File:1949 Hudson mound builders (2831253030).jpg

My foot loomed before me, propped on the dash, hot and swollen beneath a wool sock pulled over the fibreglass cast. It was like a piece of baggage that wouldn't fit in the back of the station wagon, or in the back of my mind. It relegated me to the role of passenger, a caricature somehow inferior. It was supposed to have been the perfect journey, a rite of passage -- but I botched it six weeks prior to departure. "Well," said the doctor. "You could have broken it in a worse place." But not as far as I was concerned.

Consider the plans: to wander uninterrupted for a month across the fall prairies photographing relic cemeteries, to rendezvous with a friend in Saskatchewan and celebrate my 40th birthday in a small town tavern. I thought: Well. That's that. Then the phone call. "You still want to go?" Greg asked. "I can change my plans. Pick you up in Edmonton. Spend maybe a couple of weeks travelling. Whaduyuthink?"

I re-thought: thank God for friends. And said, "I'll try not to feel too sorry for myself."

"Unlikely," he laughed. "But don't worry. It can be Greg and the gimp's excellent adventure." And so it began.

DAY ONE

There comes a time early in every journey when I'm seduced by the passage through the landscape. The nagging artificiality that infuses modern travel subsides as the miles fall behind. Somewhere east of Vegreville, I sensed that the woodlands were covered by a cloak flung over the land, an alchemy of precious autumn gold that could suddenly be blown away. Soon after came an illusion: as the highway curved gently upwards, three grain elevators became visible in the distance, we'd pass just south of town; then, at the brim of a rise, the road banked north and the town appeared on the other side. But metaphor and illusion, always welcome travel companions, were not enough. The weight of the cast bound my thoughts. The seduction wasn't enough to overcome the annoyance of a cracked ankle.

"I wish I hadn't broke my damn foot," I whined.

Greg looked at me, annoyed, as if I'd interrupted some private reverie of his own. "Give it a break," he quipped. "Try to enjoy the trip."

"Really funny," I complained.

Every journey has a ritual moment when the lure of discovery overcomes the remembered comforts of home. It often occurs in some small prairie town where I stop for coffee and finally feel like a stranger. But this journey was different. I longed for some sign that it could become more than a fiasco. As the first day faded into early evening there seemed no hope. My foot was stiff and throbbing. Whenever we stopped to look at something I would hobble a few feet from the car and turn back. Nothing seemed worth any effort.

Sixty miles into Saskatchewan we left the highway and were soon on the fringes of the Thickwood Hills. It felt good to slow the pace. The feel of gravel under the wheels was a balm for my mangled nerves. Above a crossroads, somewhere north of Battleford, I sighted a curious monument. I watched for a while without comment, trying to guess what it was. Once near, I asked, "What the hell is that?" But Greg didn't respond, so I hollered, "Stop the car. I've got to see that thing."

"Are you kidding?", he half-hollered, finally slowing the car. "You can't even limp a few steps without bitching. You'll never make it up that hill."

Still, somehow, I did, cursing every step, and cursing the thing for being there. My crutches sank into the earth and dry grasses jabbed my numb toes through the wool sock. Greg followed close, in case I tumbled and broke my other ankle. We reached the top and stood looking at the monument, and beyond, over the black fields.

There was a boulder, like an enormous headstone, rising from the crest of the prairie hill. It was painted yellow. A white rock about the size of an adult human's head was cemented on top; a small cross-shaped concrete marker was wired tight to the white rock. The hood from an old green automobile was on end and wired loosely to the boulder. Beside, a seven-foot pole was sunk into the sandy soil. Two beams bolted near the top formed a V; a blue rag was nailed to one arm of the V, with only the remnant of a red rag left on the other. The monument stood without explanation overlooking twenty miles of farmland. It seemed improbable that it merely marked the corner of a property. Had it been erected in a protracted fit of orderliness? Had someone been killed in an accident at the intersection below?

Although singularly fascinating, it wasn't the first such monument I'd seen on the prairies. Large boulders often mark a spot or an event, some have plaques attached to them, others are hauled from the earth and pushed upright like obelisks. In some places a boulder crowns a pile of rocks, as if finally finished clearing the land a farmer commemorates it with a symbol displaying the immensity of the task. But it's possible that the practice has a deeper meaning. In a far valley of the Pyrenees, between France and Spain, as late as 1877, there was a cult of rocks. Upright boulders were placed so that people of the valley could touch the sacred stone and thereby obtain fertility for their fields or for themselves.

"We've discovered the 1949 Hudson mound builders," Greg joked, pointing to the boulder, his white hair shining in the low September sun.

A sight for sure, around that stone we stood, two unlikely explorers. "What a pair we make," I remarked. "Me in these huge coveralls. Hunched over my crutches. I look like a bumpkin elephant man. And you. With your silver hair and that white turtle neck poking over your coat. You look like a travelling evangelist."

"I will heal you," he intoned in a deep and mocking voice, stretching a wavering hand over my head. "I will heal you,"

"So who the hell are you?" I hollered into the wind.

"I am Brother Heal," Greg replied, making a strange sign in the air. And so I had my ritual moment.