It’s a cool morning, although the forecast calls for a hot day. I slept through my alarm, which means I get to eat breakfast with Christine, although it also means getting off to a late start. I shoulder my pack and do up the waist strap. It seems to be getting lighter—or is that just an illusion? I head off down the alley. The fancy “W” graffiti on a neighbour’s wall might be a gang tag; I’ve seen it elsewhere as “Warriors.” Someone has abandoned a vacuum and a pile of brush shows the result of someone’s pruning. Someone else has planted an Ohio buckeye tree right next to a power pole; that’s not a good idea, since those trees grow very tall. At some point, SaskPower will end up pruning that tree, brutally. The dust I’m walking on is covered in confused footprints. Chickadees are singing.
Jackrabbits are sleeping in the vacant lot that the city apparently thinks is a park. They wake up when they hear my footsteps. A dog barks. I think about John Davies’s book. He wrote about the high points of his walks, giving us a summary, whereas I’ve been writing these step-by-step accounts since the spring. Which is more readable? I’m not sure. Another dog, further up the alley, starts barking. Tomatoes share a garden with petunias. An abandoned ladder lies in the grass. More dogs are barking now. Maybe Davies’s approach, and mine, both work; maybe they are just different. I walk past a new house that I’ve heard is built across three lots. Does that mean the new owners will pay three times the property tax? The house is still unfinished; the work is taking a long time. Old folks cycle past on the flood control dike ahead of me.
I climb up onto the dike. A Manitoba maple is covered with a golden froth of seeds. Someone has put up a notice about lost car keys. I cross Wascana Creek on the wooden footbridge. Someone has left mysterious graffiti on the bridge’s wooden arch. I hear a flurry of hammering. Someone is roofing—this early, on a Sunday? It’s a lesson in how to make oneself unpopular with one’s neighbours. I’ve put on sunscreen, as the doctor who froze off my actinic keratoses told me to do, and it’s running into my eyes. I walk past the entrance to Lakeview School. It was built in 1930, and I wonder if construction started before the extent of the Great Depression was understood, or if it was a response to the stock-market crash, a make-work project. I turn south on Garnet Street. A squirrel scrambles up an elm tree. This neighbourhood’s built environment is changing, with new, modernist boxes juxtaposed against the older, more modest houses. It reminds me of Chicago’s Bucktown neighbourhood. I turn west on McCallum Avenue, named after one of the developers responsible for this neighbourhood, back before the First World War. I pass a boxy United Church and a front yard covered in junipers. To the north, I hear a freight train blowing its horn as it approaches the level crossing on Elphinstone Street. I can hear the locomotives rumbling this far from the tracks. Sound travels far on a quiet morning like this one.
Sculptures of fantastic creatures sit beside someone’s driveway. In the distance, I can hear church bells. A large vegetable garden covers someone else’s front yard. Rudbeckia flames in the morning light. I walk south on Queen Street, which is interrupted by Grassick Avenue after one block. A husky being walked on the par-three golf course resembles a coyote. I turn south on Kings Road. The golf course is busy. Christine played with one of her friends on Friday and came home saying she has a natural gift for golf. A cryptic sign plays with the conventions of lost and found. It’s getting hot already, and I’m starting to sweat. A battered, classic VW Beetle sits in a driveway. I turn west on Hill Avenue, named after the other developer who built this neighbourhood, and one of this city’s richest families. An ear worm is bothering me: Lou Reed’s “Busload of Faith.” Is that appropriate for a Sunday morning walk past silent churches? I turn south on Queen Street—why does it carry the same name as the street further east and north?—and a jogger passes, a young woman I taught last year, I think. Geese fly overhead, honking.
I stop to look at our allotment garden. This is our last year here, and it makes me feel sad. I’m tired of the allotment’s inexplicable rules—just yesterday, we were warned that straw mulch is prohibited, which makes little sense in such a dry place, since mulch helps to conserve soil moisture—and the way that those rules are enforced through inspections and rude e-mails. After ten years here, I’ve grown tired of the way the allotment is run, but it still feels like a loss. I tried a three-sisters garden this year, and it hasn’t quite worked. The squash is flowering, but there isn’t much fruit, and the pole beans aren’t climbing the corn plants. Maybe I planted the corn too close together? It’s hard to say. I think it’s more of a success than the last time I tried this method, though, when the beans grew too quickly and ended up pulling the corn plants over. A volunteer sunflower has appeared, and a volunteer dill (a prohibited plant in this garden, along with roses and horseradish, for some reason) is in flower. The last rhubarb plant waits to be dug up and taken home. I notice several small summer squashes. A bumblebee dances on a corn leaf. Thistles and sow thistles are hidden in the thick planting. The neighbour’s cucumbers are growing into our potatoes.
I pick a few weeds, including a giant ragweed, and then carry on south on Queen Street. More geese fly past, a sign of the approaching autumn. I put on more sunscreen. A discarded mask lies on a driveway. I can hear the traffic roaring past on Lewvan Drive. I turn west on 25th Avenue. There are no sidewalks here, just a desire path next to the road. I’m walking in the shade of a row of poplar trees. Then I take a shortcut through a parking lot. One net is up at the neighbouring beach volleyball court. A gopher runs across a mown lawn towards its hole. As I get closer, it sounds an alarm and disappears inside. Now I’m walking south on Pasqua Street, another road without sidewalks. It’s dangerous here. I press the beg button at Parliament Avenue and wait to cross. When the light changes, I carry on walking west, past a deep excavation, a grassy hole that’s intended to capture storm water, I think. Another pedestrian is waiting to cross Lewvan Drive. He steps out into the road against the light—not a good idea. I wait until the light turns green, and I barely get across before the light turns red again. A Tim Horton’s tempts with sugar and fat and caffeine, but I keep walking. The Harbour Landing billboards I mocked earlier this summer have been repaired. A fence around a vacant lot promises more construction. My eyes burn as more sunscreen drips into them. A telephone switching box has been broken open.
Another pedestrian approaches, followed by a jogger and a cyclist. Across the street, construction of an office building carries on even though it’s a Sunday. A radio plays music. There’s a cooling wind starting to blow from the northwest. A row of Rocky Mountain junipers is dying beside a concrete wall. Two guys on riding mowers are cutting down a field of wild sunflowers. I turn south on Campbell Street. There is fresh tar on the road and it fills the air with the smell of oil. To the west is a huge field of lentils; behind it, I can see the Bypass. On the other side of the wooden fence beside the road, I can hear the mowers humming and snapping. Pedestrians have left footprints on the road’s tarred surface. Something in my pack is making a slapping sound; maybe it’s the water I’m carrying. Now there are new houses beyond the fence; some unfinished, some occupied. A gopher repeatedly whistles its alarm. Willow trees surround sloughs in the lentil field. Crickets are singing. The wind has subsided into a gentle breeze. My plantar fasciitis is starting to hurt. The houses on the other side of the fence are all occupied now; I can see awnings, curtains, patio umbrellas, the spray of a sprinkler. I’m leaving footprints in the tar, just like everyone else who has come this way.
There are so many annual sunflowers here, in yards, beside fences. That’s not surprising; annual sunflowers are among the first native plants to move into disturbed spaces, and this is a textbook example of a disturbed space. Smoke is rising in someone’s backyard, and I wonder who would be barbecuing at ten o’clock in the morning. I manage to peek over the fence: it’s a smoker, not a barbecue. Someone is cooking dinner. A cyclist passes with a dog running alongside. I can hear a lawn mower. I pass the offices of the Sherwood rural municipality, and decide that Campbell Street must mark the city limit. I hear a train horn far behind me. The cyclist with the dog has turned around and is heading back in my direction. She’s cautious; the dog isn’t friendly, it seems. I’m not noticing the smell of tar any more. Wasps are flying around me.
There’s a concrete barrier across Campbell Street at Gordon Road. I walk around the barrier and keep going south. Kids are walking in a field of ripening barley. The complicated highway overpass where the Ring Road meets the Bypass is in the background. Hotdog buns moulder in the road. I reach a pipeline right-of-way and decide to turn back east. Steel fences separate the neighbouring houses from the right-of-way. A rabbit runs through the fence and across a vacant lot; another runs past me. I can hear an electric saw and what seems to be an argument—raised voices, anyway. I notice an alley, an odd feature in a new development, and hear a dog’s muffled barking. I realize I don’t know the name of the street I’m walking on, but that I know where I am, more or less. I’ve crossed a boundary from new Harbour Landing to an older neighbourhood; here there are maturing trees, the concrete driveways are scuffed and stained, and some of the houses need paint. A sign asks passersby to watch for a lost cat. Grackles squeak in a park, and a robin flies out of a row of trees—a few aspens, a Russian olive. A female robin sits on a branch, preening and watching me. The street I’m walking on turns south and then back west again, and I decide to retrace my steps and walk through that park. I have a sense of being caught in a maze of streets. I notice a familiar site—a park built on top of the pipeline right-of-way—and turn east again. The houses here are small, the lots tiny. I sit on a rock in the park for a minute. All of these little houses, I realize, are duplexes. They are big enough to contain two bachelor apartments. I wonder if one of those units is in the basement. A strange symbol is cast into the concrete trash can and I wonder what it means.
I decide to start walking again. Now I’m passing blocks of condominiums. I can smell natural gas. A tiny plastic monkey is lying on a lawn. Behind the neighbouring stories, more construction is underway. I decide to stop for coffee and an early lunch. Afterwards, I carry on towards Gordon Road. A ghostly voice echoes from a home-improvement store, and a frog is croaking somewhere. A police car is blocking the intersection at Gordon Road; there’s been a car accident. I pass an abandoned shopping cart, and I wonder if it’s the same one I passed here weeks ago, or if it’s a different one. To the right is the Lancaster, the pub where I used to watch football with my friends, before the pandemic. I miss the light at Lewvan Drive, and push the beg button and wait to cross. Once again, I barely get across before the light turns red. How do older people, or folks with physical disabilities, get across this busy road? The city needs to think about the needs of pedestrians. Sidewalk hieroglyphics have something to do with buried SaskPower cables.
It’s close to noon now, and the traffic is heavy; the city is awake. Signs advertise exterminators, painting, and garage sales. Garbage left in a bus shelter looks like the aftereffects of the mugging of a tourist: a men’s razor, nail clippers, bank cards, a toothbrush. A phalanx of Harley Davidsons rumbles past. I walk past a shattered car headlight and a lost shirt. My plantar fasciitis is hurting now; my sense on my last long walk that it was getting better has turned out to be overly optimistic. Another mask lies next to the sidewalk. What is wrong with people? I check my phone; I’m halfway to my goal for today’s walk. My pack is getting very heavy. The Rainbow Towers is an apartment building painted in two colours, blue and white. An incredibly loud hot rod passes—a late-model Mustang—roaring and spitting. Applebees is advertising two dollar Bud Light. Who would want it, even at that price? A horn honks and a turbo diesel pickup whistles past. A dead pigeon lies beside a telephone switching box.
I cross Albert Street and keep going east. I see another concrete trash can and realize that the symbol on the side is an invitation to put something inside. I smell lighter fluid and burning charcoal. A dog parks. I’m in Whitmore Park now. I’ve heard that this neighbourhood used to be a large slough. It was filled in and houses were built on top. Now those 50-year-old houses need new basements. It’s close to the university, though, and that attracts faculty and students. I walk along Grant Road. It’s been an hour since I stopped for coffee, and I’m starting to stagger under the weight of my pack. My ear worm has changed: now it’s Neil Young’s “Winterlong.” My eyes are burning from sweat and sunscreen. I pass a park without benches. A couple is sitting in the shade in front of their house. Without thinking, I stop, drop my pack on the ground, and sit at the foot of a tree. It’s too hot to walk in the heat of the noon sun. I stretch my Achilles tendon—the source of my plantar fasciitis problem—and rest. After 10 or 15 minutes, I stand up, shoulder my pack, and start walking again.
A little girl riding a bike asks what I’m doing. She’s maybe six years old; she’s missing her two front teeth. “I’m out for a walk,” I tell her. I pass another vegetable garden in someone’s front yard. I can hear someone mowing their lawn. My pack feels lighter after my rest, but my plantar fasciitis is still hurting. I pass another abandoned mask. I smell burning charcoal again. I thought I was the only holdout, the only one still using charcoal instead of propane, but clearly I was wrong. The sidewalk ends, and I cross the road. I walk by a huge community garden. I wonder what it’s like gardening there. Two joggers pass, and a pedestrian says hello. I notice that my camera battery is almost dead. A fence is made out of cardboard. Bindweed covers the grass beside the sidewalk with white flowers. I push the beg button and wait to cross Wascana Parkway. Crickets are singing in the research park. I hear a rumble of machinery in the distance. An ambulance passes, siren wailing, on Ring Road. There are benches next to the buildings in the research park, but they aren’t shady, so I keep walking. I cross into the university campus. My friend Gerry, a sculptor, rides by on his bicycle and we say hello. A Brinks truck rumbles by. Two women pass, walking much faster than me. I see a shady bench beside the lake and sit down. It feels good, but I know there are no shady benches near the Bypass, and I realize that if this walk is hard, that one will be even harder.
A dozen cyclists and pedestrians pass me, and I wonder if the path through the park is too busy to walk on. Which way do I want to go? I can see a gas flare at the refinery from where I’m sitting. The poplar leaves are turning yellow. A duck quacks and a pelican floats in the middle of the lake. Finally, I decide to take the long way home, looping around the big end of Wascana Lake. I shoulder my pack again and start walking. Rubber gloves, shredded by a lawn mower, lie in the grass. I put on more sunscreen. The walk home becomes a long, hot trudge. I pass Lionel Peyachew’s Four Directions sculpture, First Nations University of Canada, and a failed prairie restoration project, all thistles and quack grass and wormwood. I walk alongside Ring Road and cross the bridge over Wascana Creek. I pass the park greenhouses. A bumblebee lands on me, mistaking my sweat for something tasty. I pass the Habitat Conservation Area and Goose Island Overlook (one of this city’s only hills, made of material dredged from Wascana Lake in the 1930s). I pass tiny blue asters growing in the dry grass and the bone of some creature. I pass the busy skate park and the quiet Science Centre. I pass picnicking families. I stop to sit at a picnic table for a while and wonder how much farther I can walk. Then I pick up my pack and carry on.
A SUV drives past me, leaving an unwelcome ear worm: Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girls.” The number 300 has been repeatedly painted on the path, and I wonder what that means. A crow squawks. I turn north on Broad Street. I smell more charcoal smoke. I see another discarded mask. My camera finally dies. I cut across the park. I pass what used to be Wascana Pool, now a shallow hole in the ground inside a fence. How sad for people who liked swimming outside. I pass the new credit union headquarters. Why is that building in the park, part of the university’s College Avenue campus? Could it be the result of consistent underfunding by the province, which led the university to become a real estate developer? Or because the province doesn’t care about keeping Wascana Park as a park? I turn west on College Avenue, passing a dead squirrel and two seniors who are walking even more slowly than me. I cross Albert Street. I walk past the Unitarian Fellowship and the high-rise apartment building and the lovely gardens and Crescents school, enjoying the shade of the elm trees along the street. And then I’m home. I’ve walked farther than I had anticipated. My plantar fasciitis seems to have subsided. I’m tired but satisfied.
