In 1968, my father, at the tender age of 26 years, with one year of teaching experience and a Master’s degree in Education Administration, was hired to be the principal of Maple Creek Composite School. Maple Creek Composite was high school only at the time—grades nine to twelve. Today it hosts grades six to twelve. The town of Maple Creek is a small, handsome ranching community in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan. I might have grown up there, but a small incident at the very beginning of our stay hinted at tensions that would cause us to leave four years later.
I have written previously about the journeys of the explorer John Palliser, who documented the physical and human geography of the western Canadian plains in the years 1857 to 1860. The paragraph below is from my essay Farms, Wind Farms, Golden Eagles, and Cemeteries.
The explorer John Palliser, while traversing portions of the Canadian prairie in southwest Saskatchewan and southeast Alberta, concluded that the land around him was essentially uninhabitable. Depending on the time of year it was too hot, too dry, too windy, or too cold for successful human habitation. The area became known as the Palliser triangle, and against the good explorer’s advice, it was where my great grandparents, Emil and Julia Erickson, established a southwest Saskatchewan homestead in 1910.
My ancestor’s homestead is about 100 miles north of Maple Creek, and the arid landscape lives up to Captain Palliser’s assessment, though generations of ranchers and farmers have proven that his conclusions were too bleak. Of all the thousands of square miles encompassed in Palliser’s triangle, the land immediately south/southwest of Maple Creek is the most interesting. Just fifteen miles south of town the Cypress Hills vault skyward to the highest point in Canada (4,810’) between Labrador and the Rocky Mountains. The Cypress Hills are a geological anomaly that formed when a small uplift in the area, perhaps caused by differential compaction of existing sediments, caused large rivers flowing out of the western mountains to divert around the higher ground. The rivers eroded the landscape surrounding the hills for millions of years, eventually leaving the Hills as a high plateau. A hard conglomerate at the top of the geologic column—the Cypress Hills Formation—further protected softer, underlying sediments from erosion.
Higher elevation in the Cypress Hills yields cooler summer temperatures and higher precipitation amounts than the surrounding prairie. The flora and fauna match better with the foothills and mountains of Alberta or Montana. Indeed, the Cypress Hills are the one portion of the Palliser Triangle that might have caused the good explorer to reconsider his harsh assessment.
I loved Maple Creek. It is the home of my first memories. I was seven when we left, and I remember sitting in the back seat of the car as we drove north out of town. I cried. There is a provincial park in the Cypress Hills. Cabins and park facilities surround a small lake called Loch Leven. We rented an old white cabin for fifty dollars a month and stayed there every summer. My father played golf, and I took swimming lessons and rode my bike to the beach. By the end of summer my skin was burnished red-brown, and my hair was the same yellow-gold as dry prairie grass.
Riding snowmobiles was a popular winter pastime for my parents and their friends. Each winter the steep draws and coulees that carve through the Cypress Hills filled reliably with winter white precipitation. Fierce winds blew over the top of the plateau and dragged the snow into cornices that capped the top of steep hillsides. With the machines of the day, it was a good challenge to climb the steep hills and smash through the cornices to gain the tops, though they would be nothing for the modern mountain sleds of today. In my memory, winter was winter in Maple Creek and the Cypress Hills.
Just a few days ago I was surprised to hear that Maple Creek attained a temperature of 20.9 degrees Celsius on January 30th. This was, according to weather reports, the warmest January day in the recorded history of the province of Saskatchewan. It is a certainty that this data will be weaponized to convince people they should fear the future and join the chorus to “end fossil fuel.” My winter memories of Maple Creek are of snow and cold, but I was interested to learn that it’s not uncommon for warm Chinook, or föhn winds, which descend from the Rocky Mountains and regularly flood cities like Calgary and Lethbridge with dramatic winter warmth, to reach as far east as Maple Creek. These föhn winds can raise winter temperatures by 50 or 60 degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of hours.
I reviewed several scientific papers that analyzed historical temperature and precipitation in southwest Saskatchewan to see if scientists have identified any trends. A paper published in the Canadian Journal of Soil Science by Cutworth in 2000 indicated that the most significant changes in the climate of southwest Saskatchewan over the time from 1950 to 2000 were an increase in maximum winter temperatures, and a corresponding decrease in winter precipitation as snow. Maximum summer temperatures remained the same over the period. Summer precipitation increased.1 While these changes may compromise the viability of cornice busting in the Cypress Hills, and marginally increase the likelihood of being able to sip a craft brew outdoors in January, are they really worth fretting about? Comments by the owner of the Rafter R Brewing Company recorded in a CBC interview seemed appropriate to me.
I'm of the opinion we'll take it while we can get it and get while the getting is good. Doesn't matter to us if it's January or July. If the weather says sit on the patio then the patio is open, Moncrieff said.
It's quite common in Maple Creek to catch the Chinooks and stuff that comes through in the winter time. And I've seen the temperature go from -30 C, to 4 C in the morning, he said.
So you know, between El Niño and stuff like that this year, it's just a little bit higher than normal and people are sure enjoying it.
Another paper tackled the relationship between crop yields and climatic changes over a 37-year period from 1979 to 2016 and concluded that rainfall and temperature trends gave no indication that climate factor ratings for arable land in Saskatchewan should be changed. And model projections of future climate states suggest the potential for higher productivity in years to come. Charts of wheat yields over the 1979 to 2016 timeframe across all soil zones in the province, from dry brown in the southwest to wetter black soils in the northeast, show a consistent upward trend.2 Given that the climatic trends are very small, what are the likely factors leading to the higher yields? The authors don’t attempt to answer this question, but I will throw a few darts. Better seeds, more efficient farm machines and cultivation practices, better pesticides, better fertilizers, more CO2? The title of this post at the website Watts Up With That is titled “World Cereal Production Set to Hit Record High In 2023.”
Juxtaposed against this hopeful story are the worry-warts of the world. This article from 2020 is titled Should We Be Bringing Children Into Our Dying World? Another article in Macleans magazine, this one from 2022, uses even more colorful language to introduce the topic of young people wrestling with the decision to have children.
The planet is, quite literally, on fire: a third of humanity is now exposed to deadly heat stress. Nearly a million species are facing extinction, and a global pandemic still lingers. Extreme weather is increasing in frequency and intensity, and the future is looking even more dire …
The story posits two lines of reasoning that worriers use when thinking about having children. One is whether it is ethical or wise to birth a child into a dying world. Another is whether the newborn speeds up the dying.
I’m willing to admit that any child born today, or 50 years in the future will encounter a changing world, just as I did, but as long as we’re not hit by an asteroid the size of Manhattan, it won’t be a dying world. A shirtsleeves day in Maple Creek in January is not what I remember, and it’s not great for snowmobile riding in the Cypress Hills, but nothing is dying because of it. Plants and animals and humans are adapting (see photo of patio above), which has always been a characteristic of species that endure.
To forego having children because you believe the future is destined to be nothing but war, thirst, famine, and misery is misguided. Small climatic changes like the ones documented in the studies of the Saskatchewan prairies are not likely to be the advance scouts of the army of the Tipping Point that is sweeping toward us like the black front of an apocalyptic dust storm, nothing but death and devastation in its wake.
About once every five years I get an urge to tackle some difficult reading. While I was growing up, I recall my parents talking about how much they loved the movie “Dr. Zhivago.” Turner Classic Movies aired it about a month ago, and I watched it for the first time, with my mother who was visiting for Christmas. After the movie I borrowed the book from the library and read it. Good for another five years. Truthfully, I enjoyed the story on screen and in print. The book wasn’t as difficult as some of the other classic Russian novels. The backdrop of two world wars and the Russian revolution gave it historical context that interested me. Towards the end of the novel, after the doctor (Yuri) has passed away, his half-brother Evgraf speaks to Lara, the great love of Yuri’s life.
Never, in any circumstances, must you despair. To hope and to act is our duty in misfortune. Inactive despair is a forgetting and failure of duty.
Despair about the future is the lesser of two offences committed against the idea of having children. The worse crime is the view of them as nothing more than users and takers of earth’s precious resources. This is the Malthusian view, where humans are like rabbits who procreate dumbly, indiscriminately until their populations overwhelm the food supply and then die off to levels that can be sustained. Late in the 18th century, Thomas Malthus saw a bleak future for humanity when he concluded that the human population would expand geometrically while the food supply would not. Malthus, like those who agonize over the decision to have a baby, discounted the intelligence, creativity, and adaptability of human beings. Modern Malthusians like Paul Ehrlich continue to make that mistake. Our long history, combined with current-day events, demonstrates with certainty that humanity is capable of astonishing cruelty, short-sightedness, and evil. But that is not the whole story. We are made in the image of God, which means we are also rational, creative, and loving. Every new child is another opportunity for a savior, a great person who discovers a new way to heal the sick, a new way to power the world, a new way for our many tribes, scattered across continents and oceans, to live prosperously and peacefully with each other. The quote below is also from Dr. Zhivago. Yuri is speaking, and he and Lara are discussing theology in their rat-infested apartment in Yuriatin, deep in the Ural mountains.
As it’s said in one of the hymns of the Annunciation, Adam wanted to become God and made a mistake and did not become Him, but now ‘God becomes man, so as to make Adam God’
So what happened that caused our Maple Creek residency to be four years and not a lifetime? A bit of the of the story is conjecture, but it is informed conjecture that fits the facts. When the school division offered the Principal job to my father, there was at least one person on the board, a bully, who didn’t agree with the decision. When our little family showed up in town, my father contacted the school board, who were supposed to cover moving expenses, to see if a truck could be supplied to get our shipment of furniture from a warehouse to our actual house. The bully at the school board told him no. Dad argued the point, but had to hire some transport to move the furniture. It didn’t sit well, but water under the bridge. We settled into our new lives. I started school a year later and my parents quickly made friends. Dad loved to hunt and fish and the surrounding country was rich with opportunity. My siblings were born. In the summer we retired to the Cypress Hills and inhaled the cool scent of lodgepole pine. This beautiful little corner of southwest Saskatchewan was our Eden, and like Adam and Eve, we lost it.
On a midweek fall morning in 1970, Dad woke before dawn and drove southwest toward the hills for an early morning deer hunt. When he finished—no success—he changed into coat and tie in the yard of the rancher who let him hunt on his land. I’m sure he hustled his truck back to town, but he cut it too close. He wasn’t at the school as students were arriving for the day. The bully at the school board learned of this transgression and decided it was an impeachable offense. There was a trial, and dad was demoted. In lieu of firing, he was offered a teaching position in Fox Valley, a tiny hamlet 45 miles north of Maple Creek. They hoped he would resign, but he didn’t. We needed the income, and my mom had heart surgery the next year. It took a while, but dad eventually found a new administrative opportunity. We left in the summer of 1972.
Our move took us from the bottom of Canada, just a few tens of miles north of the U.S. border, to Inuvik, just a few tens of miles south of the Beaufort Sea. The sizzling summer days of the continental climate of southern Saskatchewan were not to be found in our new, sub-arctic town on the east margin of the Mackenzie River delta.
If you compare the average highs and lows for Maple Creek with the same data for Inuvik you see that winter averages for Inuvik are about 20 degrees F colder than Maple Creek, and peak of summer averages are about 10 degrees colder. If it is possible for humans and animals and plants to simultaneously thrive in arctic climates, and temperate climates, and tropical climates, then it’s certainly possible to endure and adapt to the almost imperceptible changes that are weaponized to the extent that people forgo having children. I know, it’s what the imperceptible changes represent—inexorable progress toward a dying world. Bollocks. You could waste a lifetime waiting for bad things to happen.
If you want to have children, have them joyfully. Adapt to the future. Find yourself a handsome little town. And don’t be late.
🖤 Like this post or I’ll turn the thermostat up 1.5 degrees C.
Cutforth, H. W. "Climate change in the semiarid prairie of southwestern Saskatchewan: temperature, precipitation, wind, and incoming solar energy." Canadian journal of soil science 80, no. 2 (2000): 375-385.
Kerr, Samantha A., Yuliya Andreichuk, and David J. Sauchyn. "Re-Evaluating the Climate Factor in Agricultural Land Assessment in a Changing Climate—Saskatchewan, Canada." Land 8, no. 3 (2019): 49.
Now I get the immediate affinity I had for your writing, Trevor.
It’s where you are from. Having spent time in the fall from central SK up the MacKenzie Hwy and extreme northern Peace River country of AB, there was something about your tone and tenor and that unmistakeable authenticity I recognized.
You’re from that unique area of the North American continent we fell in love with almost a quarter century ago. Because of the people and the land.
What an outstanding piece. Very well done!
P.S. we just recommended you to our readers and subscribers, via Notes and on our Home page.
Amazing, someone who knows what to do about climatic conditions, obviously immune David Suzuki’s instructions.