FTLComm - Saskatoon - October 7, 2000

It is a small city as North American cities go and like Regina it is a small urban island in a sea of prairie. A place surrounded by an immense and endless sky, a place were prairie people go to get their root canals done and deal with their customers. The breezes of autumn have whipped the leaves from the urban forest and in this picture you can see them following the traffic in little groups. Between Tisdale and Saskatoon is some of the most pleasant vistas in the province with rolling hills East of Wakaw covered with their painted trees.

On East side of Saskatoon East of the interchange and eighth street is a village of shopping malls and nearby are three high schools. Each noon hour the youths from theses school flood the fast food places in the area and it is a bit like going to a massive school cafeteria with them milling about inside and out. They hang out in the parking lots and drift around the area, this is their place.

But a small city is still just a small city. The countryside around it and the road that lead to in from it are the prefix and suffix to buildings, streets and parking lots of high school kids. The crush of human social living is an intrusion into a world of farmland and empty skies.