Hello and welcome to Something Like Love. I was born and raised in Saskatchewan, and much of my family still lives in that oft over-looked province – if I had a dollar for all the times people have told me they’ve just “driven through” on the TransCanada, I’d be a wealthy gal. 

I spent most of my adolescence in Meadow Lake. I grew up in the forest and in the crystal clear lakes inside the Meadow Lake Provincial Park. As a child, I remember a bear running through the school yard at recess, and the students were stampeded back into the safety of the school. Or is that a false memory? A dream? I’d be interested in hearing from you if you too attended Jubilee School – the round elementary school -  and remember the bear at recess too.  

In this week’s episode I’m going to bring you along on a road trip through my home province via an essay that’s had a long and varied life. Firstly, it appeared in a long gone but lovely magazine called NeWest Review as “Road Trip: Why I Write About Saskatchewan.” That was way back in 1996.

In 2009 it appeared in a book titled Country Roads: Memoirs from Rural Canada, released by Nimbus Publishing. I included it in my 2014 essay collection, I Wasn’t Always Like This, published by Signature Editions, and here it is again, with music, for you. Shout out to the marvellous Peter Mutafov for channelling Neil Young in this episode ... and to Neil Young himself, for "Harvest Moon".