The Canadian Prairies

On my way to Australia, I stopped by my grandmother's place in Regina, the city in the heart of the prairies. I left on the morning of February 4th, and after a short stop in Toronto, I found myself disembarking on a typical Regina afternoon --- sunny, windy and cold. Although there had been a small "thaw" just before I arrived (temperatures had climbed to about -15C), a week before my arrival saw temperatures of less than -40C. My grandmother informed me that the windchill had made it feel -52 and even the trains had stopped running. My grandmother has lived in Regina since 1957 and has seen more than her fair share of cold weather, but even she said that she could not remember a previous occasion such as this.

My grandmother picked me up at the airport and I drove us both back to her house. Along the way, the road conditions, though not terrible, made the car difficult to handle. If I have one complaint about Regina it's the snow removal; there's none really to speak of. One would expect that a city so used to winter weather would have fairly decent snow removal. In Ottawa, even after major blizzards all urban and suburban streets are cleared generally within 24 hours, but not in Regina. It seemed to me that the city simply doesn't remove the snow and the streets, though there had not been significant snowfall for some time, were still covered in snow. Both my grandmother and mother assure me that in previous years the snow removal service had been even worse.

I spent the 4th to the 7th in Regina with my grandmother and had an absolutely fabulous time. My grandmother enjoys staying active so we went out on several occasions. On evening we went bowling and another we went to the movies to see The Golden Compass. We went to see an IMAX film about dinosaurs but perhaps the highlight of the trip was going to the Andy Warhol exhibit. Warhol was one of the most famous photographers of the 20th Century and he was Ukrainian as well, though that is less well known. He was born Andrij Warhola, pronounced an-DRIY var-HOLA, and his parents anglicized the name. To be more accurate, he was a Carpatho-Rusyn, which is to say an ethnic Ukrainian born in the Carpathian mountains outside Ukraine, Slovakia in this case. There was a large exhibit of his photography and it was very enjoyable and enlightening. There was even a lesser known photograph he took of another fellow Ukrainian, Wayne Gretzky (I'll leave the very complicated debate about Gretzky's heritage for another time).

Speaking of Ukrainians, there is an Eastern European tradition that I feel compelled to point out, since my grandmother follows it. When a grandchild is visiting, there is no such thing as "too much food". I don't know how she does it, but my grandmother prepared many wonderful dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner: meats, breads, fruits, cereals and other goodies. I would sit down and be fed many wonderful courses, honed by decades of skill and practice. By contrast, I remember one breakfast I asked my grandmother what she would be having and she said just a small bowl of fruit with some cottage cheese and tea. In speaking with some Ukrainian friends, I found out that this is at least a Ukrainian custom, probably more generalized to Eastern Europe. Whatever the case, I thank my grandmother immeasurably for her time and patience in making those wonderful meals.

While in Regina, I managed a bit of a side trip one day. I travelled down to Rouleau (pronounced ROW-low), a small town just outside Regina that serves as the town of Dog River, setting for the comedy Corner Gas. The pictures which accompany this post show Rouleau and a few other things.

After several wonderful days in Regina with my babunya (bah-BOO-nyah), "grandmother" in Ukrainian, I bade her farewell as I left for San Francisco. During my time in Regina, we had talked about several things and I had always intended to record some of it, but somehow I didn't have my mp3 player handy when we talked. I always enjoy going to Regina and I hope to go back many more times.