Working the Land

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In April 2022, as Artist in Residence at the Wallace Stegner House in Eastend, Saskatchewan, I experienced firsthand the environment from his childhood recollections in Wolf Willow. He writes “…a land with no transition between earth and sky: in the heat the horizons melted and ran; on the flats the sky and clouds moved in the reflecting sloughs.” In southeastern Saskatchewan, at the edge of the Cypress Hills I found immeasurable horizons marked by evidence of occupation, brining order to a landscape that had few orientation points. Along the empty roads were evidence of communities that once settled in this vast spacious prairie. I had to look deep to find evidence of old trails and rocks that had been carefully placed, remains of a long ago habitation. On working farms were buildings in various stages of disassemblement, and sometimes it was difficult to discern whether or not these were abandoned farms or dwellings. Occupied or not, they were as organic as what else grew on the land.