Christmas 2022

 It’s been a month of contrasts.

First, I had a bad tooth ache which turned out to be an infection and a dead root that needed a root canal. I give thanks for pain killers and modern dental techniques! No pliers needed. Nor do I have to chew on twigs to clean my teeth or rinse with dog’s teeth boiled in wine. Apparently the ancient Chinese used acupuncture for tooth pain - maybe that even worked. They are also said to have invented the first tooth brushes in the late 1400s. Anyway, my tooth is fine and in January I will find out if I need a cap.

It’s the first Christmas in years that I spent with my son and grandson, but the trip here wasn’t without problems. I booked a cab early on December 20 to take me to the airport in the afternoon. Of course that was the day that everyone had all kinds of problems and after waiting a half hour past the due date of my cab and having phoned them once and received assurances that they were putting a rush on it (with no result) I phoned a friend, who kindly picked me up and drove me to the airport. All seemed well, a quick run through security and a short wait (I thought). But the plane that was to fly me to Edmonton was late,  in fact 2 hours late. It had had mechanical difficulties in Edmonton before flying to pick us up. Still, I made it and my son had been waiting to pick me up, which was nice because it was dark and very cold.

Spent the few days leading up to Christmas doing a bit of shopping while my son was at work and grandson at school. We had some lovely suppers together and then it was Christmas Eve day. I’d also baked cookies and bread.

I texted with a friend who also is in Edmonton with family for the first time in a long while. My son grandson, and I FaceTimed with some family, shared photos on WhatsApp and will FaceTime with others on Boxing Day.

Christmas Eve supper was roast chicken on vegetables, then we opened presents and later played a game. At 9 we took my grandson to his mom’s place and my son and I are on our own for Christmas Day. It will be a quiet day, and I’m thankful for this time with family, and connections with friends. Thinking of those far away.

Merry Christmas and happy new year to all!

Brunhilde Gertrud Helene

February 8, 1926 - October 13, 2022

Mom is gone, resting now beside Dad. Both of them lived long, varied and productive lives. I’ve written about my dad in a previous blog (March 22, 2020), so this one will focus on my mother.

Two quite magical things happened in regards to my mother. One occurred after her death. My youngest brother and I were cleaning out Mom’s room in the long term care home where she’d spent her last few years, some of them with Dad. There were several photos of Mom at different stages of her life. We were familiar with most of them, but one we hadn’t seen before. Mom was about 19 and there was German cursive writing on the back, not easy to read. I struggled a bit but began to translate for my brother. Had to stop, got choked up. Roughly translated it read, “Is the time sometimes long, dearest then think of this, that far, far away a girl sits who cares for you, waits for the time when you will come.” At the time, I think Dad was still in prisoner of war camp in Canada. Our eventual parents hadn’t met in person, had started writing to each other through the German Red Cross, which connected young single men in the army with girls at home. Mom had sent him the picture. A glimpse into the past, into who my mother was before she had me or my brothers.

I have many memories of Mom from the time I was small in Germany. She’d get me up for school (I occasionally had to be there for 8:30 am), sometimes make me an eggnog and feed it to me. I wasn’t a morning person even then. Evenings I remember lying in bed while she moved around the apartment, and later the house we inhabited in Canada, all the while singing. Songs of her childhood, German folk songs. I still recall many of the words and tunes.

She had great courage because she and my father decided to leave family and friends to come to Canada, believing that life would be better there. My father went first to work on farms and save money so he could bring us over eventually. But Mom didn’t wait for that. She found out that the Canadian Council of Churches was sponsoring families to join husbands and fathers and she got us into that program. My grandfather, who lived with us and whom I loved dearly wasn’t happy with us going. I understand all the emotions on all sides much better now than I did then. It was 1955 and Mom had two small children to take on a train, then a boat across the Atlantic, then onto a Canadian train thousands of mile across country. To a farm where we lived for the summer in a bunkhouse.

We eventually moved to another, better farm, near Elrose and our family grew to three children. When I was in grade eight we moved to town, Dad got work in what was then the Golden Years Lodge and Mom eventually worked there too. The times were not so easy, money was tight; my teens led to some clashes as isn’t uncommon. Still she sang, cooked, looked after her children and sewed — clothes for herself and for me. She sewed my graduation dress (long); we wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy one ready made.

Mom sang in the church choir, took part in bible study groups. She left her job at the Golden Years Lodge to start an in-home daycare, and also ran a preschool program in the church basement. This fulfilled a dream she’d had as a young woman, of working with children.

Mom loved to read, as did Dad; they passed that love of books onto us, their children. The two of them talked a lot, argued sometimes, tried to pass on their wisdom as parents will. We, the three children, went on to our own lives. But she passed on her interest in sewing and knitting to me as well as cooking.

In her later years, Mom often said to me, “Don’t get old.” At the time, this annoyed me. I once retorted, “Should I die young?”

I’ve gained a better understanding of Mom as I’ve grown older, have experienced personally that aging brings challenges and frustrations. I know that’s what  she really meant by that comment. I’m trying to stay positive, age as well as I can. I’m sad that she felt those frustrations and wasn’t able to find ways to be happier. Still, I saw that the first couple of years she and Dad spent in long term care were fairly positive. Mom enjoyed taking part in the activities. Her dementia eventually grew worse, but I found ways to connect with her.   She reverted to German often and I could speak German to her. I could play her German music. I could just sit with her.

The other magical thing about Mom happened just after we’d moved both my parents into long term care. Both my brothers and I were involved, though my youngest brother had to leave before we completely finished cleaning their seniors’ housing. It had been hard for me. I’d lived the closest to my parents for a while, drove out to visit them. But as my mom aged she became more difficult, harder to get along with, more prone to be critical, saying negative things. Probably the beginnings of the dementia that a few years later took over. I wasn’t feeling very positive about my mom at that point. Then I found a letter that Mom had written to me while I was in Outlook Hospital with appendicitis in August, 1955. My father worked for a farmer near Hawarden and we lived on the farm there. In the hospital, it was taking a while for reasons I don’t understand for them to operate. I seem to remember that they weren’t sure if it was appendicitis at first. Anyway the letter started “Liebes Reginchen,” and contained lots of other endearments and pet names. She told me to be brave and said that if I was still in the hospital by Sunday she would come. She also wrote that my brother kept asking where ‘Gine’ was. She wrote about the simple things of their days - rain, my brother eating an egg, my father milking the cow, herself catching two mice. She said that if I had pain I should tell the doctor so he would know what to do, and told me to do what the doctor said. The letter ended with love and kisses from Mama, Papa and my brother, along with a pencil scribble that was obviously from my brother, who I think was about two at the time.

So much love poured out of that letter to me that day as we stood in the partially cleaned house. I remembered that I had had a mother who loved me and that who she was now and the things she said and did couldn’t take that away.

I will remember the good times with Mom, will think of her often and reflect on what she passed on to me.

 NOTE: The framed picture and the image on the mug above are of Danzig/Gdańsk, the city where Mom was born and lived until the war began.

Malls

On a recent Saturday in Edmonton my grandson and I went shopping in the Kingsway Mall. Both of us are familiar with malls though I try to avoid them on weekends. This mall is near my grandson’s school but he said that he didn’t go there much. When we were mostly through our shopping (and happy with what we’d bought) my grandson (who is 14) said, “Why do they build malls the same everywhere? Not only the same shops, but the same flooring and so on.” By this time the din of too many shoppers and usual ambient sound of a mall had really gotten to me and I was quite tired. I began to think about how a mall could be a more pleasant place. Plants incorporated into the mall, and outside green space incorporated into the food court were two options that occurred to me.

After getting home and crashing on the couch for a while, I began to research malls online for noise, and eco friendliness. There have been studies about the effect of noise in malls both on people who work there and people who visit. Headaches, irritability, tiredness are some of the effects. Long term I can’t imagine having to put up with that noise day after day, week after week your working life.

I came across a few malls around the world that have attempted to incorporate protection of the environment into their designs. Mostly these had to do with saving energy on heating and cooling, etc. But what about the people? Wouldn’t malls that were better designed for us bring more people to spend time and shop? Especially as online shopping increases.

Some malls that I found on line incorporate a lot of plants. Others include water features, even small waterfalls. The picture I saw of Park Toreo Mall in Mexico City appears quite stunning, incorporating the outdoors, with lots of trees, light and fountains.

Do malls have to have such hard surface floors and walls? Perhaps they’re the easiest to clean and maintain, but why couldn’t there be more wood (what about flexible bamboo) or even areas of grass plots, dirt and tough perennial plants? Why can’t food courts be built with more privacy, niches, sound proofing? More seating areas screened by plants in malls in general. Noise baffling tiles and other techniques.

Later in the week I went twice to the Southgate Centre Mall, not on a weekend. I’ve liked it ever since my son and family lived in UofA family housing 20 minutes away. It’s a smaller mall and mostly not as busy as others. This time I found pleasant changes. They’d added a London Drugs on a second floor area. I like London Drugs for their electronics, variety in other things (though they no longer carry wooden suit hangers, at least not there; and no Swiss Ricola honey lemon with echinacea throat lozenges,which I’ve had difficulty finding in the past in Edmonton). But they’d created more seating areas and a lower area where a Dollar Store used to be that seems to be used for photo ops (Halloween/harvest theme this time) and more seating.

I don’t go to malls very often, and will continue that. I prefer smaller shops in my neighbourhood when I’m at home.

As more and more people, even those who aren’t that tech savvy, shop on line, what is the future of malls? Could malls evolve to become community and cultural centres as well as places to eat and shop? Smaller malls? Indoor/outdoor malls? Bioclimatic malls?

I’d like to hear from people who have experienced malls that are more pleasant than the usual. How and where do you shop?

Daughter of Earth Excerpt

My latest book in The Leather Book Tales fantasy series, Daughter of Earth, has just been published.

Chapter I

Ali

 

I woke just now, not sure why, kept my eyes closed because I still felt sleepy and didn’t want to get out of bed yet. Images in my mind – rosy sand dunes at sunset, rippling shadows over sand, a long caravan of camels – fragments of a dream or memories? I’ve seen all those things at one time or another. Wind touches my face, maybe that’s what woke me. I must have left the window open; the nights have been hot lately, almost unbearable at times. I wake often when its like this, drink from the ceramic jug that keeps water cool.

Brightness penetrates. When I finally open my eyes, for a moment I’m not sure where I am. Not in my room, and it’s night though a lantern gleams beside me. There’s a tree at my back, leaves rustling above. I’m in our courtyard by the fig tree. How did I end up out here under the stars, dressed in my night shift? I’ve never walked in my sleep before. There are no lights shining from any of the windows of our house, no sound of voices; the others must all be deep in dreams. The air is warm but not as bad as it’s been.

I’m sitting tailor-fashion, the way my friend Samel always sits. When I glance down, I see the black stone he gave me, gleaming in my cupped hands, have no idea how I ended up holding it. I look at the sky, find the familiar grouping of stars we call The Chariot, a bond to reality. And yet, I could be dreaming all this, dreams within dreams.

For some reason I recall night festivals when the gates of the city are left open, watch fires are built, and people walk out into the desert. Those times often feel dreamlike, enchanted. Itinerant costumed performers dance, drum and sing. Hawkers call out their wares, while the aroma of cooked meat, pastries and other foods wafts from booths set up here and there. Samel and I would stroll together with our families, chatting, and laughing.

Where is Samel now? There was so much I should have said to him before he left for the mountains, but the time never seemed right, and I couldn’t find the words. We didn’t see much of each other toward the end, and when we did, we argued. I should have tried harder.

The black stone, smoothed by time, perhaps wind and water, sits warmly in my hands.  Samel gave me this piece of obsidian just before he left, a quick good-bye. Maybe it was a sort of apology. I should have found the words then.

              I stare into the shiny darkness of the stone, think of my friend’s dark eyes when he smiles, the gold flecks in the brown irises. Is there a glimmer of fire in the depths of the stone? Obsidian comes from fire mountains. A shiver trembles across my shoulders. I blink and look again at the night sky where stars flicker. We do occasionally have earthquake tremors here, but that didn’t feel like one. I do and don’t want to believe that the stone has powers. Samel found it in the dungeon of the old sorcerer who held Samel, his father, and sister prisoner for a while last year.

“Think of me when you hold it,” Samel said, “and I’ll think of you. Maybe just before we go to sleep each night. It will be a way to keep connected while I’m away.”

I asked him if he meant that we could see and talk to each other the way he and his sister do using their magical silver bracelets. He said that we could try. He couldn’t have been too annoyed with me if he wanted that.

I wish I could see Samel right now, talk to him.

The stone feels heavier in my hands and my eyes are drawn to its darkness. I see no light anywhere; has the lantern gone out, have the stars been covered by clouds? I blink, try to look away from the stone, but nothing changes. What if I can’t get away from this? Sweat runs down my face, I’m finding it hard to breath.

Gradually I’m aware of a shimmer, like heat rising in the desert, faint at first, like the beginning of sunrise, and then gradually brighter and brighter. I squint against the light. A dark shape forms, familiar. Samel hovers in front of me, his feet not touching the ground.

“Ali, how did I get here?” he asks. “I went to bed in the tower room of Grandfather Frog’s house.”

              “I think it’s the stone,” I say. “The piece of obsidian you gave me.”

              “But how can I be with you? Is the stone like the bracelets?”

              “Maybe. A dream. A vision. We saw each other once before, briefly, right? I didn’t think I imagined that. I’ve been thinking about you, wondering how you are, where you are. I put the stone under my pillow last night.”

              “And you’re not really in your garden either?”

              “Perhaps not. Remember how I dreamt about you and your sister before you found her? I hoped I could dream about you.”

              “We’re in Schönspitze. It’s strange here, but interesting. Cousin Thea’s grandfather who disappeared a long time ago, and everyone thought was dead, is actually alive. And he has this huge house. I haven’t had time yet to explore the town. The trip was good. Thea changed my camel into a horse. I met an eagle.”

              “Sounds like you’ve had an interesting time.” What a stupid, banal thing to say! I wish I could have been with you I think, but don’t say. “I know about the eagle. It came with your message at the celebrations for the opening of the arts school.”

              “Ali, I’m sorry I was so grumpy to you.”

              A sigh escapes me. “It happens. I miss you.”

              “I miss you, too. Oh, what do you know about gemstones?”

              “What kind?”

              “Um amethyst, lapis, ruby.”

              “Oh, lapis lazuli is lovely, though expensive. You can make an amazing blue paint from it. Did you find some?”

              “A rock collection.”

And then his face and body begin to fade, blowing away like mist on a windy morning. I reach out to grab for his hand, but it’s too late. The stars disappear.

This book, and the others in the series, are currently available on Amazon both as an ebook (Kindle) and as a paperback.

The Leather Book Tales

 Origin and Background

Between 2010 and 2011 I thought about writing a fantasy set not in Ireland, England or Wales but in the landscapes where I lived.

During that period two characters entered my mind: a brother and sister separated by their parents so early in their lives that the children didn’t know the other existed. Each parent took one child and settled far from the others. Perhaps each parent told a tale of the other parent dying and never mentioned that there had been another child. Years later the teenagers found evidence of the deception, and hoping that the other still lived, wanted to find them.

Writers can be influenced by many things, not always consciously. In creative acts, magic happens in the mind and if you’re lucky that can be transposed into works of literature, music, visual art, plays, and so on.

I didn’t know it at the time but realized later that the core of my story had been influenced by a German book, made into a movie in my childhood. This was ‘Das Doppelte Lottchen’ by Erich Kästner. Two girls meet at a summer camp and are astounded by how alike they look. They discover that they are twins and their parents have never told them of the other’s existence. Sound familiar? Disney took the story for the movie ‘The Parent Trap,’ first seen in 1961 with Hayley Mills, who played both parts. Sidenote, in the German black and white movie out in 1950, two real twins played the parts.

 I called my book Queen of Fire after a character in an imaginary book that appeared in my story, called The Leather Book. As the characters developed, the main character in Queen of Fire, the teenage Rowan, became a kind of queen of fire herself. A pair of silver bracelets became the magical objects that the two main characters used.

Joseph Campbell’s book ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ influenced me quite consciously. The journey of the hero/heroine is a key element of my series.

With the help of a writing group and other readers, my story developed, and I eventually published it. In 2015 it was listed as one of three finalists in the Young Adult Category of the High Plains Book Awards.

By this time, a rough outline of a longer story was unrolling in my head, and I decided to call the series The Leather Book Tales, and to have that leather book appear throughout. I knew that I would write four books and that each would focus on one of four elements: fire, water, air, and earth. These elements go back to ancient Greece as ways to explain the natural world, and have been used in other stories as means to obtain and use power.

So far, the books are Queen of Fire, Child of Dragons, and Companion of Eagles. Two of the book titles incorporate one of the elements (see below for the second). The other two titles refer to an element through a named creature. For example, the dragons in the second book are water dragons.

For the landscapes I used places I knew, though I transformed them to fit into a story of an ancient land and a multicultural civilization with independent cities as well as rural communities.

I also used elements of places I’d heard and read of but had never seen, as well as stories and myths. Through my research of those, I was able to grow and expand the world I’d created. Issues that concerned me made their appearance in the book.

I enjoyed incorporating people from cultures that fascinated me: indigenous inhabitants of the land, a family of French-speaking artists, an enigmatic soldier with Asian roots, a city with Icelandic elements, and another with German-speaking citizens.

The more I wrote, the more I learned about this world and these characters.

I’m close to getting the fourth book published: Daughter of Earth.

And a surprise to me, I’ve also written part of a fifth book that takes place in the same world. It focuses on a character who appears in such minor roles in the other books that he or she may be overlooked.

For more about the books and my writing go to https://www.facebook.com/RegineHaenselwriter. This is a public page, so whether or not you have a Facebook account you can see it.

Summer of Renewal

It’s July and I recently realized that I didn’t write in June. A lot of things happened in the last several weeks, as you can read in my last blog, and the challenges aren’t over. I’ve decided though, to call this my summer of renewal rather than the summer of problems.

The water leak will eventually result in a new non lead water line.

The aging computers (laptop and notebook) have already resulted in a new iPad, which I’m liking very much. And the laptop has been fixed for now and hopefully it, too, will be replaced in due time. I’ve made progress with the screw ups for my book production caused by rebooting the laptop and should have another book out before the end of the year.

Both my eyes have had the cataracts removed and that whole process (healing and new glasses prescription) should end in August. Already my distance vision without glasses is better.

My ash tree will hopefully get pruned back from power lines and the roof of my house.

More recently my fridge, which is a bar fridge, died and luckily I had an older bar fridge in my basement which still works, though the plastic door on the tiny freezer in it is slightly broken, and now held together with duct tape. I’ve picked out a somewhat larger fridge, but still not full size. I’m a single person and don’t need a humungous fridge since I also have a small chest freezer. So soon I will order that new fridge.

The summer isn’t over yet so who knows what other renewals will occur.

Out of My Control

Sometimes life is well beyond our control.

I recently returned from a visit to family and as usual, I turned my water back on and started to do one laundry. Water leak! Right at the basement floor! Turning off the water had no effect! I won’t go into all the frustrating and stressful details. All the people I had to deal with were most helpful and eventually I had water, hooked up to a neighbour temporarily. My exterior lead pipe section was due to be replaced and will be done sooner.

Secondly, I had a computer problem with my laptop. Both it and my small notebook are old and I was thinking about replacement but hadn’t done it. The maker of my laptop had always been a company I’d had good service from. This time they sent me a part while I was away without explaining, and written instructions to replace the part. Lots of back and forth emails while I tried to do this and ran into a snag where I no longer felt confident to continue. More back and forth trying to get them to understand that no they could not take over my computer to deal with the issue because my computer was partially dismantled. Finally they sent a tech who got me set up again, though I’ve still got an issue with one of the programs I reinstalled. Hope to get that worked out as it affects getting my next book out this year. Again, lots of frustrations, except this time, I didn’t feel very well served through the process, except at the end. I’m thinking about replacing that laptop with a newer one soon, by a different manufacturer.

A couple of days after returning home I also got the coughing virus that my grandson caught just before I ended my visit. That has had its ups and downs. Frustration with the cough hanging on so long. Positive - it’s not Covid and finally, after about 10 days, the cough may be leaving my body.

Through all this, I kept telling myself that there was no point getting overly upset. Life was going on and though I could do certain things such as drink plenty of fluids for the cold, others, such as how long each step was going to take, was beyond my control. I needed to relax as much as I could, let go of previous plans to do a whole lot of things that I wanted to do. For a few days I had to stay around my house making sure no worse water leaks happened, etc. to wait for the technician to be sent, to wait for the cold to be over.

Two lovely things also happened: I got home in tine to see my tulips bloom and I bought an iPad. The iPad has been fun to learn to use as other than my mobile phone, I’ve never had an Apple product. Also the staff at The Source, where I bought the iPad were friendly and very helpful when I needed assistance with getting my external keyboard linked.

Life lessons - keep as calm as possible in tines of stress and find things that give you joy, even in adversity.

Adventures of the Mind

I’m taking a break from my ‘Secret City’ series because the following happened to me a few weeks ago, with rumblings into this month, and it all captured my imagination.

Towards the end of February, I watched a movie on Hoopla, called The Pledge (2001). I chose the movie because it starred Jack Nicholson, who I consider a great actor, but the movie also had cameos by Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, and Sam Shephard, giants in their profession also. To top it off, the movie was directed by Sean Penn. How could I go wrong? Well, I didn’t.

In summary, without spoiling things for those who might want to watch the movie (which is not your typical Hollywood production and didn’t do all that well at the box office, but I liked it very much) an aging detective on the cusp of retirement joins another detective at the scene of a child murder. The almost retired detective goes to inform the parents and promises them he will find the murderer. Things get more and more complicated for our aging detective as he refuses to believe in the first suspect, discovers other clues, goes fishing, meets new people, senses the real murderer is near, and becomes so obsessed that he crosses moral lines.

We were still in the midst of Covid, the attack on Ukraine was ongoing, the weather here was frightful, I couldn’t travel and didn’t go out much or see friends. A recipe for depression perhaps, and envy of those who were flying to warmer parts.

The movie interested me so much, however, that I embarked on what I call an adventure of the mind. I often do this to a greater or lesser degree when a book I read, a story I hear about, or an incident in the news sends me off on further exploration.

I looked up the background of the film: it is based on Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1958 novella The Pledge: Requiem for a Detective. This is available online for free as a PDF if you’re interested in reading it. It’s somewhat differently structured from the 2001 film, some of the characters are different as are details, but it keeps a lot of the main parts.

Dürrenmatt believed that fictional detective novels should show the absurdity of real life rather than being like a mathematical or other puzzle with a satisfactory solution. He once said, “You set up your stories logically, like a chess game: all the detective needs to know is the rules, he replays the moves of the game, and checkmate, the criminal is caught and justice has triumphed. This fantasy drives me crazy.”

The Pledge was originally written as a screenplay Es geschah am hellichten Tag (It Happened in Broad Daylight) and when the producers made Dürrenmatt write a neat conclusion, he wrote the subsequent novella so he could do as he liked.

I also read various biographies of Dürrenmatt online. He was Swiss, born in 1921 and died in 1990. He wrote avant-garde dramas, other crime novels and macabre satire. I haven’t read any of his other work, though I wish I could see the original movie, Es geschah am hellichten Tag, because I remember my mother speaking of the actor Heinrich Rühmann, who acted in it, though my mother didn’t see that film.

One thing leads to another, adventures of the mind can take you anywhere, absorb and entertain no matter what else is happening in the world or your life, cost little and last as long or be as short as you wish.

I planned to write this blog a while ago and was putting it off, but I was sure that I’d made a few notes about it. Today I looked for those notes in my journal, the obvious place. Nothing. I searched several times, looked in a couple of other notebooks and in all the files on my computer, not only my blog folder. Nothing, except one listing in my journal for February noting The Pledge and its author.

I guess you can get lost even in adventures of the mind, especially when age creeps up and the memory wanders.

The Secret City – Water

Inspired by ‘The 99% Invisible City, A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design.’

Last year my son gave me the above book which is based on the podcasts The 99% Invisible City.

I’ve read some of the book, though I haven’t yet listened to any of the podcasts, which appear to be wide ranging and are into the 400’s by now. The website is 99percentinvisible.org

I got fascinated by the parts of the book that I’ve read so far and decided that my 2022 blogs would be about my own city, Saskatoon.

“The health and growth of a city is inexorably linked to water. Clean water must be available and dirty water needs to be removed.” – The 99% Invisible City

In Canada most of us take our water and sewage systems for granted through this is not the case for many Indigenous communities.

“In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly recognized the basic human rights to water and sanitation, decreeing that everyone has the right to sufficient, continuous, safe, acceptable, physically accessible, and affordable water for personal and domestic use.”

“Canada possesses the world’s third largest freshwater reserves. Despite that, 618 First Nations Communities are not supplied with safe drinking water. This issue has been going on for decades, with these communities suffering the full weight of the consequences of the inadequate water they have.”

Both of the above quotes are from an article by Sena Yenilmez

Indigenous Safe Drinking Water Crisis in Canada- overview — The Indigenous Foundation

According to the City of Saskatoon’s website, our city has one of the safest water supplies in North America. “The City of Saskatoon provides water and sewer services to approximately 72,000 water meters with approximately 1,000 new meters added each year.” We are among the lucky ones.

One way we can be aware of our water systems is to look for manhole (wastewater) covers around the world. At this time of year the ones in Saskatoon are mostly covered with snow so I can’t run out and take pictures. My recollection is that most of them are fairly boring, but there are all kinds of interesting ones around the world. The one below is from Osaka, Japan:

You can find it and others online if you do a search.

In Saskatoon we have drinking fountains in various public locations outside, particularly along the Meewasin riverbank trails. I was fascinated to learn that “One spring day in 1859, thousands of Londoners got dressed up in their finest clothes and gathered to get a view of a new civic sensation: the city’s first public drinking fountain.” – The 99% Invisible City.

When I visited Berlin many years ago, I encountered public pumps. These are primarily from the days when not all apartments had their own water and people had to go out and get it from their neighbourhood pump. Nowadays some of these pumps still work apparently, though the water is not considered drinkable.

Saskatoon has a river flowing through it which shows different colours depending on the season. The photo at the top of this blog shows a green colour in June. Did you know that the City of Chicago deliberately turns its river green (with a vegetable dye) every year for St. Patrick’s Day? That’s been happening for more than 50 years and began as a method to detect illegal sewage dumping. Plumbers used florescent dye which would turn bright green when encountering toxic sludge. More on this with time lapse photography can be found here:

How Chicago River is turned emerald green for St Patrick's Day | Daily Mail Online

Canada has experienced its share of floods, and cities, particularly those near rivers have to develop strategies to mitigate this. Saskatoon has its own strategy. The City website states: “Though parts of Saskatoon have always been susceptible to flooding, and flood protection measures to date have helped, climate change is expected to bring more frequent and intense storms.” For more information on some of these strategies go to Flood Control Strategy | Saskatoon.ca

“Water is often a driving force behind the locations of cities, but it also shapes and limits their physical boundaries. As the climate changes, this fluctuating relationship will have a profound effect on the lives of city dwellers that will be increasingly impossible to ignore.” The 99% Invisible City

The Secret City – Love Locks

Inspired by ‘The 99% Invisible City, A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design.’

Last year my son gave me the above book which is based on the podcasts The 99% Invisible City.

I’ve read some of the book, though I haven’t yet listened to any of the podcasts, which appear to be wide ranging and are into the 400’s by now. The website is 99percentinvisible.org

I got fascinated by the parts of the book that I’ve read so far and decided that my 2022 blogs would be about my own city, Saskatoon.

A city is a community of diverse people that may create spontaneous, long lasting activities.

If you haven’t heard of love locks, they are padlocks often engraved with a couple’s names or initials and then locked onto a particular structure such as a bridge, a fence, a gate, or similar public fixture. The keys are often thrown away.

In my own city of Saskatoon, a favourite place for these locks in the past has been a stairway leading to the railway bridge near the weir.

I don’t know when the locks first started showing up in Saskatoon but there was a news item in 2015.

Love locks showing up in Saskatoon | CBC News

The stories of the origin of these locks varies. One version is that the book ‘I Want You’ by the Italian author Frederico Moccia, later made into a film, started the tradition in Rome and then it spread to Paris.

Others say it all began in the town of Vrnjačka Banja, in what is now Serbia in 1914. A schoolteacher and an army officer were engaged. They pledged their troth on a bridge in their town. In some versions he was killed in the war, in others he found another sweetheart and married her. His first sweetheart supposedly died of a broken heart or of grief. In memory of them, other young couples in the town began to engrave locks, attach them to the bridge and throw the keys into the river.

Some say the tradition goes back to ancient China.

Who knows for certain?

Love locks seem to have increased in popularity in Paris around 2008, at first being locked onto the railings of the Pont des Arts. The practise spread to other bridges, lamps, gratings, fences, and sculptures. Vendors hung around selling cheap padlocks, pickpockets began to congregate, and graffiti proliferated. In 2012 a part of the railing of the Pont des Arts crumbled and partially fell off. The City began removing love locks, citing degradation of heritage property and risks to the safety of visitors and Parisians.

Paris removes 'love locks' from Pont des Arts bridge | CNN Travel

In some places this phenomenon is encouraged, in others it’s considered vandalism and you could receive a fine. If you’re interested in similar sites around the world – Poland, the Netherlands, Austria, California, China, South Korea, Germany, Russia, etc. But think about the consequences and be aware of local regulations. You can check sites out:

20 Love Locks Bridges Around the World (brides.com)

Saskatoon City workers began removing locks from the stairway to the railway bridge near the weir in 2015.

City removes love locks on Saskatoon rail bridge | CBC News

I haven’t walked over there in quite a while, so I don’t know if people are still putting love locks up there, or any other places in Saskatoon.

 

March Topic:         Water

The Secret City – Snow Removal

Inspired by ‘The 99% Invisible City, A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design.’

Last year my son gave me the above book which is based on the podcasts The 99% Invisible City.

I’ve read some of the book, though I haven’t yet listened to any of the podcasts, which appear to be wide ranging and are into the 400’s by now. The website is 99percentinvisible.org

I got fascinated by the parts of the book that I’ve read so far and decided that my 2022 blogs would be about my own city, Saskatoon.

To begin, because it’s January and as is usual at this time of year we’ve had a lot of snow, I decided to write about snow clearing (which the book doesn’t touch on). It’s one of the ubiquitous winter issues that we love to complain about in many parts of Canada. This year has been particularly challenging in some cities because the extreme cold (hard on staff and machines) has prevented work at certain times.

The City of Saskatoon like a lot of other Canadian cities, has some of its own snow clearing equipment and staff. Some work is contracted out. Much of the year we don’t even think about this function, but when our streets are filled with the white stuff, we notice!

I remember one year a taxi driver telling me that for certain residential streets they weren’t able to get down them and had to ask potential clients to meet them at a corner.

Cities set priorities, as does Saskatoon. Here is information from their web site:

When it snows

• City staff and equipment will keep the driving lanes of Circle Dr and major roads such as Idylwyld Dr, College Dr and 22nd St clear while it snows. They will spread salt/sand on slippery intersections, on/off ramps and bridge decks.
• When more than 5 cm of snow falls, a Snow Event is declared and contractor graders are added to the City fleet as the snow stops to clean-up freeways, arterial and collector streets, storing snow on medians, boulevards and in parking lanes. They will also clear City facility sidewalks, Meewasin Trail, park pathways with street lighting and bridge/overpass walkways. 
• If another snowfall or blowing snow occurs before these areas are cleaned up, crews may be redeployed to major roads.

In terms of priority streets:

·       Freeways, major arterials, bridges will be plowed within 12 hours after a snowstorm ends.

·       Arterials with double-lanes and Saskatoon Transit routes will be graded within 36 hours after a snowstorm ends.

·       Collector streets, remaining Business Improvement District streets and school zones will be completed within 72 hours after a snowstorm ends.

·       City facility sidewalks, Meewasin Trail, park pathways with street lighting, pathways along freeways and arterials and bridge/overpass walkways are graded within 48 hours.

Some statistics from other Canadian cities:

In Halifax “crews are responsible for approximately 3,844 lane kilometres of streets. Stretched end to end, that’s the same distance as driving from Halifax to Winnipeg. Crews also clear about 1,000 kilometres of sidewalks, 6 kilometers of protected bike lanes/local street bikeways, 11 kilometers of multi-use pathways  and approximately 2,300 bus across the Halifax region.” (From the City’s website)

Apparently the city of Montreal “spends more than any other in the world on picking up snow and putting down salt on its 10,000 kilometres of roads: in 2019–2020, its snow removal budget hit $166.4 million.” (Canadian Geographic article by Tracy Lindeman)

Edmonton’s snow and ice clearing budget for this year (58.5 million) is to include residential snow clearing for large snowfall events.

And in case you’re wondering why your residential street in Saskatoon almost never gets cleared, did you know that in normal Saskatoon winters snow removal for residential/local streets is not in the budget?

However, the above may vary, as it did in November of 2020 when an extreme snowstorm changed the game, making it the first year in decades that residential snow clearing occurred. The total costs for 2020-21 were about $14 million. (Star Phoenix)

This year is considered (so far) a normal year, so no residential snow clearing.

 

February’s topic:   Lovelocks