and the trips back home were usually characterized by excruciatingly long and boring car trips, episodes of vomiting (the kids, not me.), sleepless nights taking care of babies, busy and chaotic days as we worked tirelessly fixing our cabin, and only rare moments when we could relax, visit and take it easy.
 
Well, this time all we did during the entire trip was relax, explore, visit and basically just goof around, which made it a whole different experience. We spent the first few days at my Mom's place in Clavet, Saskatchewan which is located just ten miles from Saskatoon. The last time we visited my mom and Rick they were at the peak of their tomato and herb farming career – they had five giant greenhouses, worked 15 hours per day and grew thousands and thousands of pounds of vegetables, selling them to local restaurants and at farmers markets for highly inflated hipster-friendly prices. At some point they must have realized they were working themselves into the ground (not to mention getting tired of tomato and cucumber sandwiches), so they sold the business and equipment, and are now back to an easier pace of life.

When we arrived at Mom's (it happened to be Magnus's birthday) we were surprised to find my aunt Tammy and her kids there, as well my aunt and uncle from Regina, my aunt and uncle from Saskatoon, and my grandma. So we had a great birthday party and did some long overdue visiting. My brother Curtis and his kids were also there, and would end up spending almost the entire week with us, so the cousins kept very, very busy.

Saskatoon has changed a lot since I lived there. For one thing, it has grown like mad. There are new subdivisions all over the place, new office buildings, traffic everywhere and so many visible minorities. When I was in high school, there was a single black family and a small group of Salvadorians that kicked everybody's ass at soccer. That was about as exotic as things got – everybody else in the school basically looked and acted like regular Saskatchewan urban cowboys. Now, arriving at the Saskatoon airport was hardly any different than arriving in Toronto – a colourful and vibrant collection of saris, hijabs, turbans, shalwar kameez and people of all races. It was quite honestly mind-blowing for Ana and I to see such diversity in my old hometown. It seems Saskatchewan has finally been discovered.

The highlight of our time in Saskatoon for me was the day we went to the beach. "Beach?" you may ask. Yes, there's a beach; actually, several of them. We packed up Mom's giant motorhome early one morning (this thing is longer than our boat, maybe longer than our house) and she drove us battle tank style down fifteen miles of exceedingly dusty gravel roads with soft shoulders and space for 1.5 vehicles at the widest. We arrived at the Fred Heal canoe launch and squeezed our magnificent vessel tight into the shrubberies on the outside ring of the roundabout that we barely fit around. We unpacked all of our gear (and Rick and my mom have more gear than anybody I know) and carried it down a short pathway through the trees and onto the expansive, clean, marvellous beach on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. We were simply amazed to find such a lovely beach so close to the city, and before long the people started streaming in and claiming their own plots of beachside real estate.

We had a terrific day.  Curt brought his paddleboard and we all took turns going for rides, even all the kids, who seemed to have no trouble at all keeping their balance and paddling up and down the river. Of course we had soccer balls and Frisbees for the land entertainment, and a nice Bose speaker with fine tunes pumping all day. The water was a little chilly (maybe just for us as we're used to balmy 29 degree water in Lake Erie) but very clean and the current was not too strong. At midday a colourful platoon of paddleboarders appeared upstream and arrived en masse to the beach – there was probably close to a hundred people in the group. We learned they had left Lake Diefenbaker two days previous to this and were paddling all the way to Saskatoon, something like a 120 kilometre run. Funny how we never though of doing something fun and adventurous like that when I was in high school. Back then, our standard idea of adventure was walking drunk down the train bridge in the middle of the night, clutching bottles of rye and hoping to run into a gang of horny females with shockingly low standards…which never happened. Not even once.

owards the end of the day we went back up to the parking area to survey the possibilities of getting our massive RV out of there, and the possibility was zero as there were vehicles jammed in everywhere, on both sides of the road, and in places they shouldn't have been. So we returned to the beach for a couple of hours longer, hoping it would clear out. Eventually we were left with what looked like a possible path out, but it would rely on some clever manoeuvring of our land based airplane carrier. I had offered to be the designated driver (it's always good to try new things) so I sized up the available space between the idiot who had parked his car right on the roadway and the car across from him and there seemed to be sufficient room. I was feeling pretty confident, maybe a little overconfident. We all piled into the motorhome, I fired her up, and with spotters looking out the windows on both sides, we slowly creeped forward. It was all going great until I started turning the beast and the back end, which hung about 15 feet past the rear tires swung over and creamed the front corner and bumper of the poorly parked patron. Shit!!! After surveying the damage to the car, and finding nothing but a small scratch on our behemoth, we managed to squeeze the beast through the rest of the cars on the narrow gravel road and got her parked safely near the entrance, and then walked back and left a note on the smashed car with our information. The note read: "Hey dummy, you shouldn't park your car in the middle of the road in front of a giant motorhome. Signed, Count Chocula, 555-1212".

One evening we went to my aunt Maxine and uncle Ron's place and met my cousin Jason there. Now Jason and I were attached at the hip for most of our childhood and even into early adulthood too, but these days we don't get to see each other too often. He and his wife Nicole have twin daughters who are the cutest and goofiest little girls you can imagine. While we visited with the adults, Magnus and Stella played with the girls and when it was time to leave those little girls followed them right out the building and wanted to go home with them! Jason had to peel them off the kids and physically restrain them while we made our getaway.

On the Wednesday we packed up and drove out to Fishing Lake where my Dad and step mom Loretta live. It was Stella's birthday that day so they had arranged a huge birthday lunch for her, complete with balloons and presents so she was very happy. Fishing Lake is very close to Foam Lake, 250 kilometres south-east of Saskatoon, and is where both of my parents grew up. As kids we spent every summer at the family cottage with our cousins and friends and the days were filled with golfing, swimming, fishing, wandering from cabin to cabin looking for sugary treats, and spending an awful lot of time on the bunk beds reading Archie comics. Those truly were some of the best days of my childhood. When Ana and I lived in Calgary we decided to buy our own place at Fishing Lake so we purchased a lot and also a house about 150 kilometres away which we had moved onto the lot. This resulted in a massive amount of work, such as building a foundation, getting permits, rewiring the house, repairing all the plaster walls that cracked during the move, repainting, fixing windows, landscaping and furnishing the entire place. So the time we spent out at the lake during those years were the opposite of carefree. Our typical trip to the lake was making the 9 hour drive from Calgary with an SUV and Uhaul trailer jammed full of crap and baby Magnus barfing in the back seat, and then once we arrived we would work 12 hours a day fixing the cabin. Just as we got the cabin into reasonably liveable condition we decided to move to Ontario, so then used it as a rental for several years. So these years of lake visits bring back many memories, but none of carefree and fun variety.

This trip was different as we had no cabin to fix, no work to do, and Dad and Loretta had arranged for meals and had the family cabin all ready to go for us. It was glorious! We spent the days doing things we used to do and simply had so much fun. Curtis and the boys were out there the entire time so we got to spend many hours with my nephews and the cousins had so much fun together, especially when they were ripping around on my Dad's quad. Ana and I saw old friends out there that we hadn't seen in many years and enjoyed some nice long walks, many hours sitting on the beach, an afternoon session on the legendary "Ford diving board", and some evening campfires. We caught many, many fish so one afternoon we had a giant fish fry and the aromas from the deep fryer attracted all sorts of people to stop by for a snack.

In the lead-up to the trip Dad had promised the kids that he would take them out shooting, so one afternoon he gathered up a few guns and a pile of ammo and we took the kids out to a field to blast the hell out of some targets. We set up some cans and bottles with a giant hay bale as a backdrop and the kids let loose. Now this is why I love the prairies – regular rules just don't seem to apply. Magnus even got to fire a shotgun!

The time went quickly and soon we were in Saskatoon spending our last day and night at my brother Curt's place. They arranged for a final get together with a bunch of family and we enjoyed a last meal together and plenty of laughs. We flew out Monday morning and on the way to the airport the kids were already asking when we would be able to visit again. I am hoping that sometime soon the kids will be ready to do a trip on their own and we can send them out to Saskatoon for a longer visit during their summer vacation.

Saturday, July 23rd – Exploring our backyard

Stella and I started our day early at 12:45 am. We sent Ana and Magnus to bed for some well-deserved rest and then spent a long time together out there in the dark looking at constellations, talking, and scanning the horizon for boat lights. Stella is so inquisitive, always asking questions, always wanting to know how things work, and is never short on words. Usually the night watch is a quiet, contemplative affair, but with Stella it was a never-ending conversation. She eventually got tired and jumped back into bed, and just minutes after that Ana joined me in the cockpit with a blanket and pillow as she wasn’t able to sleep well in the vberth. After Ana fell asleep I grabbed the laptop and caught up on several days’ worth of journals as the wind pushed us closer and closer to Long Point. I soon got tired of writing so just kept watch for a few hours, probably dozing off a bit here and there, but didn’t see a single boat besides a big freighter far in the distance moving up the US coastline. We eventually creeped up on Long Point and slowly rounded it, turning north for the direct run to Port Dover. The wind slipped in strength and was soon completely gone so I wound up the sails and let the motor power us all the way back to Dover, arriving in the marina at 7am, making it a 21 hour trip from Loraine. When we were 30 seconds from our slip Stella’s head popped up from down below and as she was having a wide look around a huge smile stretched over her face, obviously happy to be home. We had a flawless docking (felt like the first of the trip), reported in by phone to customs and were all cleared and officially back in Canada. The best part was that it was only Saturday morning so we still had the weekend ahead of us

I immediately went to bed while Ana and the kids went for a drive into Port Dover. Four hours later I was up, groggy as hell, but awake. Most of our friends were out on the lake as it was another scorcher, but we'd had enough of the boat for a while so instead we jumped in the van and went for a drive with no particular destination in mind. That's the beauty of living in south-western Ontario; there so damn much stuff to see and do that you can just get in your vehicle, start driving and you are bound to find something cool every time. We took the lakeshore road all the way to Port Rowan, a town we've never really explored, and were happy we did because we found some groovy little shops, including a Thousand Villages, an old fashioned candy shop, a menswear store with great deals and probably the best antique store we've ever been to. Along the way we stopped at two wineries and a great unmanned roadside vegetable stall where the farmer simply puts out his produce and a price list and you take what veggies you want and put your money in a box. Yes, the honour system still lives in some places. So we loaded up on corn, berries and new potatoes for dinner.

We returned to the boat just in time to notice a strange electrical smell that I first thought was coming from the diesel engine after all the hard work it did last night, but then realized it was coming from the shore power outlet.  The cord was extremely hot so I pulled out and found that the end had melted and so had the housing inside the electrical outlet on the boat itself. I suspect a loose connection had caused the problem, as we'd had issues with this plug in the past, so I had actually bought a replacement, but just hadn't installed it yet. So I got to work digging out all the burnt components while Ana started dinner. Our friends Geoff, Sherry and their gorgeous baby girl Victoria stopped by for a visit so I had Geoff help me troubleshoot the electrical issue while the ladies kept watch on Victoria doing laps around the cockpit. Shortly before the meal we got a call from Tony and Angela saying they were stopping by in their boat for a drink. We helped them get docked, ate a quick meal, and then returned to their boat for happy hour. We left the whole dinner mess for the kids to clean up, as sort of a challenge, but hey, we'd been cooking and cleaning all week so it was definitely their turn.

Tony and Angela had their friends John and Caroline with them and were on their way back from having dinner at Hoover's Marina – about 7 miles east of Port Dover. We call this the home of the "hundred dollar hamburger" because by the time you power up your boat and crank up those twin 350's to get you there for lunch, you've already burned a hundred bucks in gas. We were halfway through our first beer when a dude pulled up in a Sea Doo and kicked us out of his slip, which we thought was empty. So they moved the boat to an empty slip on the next dock over, right beside our buddy Jimmy. Remember that old Kim Mitchell song "I Am a Wild Party"? Well that song was written about Jimmy after he took Kim out to the Norfolk Tavern one night back in 1989. Kim woke up the next morning face down on the beach with two black eyes, a tattoo of Speedy Gonzales on his ass, a broken toe and was wearing only a ladies bra and one sock. The first thing he saw with his one eye that could open was Jimmy sitting on the deck of the beachside restaurant drinking a vodka martini, giving him an eighteen tooth smile and a rousing thumbs up. Kim thought to himself, man that guy is a wild party and the rest is history.

We visited for two beers and then Tony and gang took off, probably scared of what would happen if they stayed too long next to the Wild Party. We wandered back to our boat and found that our children had washed all the dishes and put them away, wrapped up the leftovers, washed the table and hung up the dish towels. That bought them a whole lot of parental goodwill, I can assure you of that.

It was now fully dark outside and there was plenty of noise coming from dock two so we went over to join the Doerr boys and friends for a couple of Yeti-cold beers and told them all about our sailing trip and heard of their nice day on the water at Turkey Point. After an hour or so I went back to the boat to grab a drink and noticed Ana's phone flashing so I looked at it and saw a message from Angela saying they had experience a double engine failure and were being towed back in by the Coast Guard! We ran back over to the slip they were in beside Jimmy just as they were arriving. Jimmy, his girl Kristi and his buddy Steve were there doing shots out of a gallon jug of Jack Daniels and had the country music blaring, but they put the party on hold to help get the disabled vessel docked. We got Tony's boat tied up and then offered him the keys to our shit hot mini-van to get them back to their cabin at Turkey Point. Now I knew that Tony had never driven such a sexy vehicle with so much raw power and intense masculinity, so I had to give him a detailed briefing on how to best handle our sweet ride.

So we said goodbye to the Henriques for the third time this week (it doesn't get any easier), had a final drink with the remnants of the partiers on dock two and returned to the boat for a very good night's sleep.

And thus ends the Olson summer sailing trip for 2016.

Friday, July 22nd – The ride home

Because there was a big lightning storm predicted for last night we abandoned our original plan of leaving at 3am and sailing to Ashtabula, Ohio. Instead we slept right through the storm and woke up at a lazy 8am to overcast skies and the remaining winds from the storms which had passed. I checked the radar and the storm system had moved eastwards and there were no further incoming systems of any concern. So we decided to take advantage of the favourable conditions and make the long run back to Dover.

I went for a walk while the rest of the gang was getting ready. I strolled out to the end of the promenade that ran all the way through the marina to the outer break wall. I had a look at the water and I couldn’t see any whitecaps or dark clouds to the west. While I was out there I scared up a small duck family – a mom and a dad and a single tiny duckling that must have just recently been born. They all took off swimming but soon the baby duck took a right when his parents took a left and he went off on his own out into the middle of the bay. I watched for quite a while as the parents made their way across the water, either not realizing the baby wasn’t with them, or not too worried about it. Eventually I lost track of the duckling but I walked back on the promenade and over another concrete path build on top of one of the break walls towards where the parent ducks had swum to. By the time I got to the end and caught up to the parents, that little duckling had already arrived and was swimming around in the vicinity of his parents. I think there was some sort of deep lesson to be learned on parenting, but I was just happy the little duckling made it back to his folks.

It was about 10 when we threw off the lines and pulled away, or at least tried to, but one of the fenders got stuck on the dock and stretched it to the limit while the stern of the boat was propelled out and we nearly smashed into the boat docked beside us. Something finally gave, not sure it if was the fender, the rope or the dock, but we popped out and motored quickly away, hoping nobody saw amateur hour on the dock. We coasted into the fuel dock and the attendant lashed down the front line too quickly which again forced our stern out and smashed the front of the boat into the dock, this time much harder. What the hell is this, bumper boats?? We did a fast fill up and pump out and got the hell out of there before we caused any more damage to the facility and, more importantly, our boat. Once in the open waters we set the sails and programmed the route into the autopilot, which would take us right up the middle of Lake Erie to Long Point where we’d make a turn north and head straight into Dover.  The southeast wind was quite strong at first, but then died down as the day heated up.

I got the grill out at lunchtime and cooked up hot dogs, which we topped up with the leftover chili from the night before- Lake Erie Chili Dogs! After eating we stopped the boat and jumped in for a swim (and bath for some of us) to cool off. Though the water was a balmy 27 degrees, it was still cool and refreshing and a much needed break from the heat.

We sailed on, and on and mid-afternoon I experienced a perfect sailing moment. We had a strong, steady south-west wind pushing us along rapidly and smoothly. Magnus was laying in the shade of the cockpit having a stellar afternoon nap. Stella was down below in the vberth reading a book and relaxing. Ana was up on deck at the bow lying on a comfy chair enjoying the sun and alternating between reading a book and napping. I was sitting on the deck, near Ana, with my feet dangling over the edge catching a splash of water every once in a while when the boat dug into a big wave. The sky was clear, there was no land in sight, no boats anywhere and we had the entire lake to ourselves. When moments like this come along, I always stop, breathe them in and try to capture a mental picture of that exact point in time that will stay with me forever. We are so fortunate.

The rest of the day passed by not quickly, but not slowly, and after a delicious pasta dinner Stella and I headed to the vberth to catch a nap while Ana and Magnus took the first shift. The kids were determined to do some night sailing, as they were just too tired to participate the first day. Sometime after midnight Magnus woke us up, announcing it was time for our shift. Stella shot out of bed like a Mexican jumping bean and was in the cockpit with her mom before I was even able to rub the sleep out of my eyes. And it was now Saturday.

Thursday, July 21st – Loraine, Ohio

We left Kelleys at a leisurely 9:30 and had a beautiful 27.5 mile sail to the town of Loraine, Ohio. This is a town we’ve passed by many times in the past but have never stopped at, mainly because there are marinas to the east and west of it that we really love but also because several people in the past have told us there’s not much of interest to see there. Not liking to leave stones unturned, we were happy to finally get to see Loraine. We pulled into a gigantic marina and navigated gingerly to our assigned slip. There was a man there who helped us to dock the boat, and gave us a warning to watch the boards of the finger pier as they were getting a bit rotten and he had actually fallen right through his dock a couple of weeks before.

We checked in at the marina office and the two staff members were very helpful and friendly. The younger of them gave us directions how to get downtown, but did warn us there wasn’t much to see and that the nicest building down there was the police station. We learned that Loraine used to be a big ship building center, making it a prosperous and busy city, but that industry had shut down many years ago. To make things worse, the other big employer in town was US Steel but they had just recently shuttered the steel plant, putting hundreds of people out of work. This is a common theme we find as we travel the US side of Lake Erie and it illustrates so perfectly the creation/destruction cycles of capitalism. When things are good, they are very good, but at some point there is a shock in the market and things turn bad in a hurry. But it’s not usually long before those capitalist seeds are again planted in the hopes that they will flourish into something beautiful.

We did the hot walk (it must have been close to 35 degrees outside) downtown and found an absolute ruin. Perhaps only every third building was occupied, and many of these were artist studios. Many of the buildings themselves were magnificent and reminiscent of prosperous days gone by. There was an antique store open so we went inside to enjoy the air conditioned air and to have a look around. Their specialty seemed to be WW2 government propaganda signs as they were plastered all over the walls. The music being piped in was dreadful – it sounded like the soundtrack to Coronation Street played over ancient gramophone and it kept looping, and looping. From there we continued a block or two and found a coffee shop where we stopped for a cold drink, and Stella tasted her first cherry Coke. Yeah, that stuff is dreadful - one sip is about all you can take. Even Magnus found it to be too sweet, and that’s saying something.

We did a full circuit of downtown and then retraced our steps back over the bridge, along the way discussing how this town was probably ripe for redevelopment and could well be a thriving city once again if the right municipal policies and economic environment were in place. But for now, that downtown was a dead duck.

We walked to the sister marina of the one we were staying at (in search of the pool), and along the way found a lovely waterside neighbourhood with recently develop condos, plenty of green space, and a sign saying that three bedroom units were available for under $150k. We had a nice dip in the pool that was welcome after our sweaty, hot walk. We sat in the deck chairs for a while, dozed off, and then shook off the sleepies and walked back to our marina. By this time poor Stella was really dragging her paws and she announced to the family that she was feeling bummed out. Ana spun the lid of the water bottle she was carrying and blasted Stella (and me) with lukewarm water in a jovial attempt to shake the funk off. Stella didn’t see it that way. She burst into tears and had a mini-meltdown. So I took the water bottle and gave Magnus a blast in the face which turned her cries into laughter and she was okay after that.

Back at the boat the dockside breaker had tripped, so with the AC dead it had rocketed up to a nuclear 97 degrees in the cabin, but thankfully the fridges work on DC and the Yeti had plenty of ice so at least we could have cold drinks. I got the bbq fired up and slapped down some greasylicious burgers. As I was moving back and forth from the cabin to the cockpit I smashed my toe full force into one of the door panels and produced a shattered toenail worthy of the London Tate Modern Art Gallery. For the past few months my toenail had been slowly releasing itself from my toe. Ana said it was probably some sort of nail fungus, but I think the nail was just worn out. The obliteration was perfect and cut the nail right back to the skin, leaving two artistic fragments hanging, triumphantly. After the kids and I admired it for a while, I let them rip the pieces off and swordfight with them. Immediately after this the kids got the blue and pink clothespins out and clamped them to every fold of loose flesh on their faces – nose, ears and lips obviously but also eyelids, jowls and foreheads. You can have a lot of fun on a boat if you use your imagination.