Pop 89: The Supply Run

By Madonna Hamel

One of the rewards of living in a remote place is The Supply Run. Some people might consider having to drive an hour and a half to purchase food and sundries an inconvenience. But then, the same people would never move to a village in the “middle of nowhere” in the first place.

Yesterday was my Swift Current day. After spending years in cities, two of them the largest in Canada, Swift is hardly a metropolis. But, after eleven years in Val Marie, Pop89 (ish), my sense of scale has changed. Hell, Swift has stoplights! Gas stations! Malls! It even has a casino, a cinema and a brewery! And, yet, it doesn’t have rush hour traffic, air pollution or parking nightmares. (It’s harder to find a parking space in Banff than it is in Swift Current, which, thankfully, is no international tourist Mecca.)

A week before the run I begin my list. Besides the groceries I can’t get at Val Marie Grocery & Liquor (and Jody goes out of her way to bring in special requests), there’s always hardware to pick up nails, glue, and gaffer tape. (Some folks call it “duct tape,” but I first used it on film and video sets and then on the road with bands to tape down wires connected to instruments, microphones and amps.) 

Swift’s hardware store has the best service. I’m thinking especially of a sales clerk who sounds like a heavy smoker and loves to tease. She knows how to jerry-rig anything; if they don’t have an item in stock- she’ll sell you the next best thing. Or send you to a place that does sell it. Above all, she is, as an old farmer once described, the best kind of person, “a good visitor.”

After that I scoot over to the Mennonite thrift store and see what they have by way of pillowslips and tablecloths. There’s always some homemade treasures, intricately embroidered and cross-stitched by an adept craftswoman, and sold for a shameful couple of dollars.

Next, I’ll continue down the road to the recycling depot and make coins on empties to buy my latte at the end of the day. Urban Ground, the cozy independent coffee shop, only takes cash and debit. I try to sit there and drink half my coffee before heading home, just to people-watch and eavesdrop and scribble some notes in my journal. (When I used to teach writing in town, I’d take my kids there just to listen and observe humanity.) 

Yesterday, I had a special stop to make that I knew would take some time: The Chinook Library book sale! One of the joys of the supply run is never knowing who you’ll run into, but being pretty certain you will bump into a friend or two. Sure enough, not five minutes into my book foray, in comes Hugh Henry. Hugh was the director of the Swift Current Museum for nearly twenty years. When I met him, I thought: “He looks like he stepped out of an Everett Baker photograph.” I’d just learned about Baker as the day manager of our little red school house museum, Prairie Wind & Silver Sage. He deserves a brief diversion.

Besides being my new favourite artist who never intended to be an artist, Baker was a co-op man, and he toured the province trying to get others to join the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. He met a young German immigrant who needed money (who didn’t then?). Apparently, Baker’s wife quipped: “Now you’re going to have to learn to use that thing!” And so he did. He took over 9,000 photos on his co-op tours across the province from 1940 to 1960, which began drawing crowds after he started showing slides at every talk. 

Hugh, also an artist, and on the board of the local History and Folklore Society, along with Matthew Anderson, a pilgrimage prof, gave a talk at PWSS about their latest walk - tracking the NWMP Trail from Wood Mountain to Fort Walsh. Baker was the man behind the erecting of those the NWMP trail signs dotting the southwest. I decided immediately I had to join that walk and spend a week with them, tramping from White Valley to Fort Walsh. It was one of the most memorable weeks of my life. And the only way to experience this living land is on foot and the way the ancestors experienced it. 

There were plenty of talks on that walk. And plenty of long contemplative stretches. I learned a lot about my fellow pilgrims, most of which I forget because pilgrimages have a way of stirring up conversation but also of casting the words into the wind, as if they were only meant for the moment. But one person whose words we always heeded was Hugh. With his sense of direction and well-worn hand-sketched mini-maps he always got us where we were going.

For an in-depth and fascinating read about this walk and other walks planned and executed by Hugh, read Matthew Anderson’s “The Good Walk: Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trails.” Matthew has a way with people that puts them at ease and gets them to talk, and he DID keep a record of our stories and sharings. He helped me, as did Hugh (and Ken Wilson, who writes a blog called “Reading and Walking” - my two favourite things to do!) with the historical import of the place. Two other companions to whom I owe more than I’ve yet to fully process were Louise Halfe -Sky Dancer, the formidable Cree poet, and Don Bolen, the archbishop of Regina diocese, with whom I talked about the books of our youth, among them the Jewish novelist Chaim Potok.

Hmmm. I’ve come to the end of my column, and I’m heavy on the sundries and empty on the groceries. Not a very focussed Supply Run. But, I suppose it all depends on what one defines as essential supplies!