Ernestly ?!Ernestly ?!By ERNIE NEUFELD, Weyburn Review Associate Publisher
As readers of this column can attest, its subject matter occasionally is far-away places I have stumbled across in my travels. Perhaps it seems that I am overlooking what is under my nose in favour of what I may encounter in Texas, Tennessee, Newfoundland or Cypress.
This week's offering, I hope, will reconfirm my undying affinity for matters and places Saskatchewanean. Admittedly, I might have found parallels much closer to Weyburn, but I do love my little excursions away from hearth and home.
In August, spurred by my dedication to assimilating my new partner into the Saskatchewan milieu, with particular emphasis on wiping out residual Ontarionian misconceptions of our province as being chiefly flat, dry and treeless, I undertook a guided tour (me: guide) to what we customarily and erroneously refer to as our north, but is really below the geographical centre of the province.
Having left Weyburn noonish on a warmish mid-August day, we found ourselves in Melfort early enough for a fraternal visit to that pleasant little city's modern and progressive newspaper plant. We had really planned to press on to Prince Albert, but a few telephone calls established that accommodation for that evening might be dicey, if not impossible.
This resulted in the obvious and fortuitous decision to spend the night in Melfort, and take in some of the tourist attractions in the general area, before moving northward. An unexpected side benefit was one of the tastiest restaurant meals of the summer. To add to the enjoyment of excellent food, the manager of the establishment stopped at each table to pass the time of day, and we learned that he was a transplanted Torontonian who had been a commercial traveller. When the urge to settle down came upon him, he decided he would rather live in Saskatchewan than anywhere else. How's that for good taste?
The stopover also afforded us a visit to the Melfort museum, featuring a pioneer village along the lines of the one that has been and is being developed on the southern base of Signal Hill. This resulted in exposure to a Melfort area oddity of which I had been ignorant, and which really triggered the writing of this column.
The young woman who gave us the guided tour of the museum suggested that we might wish to visit the synagogue at Edenwold, just a few miles up the road.
I found this quite astonishing, as I had always believed that the settlement in the Hirsch-Oungre-Hoffer area to be a unique Jewish agricultural experiment in this country. I quickly learned that the Edenwold district north of Melfort had once been the home of a sizable Jewish colony, established just after the turn of the century - a few years after Weyburn became a town.
In fact, a brief story of the Edenwold settlement was to have been the theme of this column. As you may have noticed, however, the preamble has again filled the available space - a bit like the introduction eating up the time of the guest speaker.
I regret now that we did not drive a few miles out of our way to visit the Beth Israel Synagogue at Edenwold, but the morning (and the following days) were far from wasted.
Beside the well-conducted tour of the Melfort museum, we found our way to Batoche, probably the major battleground in Saskatchewan history, and a site important to this day in national annals. It is well worth seeing, although you have to be looking for it in order to find any signing that will direct you there.
A scenic drive west took us to Fort Carlton, admirably reconstructed to original plans. This former Hudson Bay Company about halfway between Fort Edmonton and Fort Garry and - briefly - a North West Mounted Police post, is another worthwhile stopping point for anyone interested in our province's links with a colourful frontier past.
A drive to La Ronge and Waskesiu with the acrid smell of forest fire smoke sometimes assailing our nostrils provided two days full of reminders that, in fact, our province is mostly not flat and treeless - although admittedly dry at the time of our excursion.
See it again if you've been there. If not, savour the full sweetness of a "first" experience.
My address (also listed on the Review's Website) is ernestly@pathcom.com.
Box 400, 904 East Avenue
Weyburn, SK
S4H 2K4
Phone: (306) 842-7487
Fax: (306) 842-0282
E-mail: production@weyburnreview.com
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Review (1987) Ltd.
