April 2017 Elkwater Outing

I wrote this a while ago, but it keeps being true:

A drive east out of my home town of Medicine Hat, about 20 minutes past nothing at all, and about 20 minutes before Saskatchewan where the nothingness is exaggerated even further, there is a hard right turn up the steepest hill around. It’s not actually very steep, but to its surroundings it’s a mountain. Large trucks have to get a head start - charging at the bottom and dying out exhausted towards the top - and everyone’s gears have to get a little lower. Once up this hill, the road flattens out but not quite completely, though it looks like it does. But it’s an illusion. And in an automatic vehicle, the gas pedal tells the truth. Drivers have to compress it lower than they’re used to. There are no shoulders on this highway and it looks like any other prairie road, drifting past farms and cows and fields. But it takes more work to drive on it. And these familiar prairie sights gradually take on a greener, livelier, and more luscious look. It’s like driving towards to the source of life.

Another 20 minutes on this road is a gradual climb up the highest altitude anywhere on the prairies. At the end of the road is Cypress Hills interprovincial park. It lies on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan and it’s the only area on the prairies that wasn’t scraped away by glaciers. It looks as though all the glaciers ran into each other there and pushed together everything they were pushing and piled their loads on top of each other and then died. And it seems like they stashed their loads underneath what was already there, like a bump under a rug. The hills retain an outer layer of ancient forests and overlook beautiful lakes - perhaps the decomposing bodies of those long-dead glaciers.

This has always been a favorite place of mine and our family has been visiting it regularly my whole life. Day trips, scout camps, work retreats, dates, ski trips, family vacations, church activities, adventure races, parties. All found an ideal setting in those hills. My dad even took me and my brother camping with two other boys who we were never very close with. I don’t remember how the arrangement was made, but I think we loved the place so much that we figured we would bring whoever was available.

I had taken Harry there a few times before this summer. Once was in the winter when I forgot the park gets twice as much snow as the city. He had fallen asleep in the car and I realized my mistake and turned around and headed home before he could wake up. The other times he was too young to appreciate it. But this summer I took him once by myself and once with the whole family.

We didn’t have a video camera when I was growing up, but my dad sometimes borrowed one from work. He’d pop in a VHS and prop the camera on his shoulder and ask us to do things we didn’t want to do. Our family video vault contains a lot of footage of grumpy little boys telling the camera to go away. But sometimes we would be in the mood to show off, and I now recognize the tone of my dad’s voice that he would use to tell us how great we are at spinning in circles or how funny our jokes are. It’s the same tone I now use to tell Harry how interesting the rocks and sticks are that he shows me. We now have a GoPro camera that’s about the size of two ice cubes, and I bet that tone is captured for another generation. There is one memorable scene on an old family VHS of my brother and I playing on a playground and walking down a path in Cypress Hills, wearing neon sweatpants and sweatshirts, singing the Ninja Turtles theme song. This summer we took some footage of Harry playing on that playground and walking on that path and it probably caught me laughing at his jokes and being impressed by his ability to stand at the top of the playground.

The hills were formed by millions of years of erosion and sedimentary deposition. And an archeological dig near the townsite revealed human inhabitation of the hills for more than 8,500 years. Families have been a part of those hills for thousands of years, and I think this summer we preserved them for another generation.

UPDATE

This family is now deeply etched into the hills. The boy has been many times now and the Pud is starting to get the hang of things, though she spends more time in my arms than on her feet. The dude has expanded his abilities so that I am genuinely impressed, and the fake enthusiasm is a lot less fake, as I'd much rather see his favourite sticks and rocks and leaves than his favourite TV shows or iPad games.

We're lucky to have such a place nearby - a place to be in the wild and to be a little wild. I'm sure I'll return to this topic many times.