MSI Press Blog

SASKATCHEWAN  “Between the blush at dawn and dusk the long kiss of land and sky, bare against each other.”  From “The Prairie” in This Land by Ken Odland  The sun shown brightly as we crossed the border into the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan. Temperatures approached 30° Celsius, about 10 degrees above normal for September. Immediate impressions, as seen from the highway, were checkerboard fields of amber, ochre, and green. Fall is harvest time in the prairies and many farmers were taking advantage of the fine weather to collect their crops. On distant horizons, columns of dust rose behind tractors pulling reaping machines. Grain elevators, always beside railroad tracks, were prominent landmarks in most small towns.  British Columbia’s landscape is mostly mountainous; Alberta has mountains to the west and prairie to the east; Saskatchewan, at least the southern section, is endless flat prairie. Two tongue-in-cheek sayings that capture the essence of this fla