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about

The last best west was a slogan used attempting to fill the Canadian West, specifically the Canadian prairies, with new settlers. The government of Canada attempted to fill western Canada with English and French but after that failed they advertised among the Eastern Europeans, the Ukrainians and Polish, etc. They didn’t speak English or French but, hey, the government figured, at least they were white. Once the Pukes (Polish/Ukrianian) showed up, government agencies smoothly assimilated those cultures into English. J.T. Anderson, Saskatchewan’s second Premier made it his goal to set up a schooling system that eliminated Ukrainian and Polish languages and for the most part they succeeded.

The majority of the Canadian prairies is made up of people whose ancestors came from somewhere else. It’s in our blood to be dissatisfied and move. The bulk of people in the prairies grow up to reject where they came from, declaring it dull and departing for greener pastures, something their ancestors did and their descendants will likely do.

Most of the immigrants who came to the Canadian prairies farmed. Incidentally, the worst soil in Canada happens to be in the prairies. That’s part of the reason Canadian agricultural technology is the best in the world: we’ve been faced with the impossible task to feed the world with some of the worst soil on earth. With what’s become our trademark prairie ingenuity and stubbornness, we’ve done it. But I think about those first farmers and the failures they must have felt like when their crops dwindled, when they weren’t able to endure against the odds. It must have been a hard life.

It was a lonely life, certainly. The Canadian prairie was and is an isolated place. When you add that farm land was sectioned into quarter sections instead of strips, people became increasingly separate

To immigrant settlers, it must have felt like they were living on the moon.
The eastern European immigrants were most Orthodox Christians and many converted to Catholicism but their ancestors would have worshipped gods like Jarilo, the god of agriculture.

Even though Canada was a new world to the European immigrants, it wasn’t as if those settlers were open to adopting the culture of the people already here or to change. Instead, they tried and for the most part succeeded in making Canada a western version of European culture. Most Saskatchewan cities, towns and villages are named after European royalty, places, poets, etc. They missed the land they loved and tried to recreate it in the “desolate” prairie.

If you look at rail travel as an example, this worked for the flat prairies but once the rail arrived at the mountains, instead of developing new forms of transportation suitable to the geography or looking to how the people who originally inhabited the land traveled, they blasted and broke through walls of rock. They literally moved mountains to facilitate a European form of travel. And they sacrificed the lives and health of so many Chinese immigrants who gave up their lives to create something as eternal as a rail line.

lyrics

We left that land in search for another. Each 20 years you’re left or you’re leaving. We spread ourselves like chicken feed across a face so wild and free to discover.

I’ve got these hands but what are they good for? To till the earth and pray for a ten-fold. Gambling with Jarilo for life and limb and room to dream of another.

Oh where, oh when, where will I see my love again? A duplicate made from all I remember there. We carved these walls like we were gods and men. A belted earth made up of ties and nails in hands, taming what we discover.

I’ve got these hands but what are they good for?
They raise this drink unto my lips.
Why, Oh, Why? What are you looking for?

These roots to discover.
These routes to discover.

credits

from Not Particularly Dignified or Newsworthy, released February 23, 2019

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Friend Friend Saskatchewan

For their Sophomore release; Not Particularly Dignified or Newsworthy Friend Friend partnered with their band member and producer, Matt Froese to create 5 Indie folk power-pop anthems for the everyman/woman.

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