This morning I parked in the “pit” behind the seminary, just steps from the door. There was a -36 C wind chill but I found myself walking around the building just to catch the sunrise.
It was stunning, as usual. Crisp blue-white snow, hoarfrost sparkling, steam from the university billowing great clouds of pink cotton into a violet sky.
I thought, “Man am I lucky to live on the Prairies.”
Immediately, however, another inner voice intruded: “Is there a screw loose somewhere? How can you be in love with a place that gets as cold as this?”
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I don’t know. But I am in love and helplessly so. It’s possibly against my best interests. But that’s love – you don’t always have a choice.
Prairie love is persistent. A fellow who travels widely tells me that housing is getting tight in many of our small towns. Youth and newcomers can’t find a place; trades are in short supply for new construction; prices and taxes are rising rapidly. Where is the growth coming from?
Obviously it’s from the surge in grain, oil, potash and other commodity prices except beef and hogs.
But also it’s because boomers are starting to retire and former prairie people are returning to their first love.
That love has had a dark side. Prairie social activist James Woodsworth wrote in his book Thirty Years in the Canadian North West (1909) that he was pleased the prairie winters were “relieving Canada of the Negro problem and keeping out the lazy and improvident white.” Besides the horrible racial intolerance, Woodsworth’s infatuation with the Prairies has a distinctly exclusive tone. I hope, 100 years later, that we can find a love for this land that is larger and more hospitable.
There are signs of it. Doepker Industries in Anaheim, Sask., has been working hard to bring in welders from South Africa and the Philippines. The company says it’s not easy getting through all the government paperwork. And not all who come end up staying. But overall, Doepker is so convinced that these new folks are making a valuable contribution to the company and community that it is continuing to recruit from overseas.
In our own seminary we’ve interviewed potential professors from various parts of the world. The interviews are generally held in January. I suppose we are looking for people who could fall in love with the Prairies at their most bitterly beautiful. Those are the ones who might stay.
Unfortunately, many who come to Canada don’t stay. The Canadian Bureau for International Education interviewed 900 foreign nationals studying in Canada. They report that two-thirds of the students either plan to return home, or seek work in the United States.
“Most foreign students do not believe that Canada sees the merit in having international graduates stay,” the report said.
So we have work to do. We need to stretch our hearts, rebuild our communities and offer genuine prairie hospitality.
I just hope that those who systematically ripped the schools, post offices, churches, and hospitals out of our towns have the guts to join us in rebuilding so newcomers and old can live well in the land they love.
Cam Harder is associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon.
