You have to go. It's such a great name.
I drove from Regina to Moose Jaw, and for the first time since I got to Saskatchewan, I realized I am really on the prairies. Miles and miles of miles and miles, flat as a pancake. It's not a long trip; it took me about 45 minutes, because the speed limit is about 70 mph for most of the way. And why not? You could see an obstacle miles away.
Moose Jaw is a Western town right off the studio lot: wide, perpendicular main drags, blocky storefronts crowding them, an impressive train station smack at the end of Main Street like Dad at the head of the table. And you have to give the city fathers and mothers credit: The town could have faded into nothingness when its heyday had passed, like so many others, but thanks to its name, a few lucky breaks and some tireless marketing, it remains a destination.
The Tunnels of Moose Jaw is a tour into a labyrinth of steam tunnels that were (re)discovered only in 1985, reportedly by a truck that fell into them. They're still not completely excavated, and one of the guides said they're actually owned by a guy in Vancouver. (How does a person come to purchase an abandoned network of tunnels under a town hundreds of miles away?)
There are two tours, the "Chicago Connection" and the "Passage to Fortune"; each is 50 minutes, takes you to different cleaned-up and elaborately decorated (with historical settings and artifacts, not wallpaper) sections of the tunnels and is highly theatrical, with costumed guides involving visitors in a storyline. I personally have been a bootlegger, a coolie, an artist and a doorstop. The Chicago tour is based on the theory that Al Capone was running a smuggling operation from Moose Jaw during Prohibition -- despite the fact that there is no historical evidence he ever set foot in the town. Kind of odd, but good fun, if you can remember that it's historical speculation rather than a re-enactment of any sort.
"Passage to Fortune," though, while based on fictional/composite characters, is packed with factual information about the mistreatment of Chinese immigrants in turn-of-the-20th-century Canada. Things were so dire in China after the Opium War that people were willing to pay exorbitant fees to coolie brokers to get to Canada to make their fortunes -- only to discover they were essentially indentured slaves with no hope of returning to China or bringing family members over for years, if ever. The Canadian government, which didn't really want them except that they were cheap labor for the railroads, extracted an increasingly outrageous "head tax" on Chinese immigrants, and white Canadians treated them with vicious racism. They worked ridiculously long hours for the railroad or in laundries, doing dangerous, injurious work with no medical attention, crap food and little sleep. It's a really ugly chapter in Canada's history.
So I felt kind of arrogant and disrespectful going over to the Temple Gardens Mineral Spa for a long soak in the hot pool and a body wrap. For a little while, anyway. The huge, shallow pool is a wonderful place to forget your problems and everyone else's, too, and relax. You can boil yourself in the whirlpool area, or bob through a passage into the open air (without getting out of the water), where the water is hotter and the cool air and occasional kisses of rain on your shoulders remind you how extraordinarily good it is to be alive.
The body wrap was supposed to do all kinds of nutritive things to my skin with vitamins and detoxifying botanical elixirs, but the whole point, ultimately, is that it feels fantastic to get scrubbed down, slathered with fragrant herbaceous goo, wrapped up like a leftover taco and left to bake in a darkened room. Then comes a refreshing shower, another slicking of moisturizer and it's time to remember what your name is and how to drive. Oh, and put your clothes on. Do that first.
In my wanderings around town I spotted several of the Murals of Moose Jaw, which are just what the name says. Forty-six murals by different artists depict aspects of local history and culture, and they really brighten up the blank sides of those utilitarian 19th-century buildings.
The show wasn't over when I left to drive back to Regina. I wanted to get back before it got dark, because that highway is unlit and I saw elk crossing signs. Enough said.
Saskatchewan calls itself the "Land of Living Skies," and driving east on the Trans-Canada at sundown, I found out why. As is the case where the land is flat, the sky is HUGE, and this sky was a surging lava lamp of activity. Behind me, the sun was going all molten in a crucible of ragged dark clouds. To the right was a slate wall of storm clouds and distant rain. To the left and overhead was a slow-motion churn of shapes in shades of gray. The bottom layer was so low, it couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet, but it was broken and showing higher clouds in lighter colors. It's a good thing the road is almost entirely flat, die-straight and free of sudden hazards, because my eyes kept turning upwards. I think that drive put something into me that the Chinese laundry had taken out.
Finished the day with a luscious meal at the Cathedral Free House in Regina, then repacked and enjoyed a brief nap before dropping the car at the airport and boarding a flight to Winnipeg.
I drove from Regina to Moose Jaw, and for the first time since I got to Saskatchewan, I realized I am really on the prairies. Miles and miles of miles and miles, flat as a pancake. It's not a long trip; it took me about 45 minutes, because the speed limit is about 70 mph for most of the way. And why not? You could see an obstacle miles away.
Moose Jaw is a Western town right off the studio lot: wide, perpendicular main drags, blocky storefronts crowding them, an impressive train station smack at the end of Main Street like Dad at the head of the table. And you have to give the city fathers and mothers credit: The town could have faded into nothingness when its heyday had passed, like so many others, but thanks to its name, a few lucky breaks and some tireless marketing, it remains a destination.
The Tunnels of Moose Jaw is a tour into a labyrinth of steam tunnels that were (re)discovered only in 1985, reportedly by a truck that fell into them. They're still not completely excavated, and one of the guides said they're actually owned by a guy in Vancouver. (How does a person come to purchase an abandoned network of tunnels under a town hundreds of miles away?)
There are two tours, the "Chicago Connection" and the "Passage to Fortune"; each is 50 minutes, takes you to different cleaned-up and elaborately decorated (with historical settings and artifacts, not wallpaper) sections of the tunnels and is highly theatrical, with costumed guides involving visitors in a storyline. I personally have been a bootlegger, a coolie, an artist and a doorstop. The Chicago tour is based on the theory that Al Capone was running a smuggling operation from Moose Jaw during Prohibition -- despite the fact that there is no historical evidence he ever set foot in the town. Kind of odd, but good fun, if you can remember that it's historical speculation rather than a re-enactment of any sort.
"Passage to Fortune," though, while based on fictional/composite characters, is packed with factual information about the mistreatment of Chinese immigrants in turn-of-the-20th-century Canada. Things were so dire in China after the Opium War that people were willing to pay exorbitant fees to coolie brokers to get to Canada to make their fortunes -- only to discover they were essentially indentured slaves with no hope of returning to China or bringing family members over for years, if ever. The Canadian government, which didn't really want them except that they were cheap labor for the railroads, extracted an increasingly outrageous "head tax" on Chinese immigrants, and white Canadians treated them with vicious racism. They worked ridiculously long hours for the railroad or in laundries, doing dangerous, injurious work with no medical attention, crap food and little sleep. It's a really ugly chapter in Canada's history.
So I felt kind of arrogant and disrespectful going over to the Temple Gardens Mineral Spa for a long soak in the hot pool and a body wrap. For a little while, anyway. The huge, shallow pool is a wonderful place to forget your problems and everyone else's, too, and relax. You can boil yourself in the whirlpool area, or bob through a passage into the open air (without getting out of the water), where the water is hotter and the cool air and occasional kisses of rain on your shoulders remind you how extraordinarily good it is to be alive.
The body wrap was supposed to do all kinds of nutritive things to my skin with vitamins and detoxifying botanical elixirs, but the whole point, ultimately, is that it feels fantastic to get scrubbed down, slathered with fragrant herbaceous goo, wrapped up like a leftover taco and left to bake in a darkened room. Then comes a refreshing shower, another slicking of moisturizer and it's time to remember what your name is and how to drive. Oh, and put your clothes on. Do that first.
In my wanderings around town I spotted several of the Murals of Moose Jaw, which are just what the name says. Forty-six murals by different artists depict aspects of local history and culture, and they really brighten up the blank sides of those utilitarian 19th-century buildings.
The show wasn't over when I left to drive back to Regina. I wanted to get back before it got dark, because that highway is unlit and I saw elk crossing signs. Enough said.
Saskatchewan calls itself the "Land of Living Skies," and driving east on the Trans-Canada at sundown, I found out why. As is the case where the land is flat, the sky is HUGE, and this sky was a surging lava lamp of activity. Behind me, the sun was going all molten in a crucible of ragged dark clouds. To the right was a slate wall of storm clouds and distant rain. To the left and overhead was a slow-motion churn of shapes in shades of gray. The bottom layer was so low, it couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet, but it was broken and showing higher clouds in lighter colors. It's a good thing the road is almost entirely flat, die-straight and free of sudden hazards, because my eyes kept turning upwards. I think that drive put something into me that the Chinese laundry had taken out.
Finished the day with a luscious meal at the Cathedral Free House in Regina, then repacked and enjoyed a brief nap before dropping the car at the airport and boarding a flight to Winnipeg.
1 comment:
"Dive in to Winnipeg" could be the new town motto. I'm sure you'll find plenty of moosejaw dropping stuff to write about that will make us want to rush up there and see it for ourselves.
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