Travels in small towns in North America
By Richard White, February 9, 2014
It is ironic that in December I picked up Stuart McLean’s 1991 book “Welcome Home: Travels in small town Canada” in a Maple Creek SK thrift store and the first story is in fact about his stay in Maple Creek. It was also ironic as 2013 turned out to be “Year of Small Town Travel” in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Montana, Idaho and Washington for Brenda and I.
For us, visiting a small towns is mostly just pulling off the highway and taking an hour or so to flaneur the streets, take some pictures, maybe grab a bite or a coffee and chat a bit with one or two locals.
McLean, much more strategic, carefully researched his small towns – Maple Creek (Saskatchewan), Dresden (Ontario), St. Jean de Matha (Quebec), Sackville (New Brunswick), Foxwarren (Manitoba), Naksup (British Columbia and Ferryland, (Newfoundland). He chose carefully to ensure that collectively, the towns would reflect that diversity that is Canada’s sense of place.
He also went and lived for a couple of weeks in each town, so he could meet the residents and truly understand the psyche of the people and place. This all happened in early ‘90s over 20 years ago.
What I loved about the book was the great insights - his and others - that he quotes into understanding the ongoing evolution of our cities and towns, as well as better sense of our collective history as Canadians and North Americans. There are also amazing character sketches for those interested in people.
I thought I would share some of these insights with you accompanied by an image from one of the small towns we visited that related to the McLean’s observations.
From the introduction:
“If there is one aspect of towns and villages that we find remarkable, it is their persistence, their refusal to die out, their staying power.” G.D Hodge and M.A. Qadeer, 1983
“Eventually, I decided that we all live in small towns. Mine happens to be in the heart of a big city.” S. McLean
This is a house on our block just a few doors down. Like McLean we live in a Calgary, a big city, however it is composed of over 200 small communities of about 5,000 people, each with their own parks, playgrounds, schools, recreation and community centres. Not that much different than the small towns McLean visited.
Maple Creek, Saskatchewan
“Asians didn’t get the right to vote in Canada until the late 1940s.”
“When she was twelve, Pansy rode (horseback) five and half miles across the fields every day to a one-room schoolhouse…there were lots of deer, antelope and coyotes.” (And we complain about kids taking long bus rides to get to school today)
McLean talks about a Chinese restaurant in his book; this might be it. Had a great soup and grilled cheese. GA writes: "you may want to add the nearby winery, yep I do mean winery. Most of the wine is made from berries and Rhubarb, but they also grow grapes. The wines are certainly drinkable and it is fun to produce for visiting guests. Their wine tastings are professionally done."
Dresden, Ontario
“Dresden is where Aylmer manufactures all of the ketchup they produce in Canada.”
“Canada is not merely a neighbor to Negroes. Deep in our history of struggle for freedom Canada was the North Star. The Negro slave, denied education, de-humanized, imprisoned on cruel plantations, knew that far to the north a land existed where a fugitive slave, if he survived the horrors of the journey could find freedom.” Martin Luther King Jr., Massey Lectures, 1967
Did you know that Josiah Henson a slave who escaped to Canada and settled in Dresden was the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
“The bell at the firehall used to ring at noon and at nine in the evening to signal curfew for all those under the age of fourteen. The bell at the old McVean factory rang at starting time and quitting time and, like all the other bells in town, at the noon break. You don’t hear town bells the way you used to. It is too bad. A bell lends a certain orderliness to a town – anoints the noon meal with righteousness, resolves the end of the work day with dignity, infuses dusk with a sense of purpose.”
“There’s also a certain continuity that you don’t get anywhere else. Everyone in school knows everyone else. Most of the parents come from here. The continuum is passed along.”
While I didn't travel to Dresden, I did get to Clarkesdale, Mississippi which is home to the Delta Blues and to Memphis where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. Both are cities in decline, but with a proud history that they celebrate vigorously.
This is the J.W. Cutrer Mansion in Clarkesdale. The Cutrers and their home inspired the character names and settings in several works by playwright Tennessee Williams. This small town is an interesting study in contrasts between the rich and the poor that has existed for decades - it is not something new.
Just one of many homes that are slowly peeling away.
This is the entrance to Ground Zero Blues Club, one of the most authentic and famous blues bars in the world. The entire inside of the club is like this with people signing their names on every wall, everywhere. It is a work of art.
Who knew when I picked up this used book in the spring of 2013 that I would be in the Mojo Man's home turf early in 2014.
St-Jean-de-Matha, Quebec
You can see winter in the architecture wherever you look – the old houses small because they were easier to heat; the brightly painted roofs, pitched steeper here than anywhere in the country, because if you let snow accumulate all winter your roof would collapse before spring.”
We discovered the ghost town of Washtucna, while on our way see the off the beaten path Palouse Falls Washington. We don't usually seek out natural wonders, but we were encouraged to do so and in the process we found Washtucna. I did not realize the potlatch culture extended this far south or east, I had always associated it with Pacific Northwest first nations. Every small town has a story to tell.
We tried to get into Sonny's but despite the sign it wasn't open.
Ted's Garage has become the town's post office. In "Welcome Home" you will read how important the post office was in small towns even in the early '90s.
Sackville, New Brunswick
“This is a town that understands tradition…Mrs. Helen C. Beale wouldn’t think of going downtown to mail at letter without putting on a dress, white gloves and a hat.” “the driving factor behind the new clock tower is that public’s displeasure with not having a clock in the downtown core.”
“Like all small towns, Sackville’s greatest export is her people.”
Our equivalent to McLean's Sackville was Moscow, Idaho, also a university town and this was one of our favourite breakfast spots. Check out the Huckleberry Zucchini Bread or the Lemon Poppy Seed french toast. We will be back!
The students loved Bucer's Coffee House and Pub....we did too. Great ambience.
Every college town needs a quirky bike shop - Paradise Bikes was Moscow's.
Yes there is a new clock tower on campus. It also has a great indoor football stadium and one of the world's best climbing wall facilities. Of the 9,000 students, 6,000 live on campus with an 18 to 1 student to teacher ratio.
Our dinner at the Sangria Grill may well have been our best meal of 2013. We could show you an image of our plate but the ceiling is way more exciting. Loved the circus dolls. The menu is very interesting e.g. Macadamia coconut halibut mango salsa fried banana rice. Desserts are to die for e.g. sweet potato creme brulee or coconut bread pudding with lucuma ice cream. Yum Yum!
Foxwarren, Manitoba
“In western Canada, prosperity is calculated in units of verticality. Oil rigs, grain elevators and silos measure the land.”
“first grain elevator in Canada was built in Gretna, Manitoba, in 1881.”
“you hate to see your home town go. But there is nothing you can do to stop it going. You can’t survive on a small farm anymore.”
“Donna Hodgson is the postmistress, and she is the sixth person (three men, three women) to hold the job since the post office opened on August 1, 1889.”
The Foxwarren arena illuminates Foxwarren the way the Roman Catholic Church used to illuminate Quebec. Hockey in Foxwarren is a faith, a theology and a creed. In Foxwarren you don’t go tot eh game as much as you give yourself to The Game. You don’t enjoy hockey. You believe in it… if you live in Foxwarren you can’t escape the arena’s gravity.”
“Like many old men, Andy has become the embodiment of a better era – living proof that the stories everyone has heard actually happened. With his old age he blesses everyone else with youth.”
“At the turn of the century and for thirty years after that, the tracks on these prairies were haunted by the most romantic train in Canadian history – the silk train. Silk that arrived in Vancouver by boat had to be shipped to the Lakehead quickly… they were given priority over all other trains on the tracks. Once a train carrying Prince Albert (later George VI) was shunted onto a siding to wait while a silk train burned past.”
Meeting Creek, Alberta was our encounter with the great spirit of the prairie Grain Elevator. It was surreal to just be able to explore this perfectly preserved elevator and station with nobody around.
You can't make something like this up.
Nakusp, BC
“Left alone in a museum, it doesn’t take much to make a grown man twelve. Wondering vaguely what I will say if someone walks in, I climb into the saddle and lean on the saddle-horn as I read the typed note pinned to the wall. The horse that Tom Thee Persons rode to fame was known as Cylcone.” Who knew this piece of Calgary’s Stampede history is housed in the Nakusp Museum?
While we didn't have a saddle to sit on. Brenda has a similar experience when we were exploring Twin Falls, Idaho and she found this pencil dispenser in the library. She had to try it. Not once but twice. It doesn't take much to make a grown women twelve.
We also found this display of Red Rose Tea figurines at the library. There were several series but the Canadian Series caught our interest. Who knew the Mongrel was a Canadian animal?
These dolls were fastened to posts throughout the city, at first it was cute then just strange.
Twin Falls is one of the few places in the world that you can BASE jump without a permit. We had to wait around for a bit but we did see several guys jump. If you look carefully you can see a speck of blue where the bridge shadow meets the steel arch at about two thirds of the way to the top of the image - that is a jumper.
Ferryland, Newfoundland
“Maybe when death is all around you, maybe when everyone’s children are dying, maybe when the winter blows cold and the nights are dark and your ten-year-old daughter gives a little cough and your heart seizes and you look at your husband with frightened eyes and then the priest comes and then she dies, maybe you find a way to make sense of things. But how, after five have gone, could you have a sixth? And how, when your last boy dies, could you plant a crop, go to church, milk a cow, eat a meal, smile, laugh and carry on?”
“Essentially Albert Lawlor drives the Popemobile up and down highway 10 every day.” Yes the same popemobile Pope John Paul II used when he toured North America in September 1984.
“It was a big change. The more people got TV’s, the less you saw of them. Before the TV, everyone depended on everyone else…you visited. You helped each other.”
“If you really want to understand a place, you can’t do it from an automobile.”
One of our best small town experiences of 2013 was when we decided to park our car and walk the streets of Buhl, Idaho. Within seconds I looked over and saw this warehouse with something interesting in a bucket and on the ground. Wandering over, we found the warehouse was full of all kinds of antlers and mounted animal heads that were to be shipped all over the world. We spent over an hour chatting with the guys with the owners. The street art was the head and part of the carcass of an elk that had been shot by the owners son. Their trailer is perhaps the equivalent of the popemobile.
Over 150,000 pounds of antlers are collected in this Buhl shop and then sorted and shipped to pet food plants, used for home decor objects etc. All of the antlers are naturally shed, only the mounted heads are from animals that are shot with permits.
The Clover Leaf Creamery was another find in Buhl, Idaho. It is a fully operational dairy that uses the old glass bottles and has a wonderful old fashion ice cream parlour. It is amazing what you find if you get off the inter-state highways and take the scenic route. Buhl also had a great thrift store with mid-century artifacts from the community's past. There was also a theatre converted into a Mexican restaurant which told the story of the present economic realities. It is amazing what you find if you get out of the car.
Brenda is in her happy place.
Last Word
In “Welcome Home” over and over again you read stories about why people love their small towns - the common denominators being everybody knows everybody, nobody locks their doors, shopkeepers work on credit and lamenting the loss of jobs.
Full of everyday stories of everyday people, it is a fun read of what life used to be like whether you lived during that time or not. I loved McLean’s comment when he was reflecting on the changes in the way hockey is played today vs 50 years ago, “somehow the game seemed purer when I was young.” I expect that applies to everything in the game of life.
We would like to thank the following for their assistance with our small town flaneuring in 2013:
- Red Lion Canyon Springs, Twin Falls
- Tourism Idaho
- Best Western Plus University Inn, Moscow, Idaho
- Moscow Chamber of Commerce, Moscow, Idaho
- Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau
- Pam Scott, VP Communications, Red Lion Hotels
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