AMBASSADOR OF SOUTH EASTERN SASKATCHEWAN - PART II
AMBASSADOR OF SOUTH EASTERN SASKATCHEWAN
II.
I was working at clearing out twenty years of shelterbelt overgrowth at the family ranch when I received the message from Tourism Saskatchewan asking if I had any original material referencing Southeastern Saskatchewan. I responded promptly confirming that I most definitely did. Overlooking the cover of Zachary Lucky’s “Saskatchewan” that Melanie and I cut a few years back, I suggested my more regional “Moose Mountain” without disclosing that it lyrically encouraged the casual usage of cannabis:
I twist one tighter than the cinch of my saddle and take to an evening ride
I gotta thirteen year old palomino mare with a need for a contact high
If the marijuana makes me miss them
Then my saddle horse makes it right...
I have shot myself in the foot with my humour in the past when submitting a shirtless image for a “home of” sign outside of Kennedy. Both my father and I thought it was a great representation of my character - unfortunately the honour was halted quickly following the initial request.
Tourism Saskatchewan responded having moved through the search for Saskatchewan-centric music and into a concept of approaching artists to represent their desired region as provincial ambassadors. The campaign would appoint representation to various cities and regions with the expectation of light shone on the territory’s hidden gems or go-to attractions. I already naturally gravitated towards this duty while in the hills of West Virginia, plains of Texas or most aggressively, in Southwestern Saskatchewan.
“May we include Little Jack?” I requested in hopes of completing the collaborative trio with him and Melanie.
“What is Little Jack?”
“He’s the best.”
“Yes, then we are interested in Little Jack,” Tourism Saskatchewan confirmed.
With the exception of my appearance at Melanie’s (A.K.A. Belle Plaine’s) performance with the Symphony Orchestra this past February at Regina’s Centre of the Arts, I have been laying low for almost eight months now...the decision obviously enforced by the pandemic. Although, as much as I’ve settled into my new pace, the idea of rearing my head to promote some people and places in my neck of the woods felt like a contribution to the greater good.
Saskatchewan’s Southeast is worth romanticism. Although the Moose Mountains are slightly exaggerated in their name as the sparse plains evolve into thick bush and rolling hills, the area carries an energy that has been sacred for thousands of years. Primitive structures such as the Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel dating back 2600 years (unfortunately now closed to the public) are by far the most interesting in the area. We would hike there as a major Grade 7 outing, our science teacher and principal, Mr. Heebner, encouraging the smokers to lay their tobacco as an offering.
My childhood was consumed with time spent throughout the Moose Mountain Provincial Park wandering off on horseback, taking swimming lessons, visiting family cabins, and sledding down its hills. Once our own social lives matured, the campgrounds became lawless with weekends of underage drinking and debauchery still unable to match the areas hay-day where multiple dancehalls and drinking holes frequented stops by The Guess Who, BTO, Queen City Kids, Chilliwack, or whichever other Canadian rock and roll road warriors could jam five hundred people in a room. Farmers, bohemians, businessmen, and lake bums.
My transition from a good-timin’ teenager to a road warrior myself, began throughout the southeast corner. If there was a street dance, rodeo cabaret, store-roofin’ fundraiser, or hockey wind-up, we were the band. Every town had a local hotel bar and I cold-called all of them. My twenties were spent expanding from the area and always returning, we would provide support for a more established act in northern Alberta one night and then drive through to dawn to play the Wapella Rodeo Cabaret the next.
Now, with a summer of shows cancelled due to safety, the opportunity to venture back on the highway with a couple collaborators is a much welcomed outing.
***
Our stovetop coffee percolator is brewing red hot. Houseguests always question its appearance with its lack of handle and its paint-chipped finish looking like it survived a nuclear fallout. Its gasket blows out excess steam as I wrap it in a tea towel and lift it from the burner. Little Jack declines a morning shot, already snagging footage of Melanie and I moving through the early morning. Our duties resemble tour preparation. Melanie fills a cooler with enough food to get us down the road and back, naan bread, ground hamburger with mole sauce, ziplocks of sliced vegetables, hummus, pickles, La Croix carbonated water. I am the pack horse moving luggage, music gear and camping supplies out the door and into the van. Little Jack is close behind loading his own vehicle, a matching asphalt Grand Caravan.
“We should find a nice canola field to do some type of introduction video,” I suggest while sipping from my travel mug.
The highway is as remembered, summer crops beginning to flower all along the Transcanada as we head eastward with Little Jack in the rearview. We pull off the highway and give a couple words to the camera, who we are and what we are doing, a sea of yellow canola blossoms behind Melanie and me. Little Jack nods as much to say we got it.
Fifteen miles up the road, we are already at a diversion in our game plan.
“Greg Miller!” bursts Melanie, pulling her phone out to extend a last minute invitation.
Native to the area, Greg returned from Toronto to the town of Indian Head to found Film Rescue International, a business specializing in the development of aged and forgotten film. Having met years prior at one of Melanie’s performances, his memory is triggered as we near his hometown.
COVID protocol of “masking up” seems counterintuitive as we are meeting for an ice cream cone. An unmasked line-up of Dairy Mart patrons stare at Melanie and me as we order, moving their glances between us and the camera that’s documenting. I can already tell that the next couple days are going to be as much a people study as anything. Coming from the area, I have a sense of the results I will obtain - Southeastern Saskatchewan does whatever they desire to do. If that means wearing a mask as suggested by Saskatchewan Health Authority then it will be unapologetic. If it means not complying to imposed guidelines then that will be evident as well. I pump the hand sanitizer a couple times and order a double cookies and cream. Melanie, Little Jack, Greg and I sit down. No sooner is my mask off, I fumble my melting ice cream cone onto the public picnic table while Melanie’s drips onto her hand. A no-greater childish heartache.
Dispirited, “I think I’m going to buy another.” With the probable help of Little Jack following me with a camera, I am given a replacement free of charge.
I am fascinated by Greg’s passion and a mastery that has birthed from it. The Venn diagram of “Saskatchewan” and “Internationally Renowned” is profound and Greg swims among the respected, having The Smithsonian, The Jewish Holocaust Museum, and the FBI as clients or consulting for.
“I’ve seen a spike in business with COVID,” Greg chuckles, understanding people to be at home digging through boxes of older days.
It has become uncontrollable for me to be engaged with someone I perceive as an intellect and not request their assessment of the times. I’m tired of having the conversation with binary minds, the ones influenced by either extreme. The name of his hometown comes up.
“Do you think it’s time to change it?” I ask Greg.
His worldly experience gives the answer I expected and with bellies full of cream we say our goodbyes.
***
As a southeastern twenty year old with a punk rock band, it was much more difficult to book a town hall or rural theatre than the local hotel lounge. There were a handful of historic theatres that seemed unattainable but every once and a while, if the pitch to the town office receptionist went well or you had a buddy on the inside, the events bulletin would go out to the community with your band’s name on it. The Wolseley Opera House was a combination of the two. I felt the achievement during that soundcheck. The evening ensued in a similar fashion to the previously mentioned Wapella Rodeo Cabaret. It was an unexpected tone to the evening but we were happy to provide the soundtrack.
Our province is peppered with these wonderful rooms for live music, built in a time where acoustics were meant to be transcendental. Big hardwood stages over big hardwood dancefloors. The steps up to the front entrance to the Opera House are churchlike while its firehall origin is preserved.
I fish behind the seat as I drive, hunting for an apple in our cooler.
“I played a rager at the Opera House in 2002,” I told Melanie as I bit into my mid morning snack, Wolseley appearing in the distance.
The sun seems to have tripled in heat since our last roadside stop, it burns the left side of my face as we turn into town. We wind up and down the streets looking at the architecture while attempting to cross the tracks that split the community down the centre.
I had no luck this time around attempting to get back on the stage of the Opera House. I even used the title Ambassador of Southeastern Saskatchewan in my phone call to the Town Office in hopes of having the door unlocked to record an impromptu live session in their big empty room. The non-interest was mixed in with COVID reasoning. I wonder if my name is on a blacklist from that performance in 2002?
LITTLE JACK FILMS - AMBASSADOR OF SOUTH EASTERN SASKATCHEWAN