Photograph by David Anthony Hohol

The Canadian Prairies of Alberta give you some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring lands in the world. This is often combined with the rustic antiquity of aged homesteads and family farms from years passed. Life as it once was and, despite humanity being in the midst The Digital Revolution, the way it still very much is today, intersecting at a point of beauty.

The picture above was taken from inside a shelter built in the 1920s. The view stares out into the open plains of the prairies and can be symbolic, if one so chooses to look at it that way. Doors and windows have had, throughout art and literary history, much symbolic meaning attached to them. The image of the open door, with no lock or latch, can represent the unconditional nature of our relationship with the physical world, while at the same time revealing our need to internalize existence as a seperate and purely individual entity. Such an image can thus become a conduit into an individuals thoughts and emotions – an image of the human soul.

It could also be just a nice photograph. We’ll leave that up to you…

Photograph by David Anthony Hohol

The Canadian Prairies are as beautiful as any place on the planet and Alberta may epitomize their essence. Alberta is where the Great Central Plains meet the magnificent Canadian Rockies and contains awe-inspiring mountains, wondrous rolling hills and mystifying flat lands. The altitude provides Alberta with month after month of star-filled skies to wish upon and dream under.The golden fields of wheat and barely that dance in the wind and the grasslands that sparkle with wolf willows or prairie sage make Alberta a place of amazing beauty.

The picture above is a recently turned field of wheat soon ready for harvest centered by a former homestead since abandoned and left to only remind us of a lifestyle that seems so long ago, but in the annals of time is only yesterday. We have come so far, so fast and sometimes we forget as a result; forget that simplicity is the truest form of beauty.

From David Anthony Hohol…

The summer, for most of my life, has always meant time on the family farm. Sitting in the same house where my father was raised, the same house in which my grandfather was born, and the same house my great grandfather built with his own hands with timber from the trees atop his land, always grounds me to the world beneath my feet in a way no other place ever can. The sense of lineage is so thick, there are times I almost have to reach up to brush it away from in front of me so as to see the present more clearly and than days past.  While always close to my grandmother, since my grandfather’s passing, she has become my life’s matriarch and a living piece of my soul. I am so very blessed to have reached middle-age and still have her there to greet me with a warm hug and kiss on the cheek, as I pass through the only door that has always been there for me to open. I cherish every minute of our time spent chatting over breakfast or watching old movies like tiny gold coins falling into my open and waiting hands.  Now in her eighties, she still provides me with the only home I have ever known and for that I am a lucky man indeed.

From the second I return from my latest trek across the globe, I see my grandfather everywhere; sitting in his chair that still graces the rustic farmhouse living room, in the corrals behind the barn rolling out hay bales to his cattle, or out in the fields as I drive across the family land in my 1973 Chevy Scotsdale. Perhaps, most of all, I see him alive and well in my uncle, the only of his four children to carry on the tradition of farming and now the fourth generation to do so.

I hear my grandfather’s voice sometimes; sometimes in the wind, sometimes in the rustling of the towering poplar tress that surround the home quarter, but most often when passing through the ever-present herd of cattle grazing the pastures for yet another summer under the golden Alberta sun.

One thing my grandfather and I always did so easily was just talk. The flow of conversation between us was effortless and I’ve often thought it was simply because we loved talking to one another. We could easily talk our way through entire ball games or even a Hockey Night in Canada double-header, but it was while working out in the fields when the conversations between us became somehow special.

Working together with our hands and our backs, we would talk all day long and in turn we each learned about the kind of men we were; the kind men we wanted to be. Two men in the throws of physical labor, working side-by-side, is a very primal, very masculine ritual. When the two men are grandfather and grandson, the undertows of blood and family only serve to heighten the tribal nature of the experience.

Perhaps we never talked more than while hauling hay bales together. Stacking 50 bales in the back of a half-ton is like completing a puzzle, with each bale sliding into its specific place and in a specific position, until the load is complete. Afterward, we drove the load back to the farm for unloading, to then start all over again. During hay season, my grandfather and I would haul thousands of square bales back home from the fields to the northeast corner of the barn, where the stacks would sometimes reach 30 feet high. With my grandfather being in his mid sixties and me in my early twenties, I was often amazed at his stamina. The young strong man that I was was dog-tired after a day of hauling bales with him. Farm work is a good tired though. It’s not nerve tiring, but physically tiring. After a good supper and a solid nights sleep, one wakes up the next day feeling ready for more. Regardless, when hauling bales back and forth all day long, for days at a time, all there is to do is talk. Our topics of conversation were all over the scale and talking about anything and everything slowly turned grandfather and grandson… into friends.

The conversations we had are countless, but two always stand out in my mind and in the end, reveal the genuine friendship we shared with one another. One summer as we were stacking bales out behind the barn, I began to get on my grandfather’s case for not taking his blood pressure pills. He eventually he got irritated and told me I didn’t understand his situation. I then said, “What do you mean, I don’t understand? I understand you need to take the pills to stop yourself from having a heart attack for Christ’s sake. What else is there?”

It was then he angrily replied, “Dave… If I take these pills,” but then paused for moment before he continued.

“If I take this fucking pills, I can’t even get it up… I can’t even be a god damn man… do you know what that’s like?”

I didn’t know what to say, so quietly answered him as honestly as I could. “No.. I don’t.”

After a few minutes of silence, he then said with a smile, “Don’t think I still don’t give it to your grandma once in a while, Dave” and let out a laugh and I couldn’t help but follow suit.

Like I said… we were friends. Beyond the conversations we had were his stories, and boy oh boy how I loved to hear them. Although he would tell me about painful and disappointing times, more often than not his tales were filled with laughter of life. Whether it was the one about a guy he once knew that would shit his pants for a beer or the one about the farting horse, he always had a great punch line. The stories he told about he and his older brothers and their days as boxers however, stand above them all.

Because a farming community could not spare a lot of money for sporting events and because distances were long a far from major centers, small towns depended mostly on themselves for entertainment. It was for this reason that boxing, for a time, was very popular in small towns across the country. I knew that there had been a lot of boxing in the area, but until my grandfather told me stories I had no idea just how incredibly popular it was. The entire town, as well as others from neighboring communities, would pack the town hall to watch professional boxing cards on a regular basis.

My great uncle Albert told me that it was the high school principal, Jack McLaughlin, a boxer of some note in his day, who started the Two Hills boxing club. Boxing became popular not only in Two Hills, but in towns like Vegreville, St.Paul and Bonnyville and it was not difficult to line up a good card, because some of the men in the area became name fighters. My grandfather told me that he and his older brothers, Albert and John, would all appear on the same five-bout fight card sometimes and they would always win, as the Hohol boys had a tough as nails reputation throughout the county. The oldest brother John became a ranked fighter and was an Alberta welterweight champion. My great uncle Albert was also a good fighter, but told me himself my grandfather was the best fighter out of all three brothers. He described him as a natural who surely would have become ranked nationally if he had continued to fight. Sometimes I think that If I could have one wish granted to me, I would choose to go back through time and be there at ringside to see the three Hohol boys all fighting on the same card.

With that said within only a short time all the fighting in the area came to a tragic end. On a hot summers night back in 1944, Two Hills Hall was standing room only. After my grandfather and his older brothers all convincingly won their bouts, all three stood ringside to take in the main event. Two men who had become well known fighters, St. Paul’s George Werenka and Cyclone Fred Taylor from Gibbons, were about to clash in a heavyweight battle. My grandfather told me there had been several weeks of build up for the fight and the winner was expected to move on to the national boxing scene. According to my grandfather it was a hard, tough fight and Taylor landed more punches, but Werenka landed the much heavier ones. At the end of the eighth round Taylor walked over to his corner and sat down. Suddenly he went limp sliding off his stool and laid unconscious on the canvas. Taylor was taken to Edmonton, but died at the entrance of the University Hospital. My grandfather said it was a shaking experience for he and his brothers, as well as the whole town. Werenka was not held responsible and went on to become the Canadian Navy’s heavyweight champion. Shortly thereafter, the Edmonton and District Boxing Commission tightened requirements for staging professional boxing and fairly so. The changes were of a nature that made it impossible for small towns to afford to promote boxing and as my grandfather said, it was as it should be.

This was one of only countless stories he told me over the years and these stories of his youth and his days as a young man were magical to me. They always whisked way to another time and another way of life far away from the world that is today. Even more importantly, his willingness to share not only the stories of his life but his emotions, his feelings and his dreams led me to get to know the man as well as I have ever known anyone in my life, and in return he got to know me. The connection was felt by us both. We were friends and like old buddies we would argue about sports and politics, pissing each other off at times. At the same time we would share the most intimate and personal feelings with one another.

My grandfather passed away on January 20th, 2003. I think of him 10 seconds out of every day and afterward, always think of how lucky I am to have had in my life. Then I realize he’s still right here with me and I journey back into the big wide world, my wings lifted once again by his ever-present memories, and above above all else by the living monument to his life that is the family farm.

Yes. I am indeed a lucky man.

From David Anthony Hohol…

Living in the deserts of the Middle East  has its drawbacks. Some might not consider it such, but I really do miss winter. It’s been years since I felt the patter of snowflakes against my lips,  squinted my eyes at the rush a cold wind over my face, or watched a winter’s morning sunrise dance across the snow. 

Within the realm of my rural Canadian upbringing, after hockey of course, the best part of winter was always ice-fishing. There was no greater joy shared between my grandfather and I, aside for morning chores out behind the barn, than taking the old pick-up for drive out onto the ice. He passed away seven years ago. Sometimes it feels like only yesterday the two of us fished amidst the peace of a winter’s dawn. Sometimes it seems like a thousand years have passed. Allow me to share with you the story of a typical day of grandfather and grandson out on the ice.  Perhaps that way, the memory can be taken off to far away place and live just a little bit longer.     

I jolt straight up out of a dead sleep, like a jack-in-the-box on speed, and slam my hand down on the snooze button. The small, beat-up clock radio, that’s older than I am, says 4:30 AM. My blurred eyes are almost stuck together and my bed feels like the warmest, safest place on earth. All I need is another five glorious minutes. Then, as suddenly as the alarm, I’m startled awake by my grandfather’s traditional fishing day wake up call. “Drop your cock and grab your socks! We got holes to dig!” he blurts out with a laugh.

Ice fishing with my grandfather always starts monstrously early. Looking like a zombie out of a cheap horror film, I clumsily make my way through the narrow bedroom door, and shuffle my still sleeping feet along the green shag carpet of the farmhouse living room. In the darkness, I slide my hand along the cold, oak paneling to find the light switch, and feel the black electrical tape covering a small crack in its casing, that’s been there my entire life. Once in the bathroom, I immediately turn on the water and stick my head under the tap. The icy water cascades over my face and quickly brings me back from the dead. The almost sweet water comes straight from the well, and is always cold and fresh. I then quickly hop back to my room to get dressed, because I know it won’t be long before my grandfather is outside, warming up the truck.

 Before I know it, I’m on my way out the door, armed with coffee and cigarette in hand. The cold air bites my damp skin, as I walk out into the frigid blackness of an arctic January morning in northern Alberta. My breath turns into an icy mist and rolls over my face, as I jump into my grandfather’s reliable, old pick-up. “Look at that sky… nice and clear. Those little bastards are gonna bite today,” my grandfather says with a smile, his gravelly voice always seeming to ring with truths.

We head down the lifeless void that is the highway, and the baron landscape of winter stares at us through the cracked windshield of the Chevy half ton. The only sign of life at five in the morning during the heart of a prairie winter is the wind that whistles through the truck, as we hurtle down the highway at a ferocious one hundred kilometers an hour. The cold and lonely sound of the wind outside the pick-up always makes me feel safe inside the cabin. The subtle smile upon my grandfather’s face always makes me feel warm.

 The two-hour ride always goes by quickly, and we reach Floating Stone Lake in what feels like no time at all. As my grandfather and I drive out onto its surface, the truck’s knobby tires crunch and squeak over the frozen ice and snow. A glacial wasteland appears before us, with no signs of existence, except for the frozen over holes of yesterday’s hearty fisherman. Even though we’re still shrouded in darkness, the sun has just begun to cautiously peak over the horizon, and the sky is turning into a hazy gray. The moon, although slowly fading, is still silhouetted in the misty heaven of the dawn. We drive around the frozen lake for several minutes, until my grandfather decides on a spot to fish. It is his firm belief that the place one chooses to fish is the most important decision of the day. He uses the power of deductive reasoning, sixty years of fishing experience, and a lot of good old-fashioned superstition, before finally making his choice. Prior to heading out on to the motionless tundra, I pour myself a piping hot, jet-black coffee. The steam and rich smell of my mug of morning rejuvenation fill the truck’s cabin, and it’s then we venture outside.

When I first step out on to the ice, I always feel as though I’m walking on the surface of a far away planet. The massive lake seems to go on forever, and the silence that surrounds us is deafening. The quiet emptiness, however, is wonderfully beautiful. No matter what, it’s always a good morning, and the world hasn’t quite woken from its wintry slumber. The air is clean, heavy with the scent of freshly fallen snow, and tinged with the scent of the gargantuan evergreens that surround the lake. At dawn, one could almost believe this place was a certain kind of heaven, far removed from civilization and its supposed sensibilities.

As I chase the last drag of my smoke with a sip of hot coffee, my grandfather pops open the banged up tail gate of the pickup.  Shortly thereafter, out comes our trusty ice auger. It’s a steel contraption, with spiraling blades at the bottom, and a rotating handle up top. One has to drill their way through nearly four feet of ice under their own power, and my grandfather is always the first to go. After slamming the sharp end of the auger into the snow, he begins to furiously rotate the keenly-edged blades, drilling into the frozen surface below. The auger scrapes and spits, as my grandfather bores deeper and deeper into the ice, until finally, he breaks through. The icy water comes rushing up the hole, and for a moment, looks like a small geyser on the surface of the lake. “An ordinary man of my age would never use anything but a power auger, but then again, I’m no ordinary man!” he says with a satisfying laugh.

My grandfather remained a strong man late into his life. Until his body would simply no longer allow him to do so, he worked with his hands and his back. There’s nothing he enjoyed more than getting up at six in the morning to pack hay bails out to his herd, and to trudge twelve-gallon grain cans to his prize steers that went to market come spring. In many ways, he epitomized an iconic form of masculinity and I looked at him as a vision of strength throughout my entire life as a result.

After my Grandfather finishes, I grab the auger and follow suit. With our holes dug, it’s then time to grab our lines and bait. Juicy, plump maggots are always our number one preference, and my grandfather always seemed to have a strange affinity for these little creatures. After carefully puncturing a maggot onto our hooks, down the line goes, and then all we do is wait. As I look across at my grandfather, the wind begins to pick up for a moment and blows across his time beaten face. A small, yet satisfying smile falls under his thin, gray, neatly trimmed moustache. Sitting on his grain can, he reaches into his three-quarter length, green parka and pulls out one extra mild, king size cigarette. As he puts the smoke in his mouth, I notice his jagged and bent fingers. His hands are like stone figures carved with deep creases and wrinkles, a necessitating result of more than sixty years of back-breaking work. As he exhales his first drag, the smoke bellows from the side of his mouth like smoke from a chimney a on a windy day. After rolling over his dark eyes and finely carved crows feet, the smoke disappears over his head.

My grandfather always amazed me, and at times, I looked at him with awe. I often wondered what it would be like to be old, what I would be like to have all those memories and experiences, to see your children’s children grow into adults themselves, and to have lived through wars and entire eras. It was my grandfather that made me look forward to getting older; it was my grandfather that allowed me to accept my humanity. I will forever be grateful.

My dogmatic state is then suddenly broken, when my grandfather blurts out, “There we go!” and tosses aside his fishing stick to pull the fish up by the line.

Hand over hand, he pulls the line up. When the fish finally reaches the surface of the icy water, he tosses it aside, away from the jagged hole. The fat perch wriggles and gyrates on the snow like a newborn baby, its jaws gasping violently. My grandfather then steps on the tail of the great beast with his big black boot, and with stick in hand, smacks the fish over the head. It’s been put out of its misery. Upon standing up straight, he takes in a deep breath and pauses for a moment, to take in the world around him. His eyes carry with them a twinkle, and as he walks over to his grain can to once again sit down and lower his line, his youthful stride is filled with exuberance. At times, I see a young boy in my grandfather when he’s fishing. It fills me with joy and makes feel close to the man like nothing else in the world.

The ritual of fishing- it’s something, that for all its simplicity, holds resplendent moments of beauty and peace. If I ever earn the profound privilege of some day being a father, and if I’m somehow magically blessed with then seeing my children have children of their own, I would take my grandchildren out for a day on the ice. Not only to teach them the art of fishing, but to tell them stories of their great grandfather and what a great man he was. And I would tell them, even though they’ve never met him, he continues to influence their lives, each and everyday.

On the drive back, the sun is now bright, and the sky is a clear abyss. The sun is never brighter than on a clear winter day. The magnificent rays of sunshine dance like a ballerina on the sea of white that surrounds us. The blinding sky, the howling wind outside the truck, and the side of the road that rushes by us, always puts me in a trance. The conversation between my grandfather and myself varies, but as always, includes some discussion of his beloved Toronto Maple Leafs, and what kind of team the Blue Jays were going to have come spring. Soon we will be home.

As we finally reach the one hundred yard driveway to the farmhouse, the house where both my father and grandfather were born, I’m happy. The farmyard, which was in a deep winter sleep when we left, is now wide-awake. The cats and dogs running about, the rustling of the cattle out by the barn, and as always, my grandmother in the big bay window, watching us pull up the driveway, all bring the farm back to life. As we pull into the yard, the cats and dogs surround the truck like children chasing the ice cream man, in hopes of dining on the fish to small to fry. We then unload the pick-up, and I begin to make my way to the house with the fish we have caught. “Take those to Baba and tell to make sure there’s lotsa garlic, I’ll be in after chores,” declares my grandfather.

No matter how big or small the job, my grandfather always seems to be on the go. As he walks out towards the old, worn down barn that still stands tall and strong, I once again think to myself how one very much embodies the other. They’ve both been worn down by time a little bit, but still do the job they’ve always done. They both still offer protection and warmth from the battles of life, and continue to symbolize strength, responsibility, and endurance that still lives and breathes today. As I reach the front step, I hear my Grandfather say with a chuckle, “Oh boy… if there’s no rest for the wicked, I must be the wickedest man alive,” and I smile, as I place my hand of the steel door knob.

Slowly opening the door to the farmhouse, the only door that has always been there for me to open, I feel the warmth of the kitchen upon my flushed face. At that moment, all seems right with the world and as I take off my snow-covered boots, I know deep in my heart, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.