A Life Changed through Settings - Gloria Guest

Prairie Crocuses - Reg Guest

 It was a just a dusty little hamlet set on a lonely highway in Saskatchewan. I was thirteen and had just arrived to this place on the prairies with my family where we were to live, after a long drive from southern Ontario.  Fergus had been a beautiful, quaint place, with towering maple trees and highlighted by a lovely river that ran through its center along with gorgeous heritage buildings. It also had an outdoor pool where I was used to swimming my summers away. Heward looked more like a ghost town with a few scattered houses and not much else. At second glance though I grew quite excited upon seeing a very tall building with the single word POOL on the side. ‘Wow! I exclaimed, with renewed hope, ‘That pool must have a very high diving board!’ It’s funny now, but being an avid swimmer, I thought maybe this place wouldn’t be as bad as the rest of it looked. But my hopes died like a deflated beach ball, when I was told that the tall building was an elevator and it held….wheat. I was even more disappointed when I saw our dilapidated old house my father had purchased from only viewing a picture. I imagined that ‘maybe’ it had looked better at the time the picture was taken. But this place was shabby with worn paint and many tall, unruly weeds. Inside was even worse, with no heat, running water or indoor toilet!! The culture shock was immediate. It was also the first time I saw my tenacious, resolute mother cry as she swept up what looked like years of grime and dust and brushed it with hard strokes out the door. Her dreams had been dashed just as mine.

A few weeks later my aunt and uncle stopped by on their way back to Alberta and convinced my parents to move back to the province of their births. I couldn’t leave fast enough and so was the first to volunteer to go ahead with them, early. My young heart swore that I’d never be back to Saskatchewan! What good was there? Not a river in sight. Not even a swimming pool. Eventually we ended up living at Athabasca, Alberta, surrounded by whispering pines and gently rolling hills. It was a place of quiet beauty that nestled on the hill and spilled down into the valley that settled against the majestic Athabasca river.

I spent my high school years there and it was there I discovered that I was a writer, when I wrote a story for a National High school writers contest. In choosing my setting though, I didn’t choose the picturesque town of Fergus or the ruggedly beautiful Athabasca. Rather it was the stark little hamlet of Heward, Saskatchewan that became the setting for my characters. Even more surprising was that my fictionalized story, written in a setting that I never wanted to return to, placed first for Alberta.

But that is not the rest of the story. Only a few years later, I did find myself back in Saskatchewan when I married my husband who grew up on a farm near Pangman. Thankfully this little town did have running water and indoor bathrooms; but I still recall my first introductory drive down main street when a large tumble weed blew across the empty road, the lonely, barren winter when I’d look out the window and wonder if anyone actually lived here and worst of all the millions of grasshoppers I spent my first summer dodging. We farmed for seventeen years, mostly during drought years and eventually left to find other work. We finished raising our family in a new setting where I was able to expand my writing skills by working as a reporter and a columnist. It was a breath of fresh air.

However life threw some curve balls and we find ourselves back living in Pangman, where we live near our son and four of our grandchildren, which I love. However, some days I do wonder if anything good can come out of this place for me personally. There is no lively river running through town to quench my thirsty soul. Not even a cheerful little meandering creek. I’ve struggled again with depression and lack of motivation to write. But then I recalled that hated little town of Heward, and how I was never going back. Yet that very setting, ended up in a winning story that provided me with enough scholarship money to pay for me to attend Bible College. There I was not only strengthened in my faith but met my future husband.

I see setting very much like a river; sometimes it is strong with a heavy undercurrent, playing an intricate part through the entire piece, whereas other times it is meandering and slow, playing a lesser role but still there and important throughout. Setting adds another character and is important to the structure of your human characters. It molds and shapes who they are and who they become as much as the bricks and mortar of the area, shape the buildings. Perhaps though, setting doesn’t need to be as beautiful and charming as I’d prefer. Sometimes even a bleak setting can allow for the characters to play a more prominent role, set against it; as if with such scarcity, every little detail stands out. Perhaps that applies to people too.

Having never put down solid roots, I have found that, the many places I’ve lived; villages, towns, cities, and provinces, have all conjoined like a river through my soul that I can draw on like a thirsty traveler, when I need a nuance of place. It’s the only time that I feel blessed to have been so uprooted throughout my life.

Can anything good now come out of this place, having come full circle? A setting that I wouldn’t have chosen had life not intervened? Some would say not. But I say, yes….with God's grace, it can.

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”. John 7:38

Fergus Grand River

Gloria Guest writes and blogs from the village of Pangman Sk; a place with no river or creek in sight, although it does have a tiny outdoor pool. She has written many newspaper articles and columns for various papers; has taken creative writing courses from the U of T and editing courses from SFU and currently is writing a book of devotions. She enjoys memoir, creative non-fiction, poetry and the occasional fiction writing (with perhaps a growing interest on writing about small, dusty, prairie towns ;)