A Canadian Pilgrimage

For many years I have lived on the Saskatchewan grasslands in a remote, sparsely settled area spread out between Highway One and the Montana border. A feature of life here is the occasional passage through of a traveller, or two, usually on horseback, but sometimes with team and wagon, heading from Winnipeg to Calgary, or from Ontario to the Pacific. Once it was an American woman with a 90-pound pack walking the border from swampy, bug-ridden southwestern Ontario to the Rockies. Recently, it was a French family on bicycles: sinewy parents, three sullen, road-weary children of varying ages, with the father pulling a child’s wagon in which sat the youngest holding the family dog.

Whenever word gets out that yet another wanderer is passing through, curious local people seek out him or her to have a friendly chat: Where are you going? Where have you come from? Why did you leave? What do you hope to gain? After years of such encounters, I can only say that no answers...