It’s something Saskatchewan residents take for granted and value.
Outsiders don’t always see it that way, however. Over the years, Saskatchewan has been mocked for containing, well, nothing – a flat, boring landscape one must travel through or over to get from here to there. Here being Winnipeg, there being Calgary.
A new book project at the University of Regina’s Canadian Plains Research Centre aims to change that perspective.
The edited volume, Mind the Gap, will include academic essays, photographs, poetry and other creative works that illustrate Saskatchewan’s cultural spaces as ones to which people should pay attention.
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“We are interested in how the concept of ‘minding the gap’ can collect both dystopian and utopian energies in thinking about the various geo-cultural spaces that make up the province,” says the call for papers issued by the editors.
Christine Ramsay, a professor in media production and studies at the U of R, is one of the editors.
She said the book will examine the tension between the perception that nothing happens in Saskatchewan and all the things that have happened both in the past and more recently.
“Our anthology is trying to articulate the tension between a sense of the history of the place and this idea of newness emerging,” she said.
For example, the province is home to the RCMP, universal health care and the first arts board in Canada.
It’s also known for the Riel rebellion, the Regina riot and the exodus during the Depression.
The province’s current economic situation is drawing more attention to it as a place of economic growth and increasing population.
Ramsay came from Eastern Canada 10 years ago to live in Regina. She said she is seeing a shift in thinking about the province and its place. People no longer want Saskatchewan to be Canada’s best-kept secret.
“It behooves us to tell this story,” she said. “Who wants to be a secret?”
Residents should have confidence in themselves and tell their own stories. While the academics involved in the project will cast a critical eye over the subjects, Ramsay said creative works are also welcomed.
She wants the subjects to range from history to the economy to sports to society.
She added the book could eventually be a textbook for a history or cultural studies class.
Interested authors and contributors should submit proposals for their projects by Nov. 1 to the three editors. The completed works are due March 15 and the book will be published in early 2010.
The editors are Ramsay, Randal Rogers and Ken Wilson at Christine.ramsay@uregina.ca, randal.rogers@uregina.ca or ken.wilson@uregina.ca.
