There’s a feeling of liberty associated with July. It’s the real start to summer, June solstice notwithstanding.
Schedules imposed by school are gone and summer’s possibilities stand before us, replete with sunshine and promise. The demands of farming in this crucial part of the season are ever with us, but a greater sense of freedom insinuates itself nevertheless.
Summer’s liberty grants us time to explore the local secrets and perhaps share them with others. By local secrets, I mean those special, beautiful places in your part of the world, known by virtue of your familiarity with the community.
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There is such a place that lives in my memory, three quarters of land that comprised part of the ranch. Bisected by Todd Creek, its hills, coulees and patches of bush made it unsuitable for cropping but ideal for pasture.
The land was best approached on horseback, where a gallop over open, native prairie would bring you to the edge of a shallow valley inhabited by deer and porcupine, geese and partridge, skunk and coyote.
Crocuses bloomed there in spring and goldenrod in late summer. Shooting stars pointed their hearts at the sky in wetter years, and the best possibilities for wild saskatoons lay along the eastern slopes.
The ideal picnic spot was one sparsely shaded by Ponderosa pines, trunks twisted from constant battle with western winds. As we sat beneath them, the needles would whisper ancient secrets that almost, but not quite, disguised the sound of the creek gurgling over its stomach full of stones.
It was an ideal place to celebrate summer’s liberty and it’s the place brought immediately to mind upon reading a recent note from freelance writer Bill Stilwell of Neepawa, Man.
Stilwell has been a contributor to the Western Producer for exactly 25 years, and he wrote to tell me of Manitoba Naturally, his new book, subtitled, “Sixty secret sites and how to find them.” Stilwell says the book is “a combination of all the information I have learned from travelling the back roads of Manitoba for more than two decades.”
Though I haven’t seen the book, my experience with Bill lends me confidence in his knowledge of Manitoba’s natural tourism opportunities. If anyone can uncover local knowledge, it’s him. Click here to contact Stilwell for details on his book.
An excerpt: “Early morning light dances over the steel blue plumage of great blue herons standing motionless, knee-deep in water along the shoreline of Red Deer Point …”
Local secrets. May you visit them, read about them and enjoy them this summer.
