Yesterday two of our group of four pilgrims ended their leg of the walk. Rick Kotowich will be staying for the community event tonight in Val Marie, and then heading home, perhaps to join us again near the end of the pilgrimage. My former teaching assistant, Hayden Thomassin, managed to find a spot on the Greyhound to Regina and is in place for his flight home today.
Already well over 100 km traversed. We’ve met some very nice people – in the photo above, three local ranch families (thanks esp to Keith and Margaret Walker and to Howard and Fern Hanson!) came together to meet us as we passed one of the few roads that day. They brought watermelon, rhubarb cake, and cold water, and lots of smiles. We needed the break and the refreshment. It was perhaps our hardest walking – through mile after mile of natural prairie grassland, over cactus and dry bog and sage and speargrass. By the end of the walk, our laces were furry with the speargrass that worked its way into my shoes and caused a painful blister. Our companions on this portion of the walk were Dave and Esther Green on horseback. We also came across all kinds of wildlife: deer, antelope, coyote, Swainson’s hawks with their scratchy cries overhead, and the tail end of a small horned lizard skittering down a hole. None of the rattlesnakes that live in these hills, unfortunately (or fortunately!).
At the end of the day I stumbled across a huge solitary boulder, rubbed smooth over years by the bison herds now gone. When my companions went to see it, they said: “didn’t you see? It wasn’t a boulder but a sleeping buffalo”. Sure enough, it was in the shape of a sleeping bison. Yet another of the magical places that sit alone on this land.
Hugh and I will miss Hayden and Rick. Rick’s attention to the spirit and the feeling of the land was inspirational, and Hayden brought a wonderful openness and enthusiasm to this first experience. More pilgrims are joining us today, so the company will change. But the journey, and the land, will stay the same.
(Photos by Marshall Drummond of Val Marie)
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2 replies on “Our North-West Company of Pilgrims”
This will be an altogether different experience for you with an alternating band of pilgrims. Kind of a relay pilgrimage in a way.
Yes, every week will be a new experience. I’m thankful for Hugh’s presence throughout (besides which I’d be completely lost without his direction-finding!)