People need to feel they fit in a community if it has any hope of surviving, says a University of Lethbridge professor studying prairie resiliency.
If youth feel the town is run for the seniors, they will flee and not return. If newcomers retire from the city to a rural acreage but are not welcomed, conflict will result, said Judith Kulig while giving examples of real situations.
She told a conference of Saskatchewan rural advocates Nov. 21 that towns will never survive as places where people set their houses. What is needed is “communities of memory” where people have a common history, with social interdependence and shared decision making.
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In one of her studies, she said a resident of Hardisty, Alta., defined community spirit as embodied by the volunteers at the rodeo, the women baking their pies and displaying their sewing at the local fair.
The securities of belonging to a place and getting along with others are needed to help overcome traumas such as the Frank slide that wiped out half the Alberta town in 1903, the loss of jobs when the coal mines of Hinton, Alta., closed recently or the battle over hog barn development in a number of prairie towns over the past five years.
But Kulig cautioned that “community is fragile” and resiliency can be lost.
“Hope can be activated by one individual but only maintained by a group.”
She said one community started a farmer’s night out when agricultural times got tough. The monthly potluck suppers allowed a mixing of age, gender and economic status so everyone felt closer. In another area where there had been a lot of farmer suicides, the mental health staff trained people who interacted regularly with farmers, such as veterinarians, mail carriers and chemical sales staff. These regular visitors to farms would notice signs of distress and alert the professionals, who would then visit the farm.
Conflict can help or hurt a community, depending on the actions taken afterward to rebuild cohesion. Kulig said she is studying Riverside Meadows, a former francophone community that has been swallowed up by Red Deer. The community lost its vitality with the deaths of local men in two world wars and had sunk into a reputation as a low-class part of town. In an effort to change its future, that community is reclaiming its past through story stones. Placed at eight historic spots, these engraved boulders tell tourists and residents of significant events and places in the community’s past.
Kulig is also studying Hardisty and Foremost, Alta., since those communities defeated attempts to locate intensive livestock operations there. The bitterness remains, with some people not talking to each other.
Kulig said these are difficult situations.
“There’s a big difference in philosophy between family farms versus corporate, contract farms. ILO supporters talk about the need for economic diversity versus the other side talking about environment. My experience is these two goals cannot compromise. They tried lots of community meetings but it comes down to someone saying, ‘I don’t want to live next door to that ILO and its smell.’ “
Kulig said she holds out more hope for rural revival in Saskatchewan than Alberta.
“In Saskatchewan there is a lot more community process, but in Alberta there is less sense of collectivity. Farmers are more individualistic. They are not as aware of the alternative of people working together.”
In an interview, Kulig said women are one rural group that especially needs support.
“I think people recognize that anything that happens in town is due to women.”
But she said with the death of farm women’s organizations that offered emotional support to individuals, women have less room to risk innovation.
She said sexism still exists some places where there is “a fine line between when it’s acceptable for women to succeed or not.”
