Manitoba
I have always been fascinated by railroad crossing barriers with their lights, clanging noises, and striped gates that came down stopping cars while the train whipped by. How fortunate then that we were actually just ahead of a slow-moving train heading east!! I stood there excitedly waiting for the lights and the sounds as well as the barrier to come down, knowing this would be a permanent memory for me. I took photos prior to the train passing and this view of the gate and lights breaking the horizon line on the flat prairies felt majestic. Such an important job they fill. ~ Alison
At Km 4800, on the approach to Winnipeg, this old tractor grabbed my attention. It's part of an open air farm machinery museum that could have been fun to explore, but we were on a schedule. I sure wouldn't have wanted to turn the crank to start this old girl. She did have certain advantages, though - no tires to go flat or change! The variety of the warm orange-browns of the rusting metal against the plain complimentary blue of the background enhances and amplifies the melancholia of the subject. Carol
Traveling across the prairies feels surreal at times. The landscape stretches out seemingly forever toward the horizon, but scattered across the plain are hundreds of poles supporting the wires that connect us across such a vast space. The dark wires float on a piercingly blue sky and, although I know they connect people to the world, I rarely see the wires attached to anything more concrete than the poles. I love how connected we can be in our isolation. Carol
It was fun moving to Saskatchewan with so many new things to see and learn about, like the word, "Slough" - pronounced "slew". I thought this water was a slough, only to be corrected by people that had lived here for awhile, it's a ditch to catch the spring run off. A ditch is manmade, while a slough is a depression in the land that collects water and is a natural occurrence. I still like that word, very much a part of the western vocabulary. So, my title stands - because I like the word.
Have you ever wondered where the people in the other vehicles are going? I thought about that while we travelled down the road and decided to make that the subject of this painting. I enjoyed the simplicity of this image with the lone white vehicle surrounded by the prairie landscape. I purposely created a low horizon line with the massive sky to create a sense of loneliness, or insignificance, in this wide open landscape. The wispy jet trails overhead added to that wonder, "where are they going?" ~ Alison
Manitoba is indeed a flat land. On entering the province from the east, it is striking how the landscape changes from the hilly, rocky Canadian Shield of Ontario to the ancient seabed of Manitoba. The roads are straight, the sky is big, the fields are rectangular, and objects in the distance hang in the air with a flattened sense of perspective. Storms can be seen approaching from a long way off and, without any geographic obstacles, the winds roar across the landscape. On the trip back to Montreal from the western provinces, I was at the leading edge of a storm all the way across the province and had a long day's drive to witness the clouds over the landscape. Carol