I attended Medicine Hat College for a term, back in the day when my aspirations included a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. It was a goal, sadly, never achieved, but it was an interesting beginning to a long career in journalism, a career which earned me a PhD in almost all things to do with the English language.
One of my classes at MHC was Canadian literature. It was a revelation, since throughout high school we studied all kinds of classic and contemporary authors, poets and essayists, but exposure to Can Lit was basically Robert Service, Earl Birney and W.O. Mitchell.
In that class I was exposed to home-grown literature from the arcane to the sublime (Margaret Atwood鈥檚 The Edible Woman comes to mind), but sticking in my memory these days is Susanna Moodie. Atwood published a book of poetry based on Moodie鈥檚 books, The Journals of Susanna Moodie. Moodie鈥檚 books carry titles such as Roughing it in the Bush and Life in the Clearing. I was young and arrogant and I can remember thinking, 鈥淥, Susanna, what a whiner you are!鈥�
Moodie鈥檚 writing is hard slogging and the Atwood poems inspired by her efforts equally difficult. Moodie chronicles the hardships of life as a pioneer in central Ontario. There is little uplifting in her memoires, or at least there wasn鈥檛 to my young mind.
Fast forward about 42 years to the winter of 2020. Yep. Here we are, whining. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a loooong winter, because, alas, we are isolated.鈥� And oh, yeah, 鈥淲oe unto us, we are required to wear a mask if we do venture out. Poor us. Actually it鈥檚 an infringement on our 鈥榬ights!鈥� We should protest that.鈥�
Eeesh! All the howling has me contemplating the winters of my ancestors. They pioneered in the furthest southwest corner of Saskatchewan, south of the Cypress Hills. Winters there can be mild, but they can also be wildly unpredictable. This year, for example, after an entire season of attempting to grow crops with virtually zero precipitation, the southwest is currently buried under a deep layer of snow.
Because of modern roads, travel is possible. Back in the day, not so much. A team of horses and a sleigh would have been required to slog along prairie trails and across fields. With any luck the sleigh would have been enclosed with a heat source, but that wasn鈥檛 a given.
If the winter featured heavy snows, homesteaders were isolated. Period.
Dialling back to winters of the early 1900s, I think about how my ancestors coped with winter and isolation. How in the world did my seemingly delicate and emotional Grandma Lily survive winters in a homestead shack? I played in that structure as a girl, and to me it was an outbuilding, not a home. Grandma had a husband and three children. At least she wasn鈥檛 alone. About two miles away lived my Grand-uncle Art. He was Lily鈥檚 brother and a lifelong bachelor. His winter days must have been even longer than Grandma鈥檚.
Of course there were lots of chores to do just to stay alive, but the isolation must have been profound.
Prairie winter isolation in 2020: piece of cake. Dial up Netflix and count your blessings.
