these were taken on my drive to the badlands.

top) in four hours of driving down dirt roads i saw more deer than people (3-0), and more horses than deer.

second from top) rolling hills.

middle) north shore of big muddy lake.

second from bottom) in the distance: long abandoned building, and long abandoned baseball field. again, no people. if you build it they will come... and go.

bottom) grasslands.

snow geese migrating south.

top) oil, oil, oil. southern saskatchewan is black gold land.

middle) forget the farming, we've got oil.

bottom) this was taken in roche percee, not new orleans. it is a town filled with history, petroglyphs, tee-pee circles, buffalo kill sites, and now an abandoned trailer park. the town was hit hard by the flooding in southern saskatchewan this past spring. everybody has been forced out and asked to relocate. abandoned, much like the rest of rural saskatchewan.

top) rocks around roche percee

bottom) rocks around roche percee

Top) roche percee area. near an old buffalo kill site.

second from top) petroglyphs. these were actually pointed out to me by an old chippewa woman (judy) whose ancestors had moved to the area to escape eropean settlers from the east. the problem with these petroglyphs is that they have been carved up by other people named jim, and bob, just scrapping their names over top of the sacred writings (there is some crap running down from the top in this pic).

another way to erase history.

second from bottom) some of the winding long rocks in the area look like snakes. judy, told me that the elders say an eagle once picked up a snake and flew into the sky with it. the snake fought hard as the eagle flew up and up. the eagle could not hold the slithering snake and had to drop it. the snake fell to the ground and when it hit the ground it turned to stone. the story makes sense, i guess.

snake.

bottom) judy.

top) plastic flowers forever. it seems like most people in southern saskatchewan took interior decorating classes from my grandmother. this for sure transfers into memorials, but just in case weather ever tried to mess things up, we put a pickle jar on it. pickle jar or something for salt pork.

middle) the reason i went to this grave yard. coal miners didn't get mad love in saskatchewan. most miners actually were forced into mining camps, and essentially treated as slaves. everything equipment-wise was deducted off of their pay (going as far as the fuel used in their mining helmets). the companies controlled where the miners and their families shopped, to keep money going back into company owned stores. dudes had enough and threw an uprising. RCMP handled it, rough history, but good to know.

this tombstone is actually pretty controversial, and actually the wording is to this day frequently changed from "murdered" to "killed". i am happy i caught it reading "murdered".

bottom) this coal miner seems happy though.

top) cows in the outfield.

top) cattle at large.

bottom) my future home.