Author:
Wallace Stegner
Publisher:
Penguin Books
306
pages, plus Introduction, Suggestions For Further Reading,
Acknowledgments, paperback
Reviewed
by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson
Wallace
Stegner was a 20th
century, award-winning,
American fiction and
non-fiction author, who spent several of his childhood years living
in Eastend, Saskatchewan. In
the novel, Stegner refers to Eastend as Whitemud.
This
volume is difficult to categorize, since it combines history of the
Cypress Hills region, autobiography and fiction.
In
a conversation with Richard Etulain, Stegner confessed that he was
ambiguous about his identity: “I wasn’t sure whether I was
American or Canadian, so I decided I was Norwegian; I took my
grandfather’s Old Country name and signed it in all my schoolbooks,
which was quite preposterous except that it probably indicated a
desire for a continuity that wasn’t there.” (p. xvi)
The
book is divided into four parts, each containing three or more
chapters: I The Question Mark In The Circle, II Preparation For A
Civilization, III The Whitemud River Range, IV Town And Country,
followed by an Epilogue: False-Front Athens.
Stegner—in
contrast to a geologist who said southern Saskatchewan was “one of
the most desolate and forbidding regions on earth” (p. 6)--goes to
considerable length to describe the geography, ecology,
etc., with awe and wonder. “It is a country to breed mystical
people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble
ones.” (p. 8) He is astounded by the wide-open prairie, the wind
and sky, and birds like
the meadowlark.
The
Cypress Hills were visited and sometimes occupied by the Métis,
aboriginals including Sitting Bull, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and
the North West Mounted Police. Stegner observes how ranchers and
farmers struggled to survive in the area. He also describes life in
Whitemud (Eastend): Main
Street, the theatre, church, hardware stores, school, elevator,
hotel, the confectionery store, the
people who had ambitious dreams for the town, and those who became
disillusioned and left.
One
of the deepest memories of his childhood in Whitemud was the
“tantalizing and ambiguous and wholly native smell” of the wolf
willow shrub. “It is wolf willow, and not the town or anyone in it,
that brings me home.” (p. 19)
Living
in southern Saskatchewan during the homesteading days, Stegner states
that his education was much different than growing up in Europe with
easy access to art galleries, libraries, bookstores and museums.
“Education tried, inadequately and hopelessly, to make a European
of me.” (p. 24)
One
of the favourite childhood adventures in Whitemud was a visit to the
dump ground. Here Stegner and his friends found a wide array of
things that sparked their curiosity—everything from old bottles and
smashed wagon wheels to bits of metal, worn-out furniture and field
mice.
Stegner
admits that many of his contemporaries inherited prejudices about
indigenous people without question or thought. He goes on to provide
some history of several of the indigenous tribes including: the
Blackfoot, Cree, Piegan, Gros Ventres, Crows, and Sioux. He also
describes some of the injustices of the settlers towards the Métis
and the heroism of leaders like Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont.
According to Stegner, if you wanted to be accepted as one of the ‘in
group,’ you had to be a white male, tough, stoic, and prejudiced
against all other races, ethnic and minority groups, and all who
seemed weak or too aristocratic.
Reflecting
on how Americans and Canadians crossed the 49th
parallel, Stegner observes: “Civilization is built on a tripod of
geography, history, and law, and it is made up largely of
limitations.” (p. 85)
Stegner
greatly admired the cowboy and ranching culture. However, the winter
of 1906-07 brought about a major change from mainly ranching to more
farming. Stegner describes that unbearably cold winter, which killed
lots of cattle, and nearly killed the cowboys in a fierce blizzard.
In spite of that Ray Henry convinces his Molly to purchase the T-Down
ranch.
Wallace
Stegner was definitely a creative, accomplished storyteller. For this
reviewer, who grew up in southern Saskatchewan, it was as if one was
transported back in time to re-live one’s life growing up on the
prairie.
Those
readers who grew up or continue to live in the Palliser Triangle will
likely identify with and appreciate this volume.
