THE EXPEDITION Chapter 7: Stranger Things Really Do Happen on a Daily Basis

In which there is hospitality at a gas station and a blessing from a surprise visitor 

Date : April 30 2019

From Irvine to Walsh 17 km

Slowing down makes an opportunity to watch how connections run through the fabric of our lives, and this country, and the climate crisis, and how even the most unlikely pieces can become part of the pattern.

Slowing down also makes some people wonder what the heck you’re up to. One rancher hopped on his quad to come find out the story on the odd looking caravan traipsing along through his highway-spanning property. He made it abundantly clear that he thought my reason for walking was even more ludicrous than my wheely contraption, and there was no way in “h-e-double-hockey-sticks” he’d sign my petition, but we agreed to disagree fairly quickly and quite amicably because he really just wanted to make sure Mr Myrtle and I were alright. Actually, he was so strongly against my ideas that I admit I was relieved to change the conversation. It had verged on getting a little too edgy to be comfortable in the middle of relatively nowhere. We had a pretty great conversation about the road, and the land, and people, and he rattled through a list of did-we-needs, none of which we did, and I thanked him for caring. He really was nice guy, under the blustery old rancher exterior. I also asked to please consult his local expertise about the weather if he had time. The winds were picking up and I didn’t want to get caught scooting in a storm like the one we’d waited out in Medicine Hat.

There was a storm coming, but he figured there was plenty of time to make it to the next good place to stop, even at my speed. Walsh was just about at the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. He’d just been confirming that no, it really wasn’t a town, but yes, I’d be able to eat and sleep safely. Besides, he told me, this was hardly a storm. “Even that last one was nothing,” he assured me, “you should have seen the one two weeks ago now, after that storm I pulled more than half a dozen calves out of the trees!” I gather I looked as surprised as I was because he laughed – “look at the shape of these hills.” My eyes followed his outstretched arm. True enough, the hills here are more like lumpy worn-down boxes than rolling slopes. Apparently, and I’ve confirmed this elsewhere since, if a relatively small cow happens to be too near the edge of a hill and standing at just the wrong angle when a gust or 50kmh or so hits it at just the wrong angle, the cow blows over – into the branches of the trees rising alongside the edge of the boxy hill.

It turns out, explained my ranching weather expert, that this just happens sometimes. He started rhyming off all the recent incidences, with descriptions, and as I was thinking this sounded like a way less rare occurrence than he’d said it was, he was mourning the lost cows and the money lost with them. “That’s how many this year?! Too many! And this last storm, half a dozen calves and a small cow, dammit, that’s just too much, there’s something wrong here dammit – you go tell those idiots, and give me that damn petition to sign!”

I was still confoundedly but happily shaking my head when we rolled into Walsh, and maybe the planet was too, because the storm held off until after I locked up Sam at the first gas station, and settled into both a snack and a fascinating talk with the owner.

There were two gas stations, I’d been hearing for a couple days, and nothing else. Google maps seemed to concur, for those who were able to get it to show them the area. A few serious (and self-described) rednecks had already warned me “Don’t stop at the first one – they’re some kind of brown people!” I figured that if people who didn’t like what I was doing didn’t like those people, then those people and I would probably get along pretty well.

This wellspoken and very intelligent man was as frustrated about the damage to the earth and to people’s relationships with her and with each other as I and so many others are. He’d moved to Canada from Iraq decades ago and had spent the years since discovering it from the driver’s seat of a long haul truck. His drop dead gorgeous but friendly and earthy wife explored with him until it was time to trade navigating for motherhood. Meanwhile, they’d learned to love every inch of the land, and the career that currently feeds his family is financing and giving way to a whole new life. He’s still driving, but they’re working on adding a restaurant to their gas station and store, and were already building a nice quiet little campground when I was there. The chickens they’ve been raising for quite a while now have been joined by goats and gardens, and I remember hearing so many dreams and plans. They live quite simply. They even live very happily, despite being in an area where a lot of folks hate them and actively interfere with their business and personal lives on the basis of their skin colour.

They do it because they love this country. They love the incredible beauty of the land, and the good people they’ve met from end to end of it, and who pass through their place now. They love the possibilities that life here is full of, and they love the kind of future they hope they can be part of creating, for their children and their children’s children and for all forms of life.

They love all that so much, and believe in it so thoroughly, that this man is also the only non-conservative political candidate in his riding, and he keeps running again, because he refuses not to believe in keeping alive all those things they love.

Here, a spot on the map consisting of two gas stations and some far-flung ranches, I was having a conversation about the climate crisis, politics, community, with a seriously beautiful spiritual perspective. A pretty big piece of me wished I could just stay in Walsh.

And then an Indigenous woman popped in out of the blue (or white, as the case were) and asked “Are you Ann?”

Carmen, a friend of one of my Calgary friends, happened to be on the road that day, heading home from the west coast. Eva had told her about the walk, and how to catch up with me so we could meet. Carmen is the granddaughter of two nations, and a wisewoman in her own right. We talked and talked, about the Earth, about what I was doing, about some of the kinds of changes we all need to be making, in our perspectives, and in our relationship with the planet.

Carmen couldn’t get over the fact that I was doing this walk in a skirt, even! I live in skirts because pants make my skin have panic attacks, and because they are emotionally more comfortable to me, but it’s a significant dress statement among many people, including many indigenous peoples here. It’s part of respectfully being who you are, and other things.

Carmen offered Mr Myrtle and I a ride to her home in Regina, but understood the point of turning it down to walk. We arranged to meet in Regina, and she asked me to stay with her there at least a few days to meet people and talk and pray and have a ceremony. She wanted to walk with me from there, at least part of the rest of the way to Ottawa. Meanwhile, though, she gave me a blessing, and a white eagle feather to keep me safe through her peoples’ lands till we met again.

I waved to her as the storm died down, and went to pitch the tent in one of the little campground spots, in the shelter of its own bit of windblock fencing and some trees, but my host decided we’d be safer in the lee of the large building with utilities and whatnot below and their own home above. They also brought a plate of beautifully seasoned hot rice and vegetables.

Full of good food and kindness and surprises, safe from the weather, I watched the snow dancing down in patterns as wild and random as the ones I was living in.