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…

From David Anthony Hohol…

As I drive down the highway, and as it’s been for what seems like forever this time of year, my mind is filled with memories. I am on a long journey to see an old friend. Reggie and I have always been friends. My mom always told me, right up until she died of cancer a few years back, that Reggie and I were the best of friends before we were even born. In the Sloane District on the south side of Chicago, our mothers were neighbors out in the projects. Acquaintances turned into friends when each of them got pregnant with us only days apart. They went to Lamaze classes together, shopped for baby clothes together, and always spoke of how Reggie and I would be friends. On May 14, 1967 Reggie and I were born at the same hospital only seven hours apart and we’ve been friends ever since.

We both grew up poor, even though at the time neither of us really knew what that meant yet. Reggie never knew his father, so only his mom was there to raise him and his seven brothers and sisters. I had a father, but always told Reggie he was lucky. My father’s drinking and the beatings I took, along with my mother and sisters, are things I wish I could erase from my mind. I remember feeling happy when after another week of binge drinking my father slid a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Right from the beginning, Reggie and I were inseparable. We learned to talk together, we learned to walk together and we went to school together right from kindergarten. We shared the same dreams, the same troubles and even the same girls some times. Reggie and I were exactly the same, and we will always be just like brothers. We spent nearly everyday together up until we were fourteen years old. It was the summer of 1981 when Reggie left Chicago to go live with his maternal grandparents in Canada. More twenty-five years have passed since that summer and our lives have changed oh so much. Nevertheless, every year since then Reggie and I have met up to spend Labor Day weekend together.

The visits have gone on to include girlfriends, wives and children. Each year we take turns coming up to see the other. This year it’s my turn, and I’m coming up alone, as I have just divorced my wife of twelve years. Each year I drive up my mind always goes back to the last summer’s day we spent together before Reggie moved away, and this year is no exception. I can see that whole day in my mind so clear as crystal, it’s like it happened the week before. Time passed can be a truly amazing thing.

“So ya think you’ll like it up there Reg?”

“I’ll hate it… I know I will. I hate my mom for doing this to me.”

“Too bad ya got kicked outa school… that’s what did it, huh?”

“Yah, I told ya why… my mom has this stupid dream of me graduating high school… like I care. She says I’m the baby of the family and that none of my brothers and sisters finished    school so I’m the last chance.”

“My sisters finished school and my mom’s always on my case about it, but I don’t see the big deal.”

“Well my mom says the only way I’ll ever do it is if I get outta Chicago and go live with my grandparents in Canada. Kamloops… I mean shit, what kinda fucked up name is that?”

“I don’t know what to say Reg… I mean I was there too. I don’t know why I didn’t get kicked out, but I’m glad I didn’t… my mom woulda killed me.”

“I don’t why my mom is making such a big deal outa this for. I mean two of my brothers not only didn’t finish school, but ended up in jail… I’m not that bad!”

Yah, no shit Reg… your brothers scare me sometimes.”

“Principal Marino is a prick! He said that Rydell Junior High didn’t need my kind and that me being there was bad for the school. He said this was his new crackdown and that he was gonna get my kind out and make Rydell a good place again.”

“Maybe he just liked me better… I don’t know.”

“Ah get over it Sean, it’s not that at all! I always get treated differently than you… always. You know how it is. What about the time we both got caught shoplifting from O’Malley’s?”

“Yah I know, that was weird.”

“O’Malley bars me from the store and gives you a warning… what the fuck was that?”

“Yah, you’re right. I remember the very next time I went in there to get us a couple a snow cones while you hiding around the corner outside he told me to stop hangin’ around with your kind, that you’d only bring me down.”

“You told’em off though… that was cool.”

“Yah, I called him a fat tub and told him to mind his own business… fat asshole barred me for two weeks.”

“Yah… that was cool man.”

“Hey Reggie, ya feel like a snow cone? My treat… it’ll be a bon voyage present.”

“Wow, high roller! Hey, if you’re buyin’, I’m takin’. Let’s go. I guess I’ll be waiting outside though.”

Even at that moment as Reggie and I walked up 127th street to O’Malley’s, a convenience store that had been there our whole lives, I thought to myself this would be the last time we would ever take this walk together. I remember the sky was a hazy gray that day and the huge sun was fighting to break through the puffy white clouds that sank all the way down into the cluttered horizon. I remember a warm, soft breeze blew and that the air felt safe and familiar. As we walked up to the front of the store, Reggie said he was coming in. I told him there wasn’t any point in starting any trouble and asked him to just wait outside. At first he said he didn’t care because he was leaving tomorrow anyway, but I somehow managed to convince him otherwise. I went inside to get us two snow cones and I was just about out the door when Reggie stuck his head in.

“Hey O’Malley, how ya doin’?”

“What’s a matter Washington, couldn’t find any cars to hot wire today?”

“Nah, there’s none around. I just stopped in to say one thing to ya though.”

“What’s that?”

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself ya fat pig!”

“You get the fuck outta my store right now!”

O’Malley ran towards us and Reggie and I took off down the street, laughing uncontrollably. Old man O’Malley shouted out one last thing before we disappeared around the corner. “That’s right Washington… run like the little monkey you are… that’s all you’re good for. And you too Doogan… you’re turnin’ into trash. I told you ya would turn into trash hangin’ around with them!”

“Eat shit O’Malley!” I replied as we ran down the street.

Reggie and I ran for almost three blocks until we finally reached Cornerstone Park. Winded from our unexpected sprint, we sat under the forgiving shade of two gigantic elm trees and ate our Dr. Pepper snow cones. Later on, we played some basketball and after that went down to Mayfair Mall to check out the girls. All day long we never once stopped talking. Our topics of conversation ranged from what we would do with a million dollars, to what we wanted to be when we grew up. It was the kind of talk that goes on between kids everywhere; it was the kind of talk that seemed important; it was the kind of talk that was fun. Reggie was my best friend to be sure, but the friends I had back then always seemed to be more special than at any other time in my life. I never again had the kind of friends I did when I was fourteen. Come to think of it … who really does?

At the end of the day I walked Reggie back to his mom’s place, we said our good-byes, and Reggie gave me his grandparent’s phone number in Canada. It was then we made plans to get together the next summer. As it turned out, we did and always have. Nevertheless, as I stuffed Reggie’s number into my raggedy old jeans we really didn’t know if we’d ever see each other again. As I walked towards the street along the cracked and jagged sidewalk, I didn’t turn back because I didn’t want Reggie to see me crying. Years later when I told him, he confessed he was doing the same.

I did go on to graduate, and so did Reggie. I went to a trade school, and today work for the city of Las Vegas as an electrical engineer. Sadly, Reggie’s grandparents died in a car accident less than two weeks before his high school graduation. He was named the sole beneficiary of his grandparent’s life insurance policy, and just as they would have wanted him to, he used the money to put himself through school- law school that is. When Reggie took center stage in that ridiculous cap and gown his mother and I sat in the front row each of us beaming with pride. In the end, I suppose Reggie and I escaped much of what people thought was in store for us. With that said, Reggie will always have to deal with certain things; it was a fact of life he realized much before I did. As the years rolled by, I was better able to see the people in my old neighborhood back in Chicago for what they were. Back then, I could never understand the different way people looked at Reggie and me. As a kid, I would often ask myself why and today… I still do.

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.

Born in Edmonton, Canada, RELATIVITY OnLine’s Editor-in-Chief has a BA in English Literature from the University ofCalgary and an MA in Creative Writing, with a specialization in biographical and auto-biographical research, from Warnborough College in Dublin, Ireland. Hohol has worked or studied in North American, Asian, Middle Eastern, and European circles of Education and has been a published writer since 2005. After several years in Japan, working in the city of Tokyo, he currently resides in Dubai, UAE, where he serves as Head of the English Department at the Institute of Applied Technology. From Rwanda to Sudan, Iran to North Korea, Hohol has been a visitor to more than forty countries. His global odyssey provides RELATIVITY OnLine with its grounding force of multiplicity.

From Dubai Correspondent James O’Hearn…

In 2005 I married a wonderful young woman named Nerissa D’Souza. Her family is Goan, and though she is Indian by nationality, she spent her entire life in Dubai. When I moved to Dubai in 2006, I moved in with her family, and by 2007 I had become a “traditional” Indian son-in-law, that is, I became the sole earner supporting a multi-generational family.

Embracing my “Indian” identity, I learned to eat spicy curries every day, I fell in love with cricket, I learned to name the major political parities in India and speak at some length about their policies, I became able to hold forth on the differences between the many different religious, cultural and lingual groups in India, and I learned to love Bollywood movies. But even though I am now far more “Indian” than my in-laws will ever be “Canadian,” I have only ever been merely tolerated, not accepted by them.

So what does this have to do with race or racism?

Before I moved to Dubai, my wife and I were in desperate straits. Prevented from finding work on account of a visa mix up, my wife had to stay at home while I worked three to four jobs at a go, dropping jobs and getting new ones wherever I could eke out a few more dollars. After our first child was born, and freshly out of university with a mountain of debt, we hit the wall, so to speak. We had no money left, not enough coming in, and could see no way of rectifying our situation but for one – we had to leave Canada.

When I arrived in Dubai, a few months after I had sent my wife and child ahead of me, I was a nervous wreck. With only a couple hundred dollars to my name, living at my in-laws, and upon their kindness, I felt lower than I had at any point in my life. Yet my wife was entirely unconcerned. Why? Because, as she told me, soon after I arrived, I was “white,” and we were in Dubai.

Three years earlier, when I had lived in Japan, I had my first taste of what it was like to be a “minority.” Words like “minority” and “mainstream” get tossed about so much in Canada, with such specific associations, that it took me a while to see myself as the minority. In Japan I encountered racism every day, from mild examples to extreme xenophobia. But Japan is very homogeneous, and Japan has a long history of fearing and avoiding outsiders, so I didn’t think much of what I saw. The racism was never specific, just a matter of those who exhibited nihonjinron (Japaneseness) and those who did not. You were wither nihonjin or gaijin – Japanese, or Foreign.

But in Dubai, when I again found myself in a minority situation, where the locals only account for up to 10% of the population, the dichotomous nature of racism I found in Japan morphed into something more along the lines of a shattered mirror, with innumerable facets reflecting each other, but each being separate and unique. Here it seemed that race or racism as not something widely spoken about or acknowledged as a social ill, but was actually a functioning aspect of the societal fabric, ubiquitous and universal.

My wife’s faith proved justified, when, inside of a month, I landed the best paying job I had ever had, a job where in only three years I found my salary rising to a level beyond what I could ever hope to earn in Canada. I chalk it up to luck, and serendipity, but sometimes there is a part of me that wonders if I was the recipient of this bounty not because of extensive credentials or experience, but because of how I looked, and how I spoke. Then again, I had experience in the field, and my employer-to-be was facing a sudden manpower shortage. But still, from some of the comments and attitudes I later encountered from other colleagues, I had to wonder, because regardless of the truth of the matter, it is the perception of that truth that carries weight day to day.

As a Canadian, and a product of that education system, it bothers me sometimes, even though I have proven myself at work over and again since being hired, that others might think I am where I am now not so much because of who I am, but because of what I am. But whatever my feelings are in the matter, the fact is, my situation is accepted as the norm here.

A Keralite colleague of mine was shocked, not too long ago, to find out that not only did I not have any “lands” or “houses” in Canada, but that I had debt. As she told me, she had assumed that because I was white, that meant I was wealthy. She had never questioned why I was hired or my qualifications for the job, and simply assumed that I “should” have that job.

Though she worked the same job as I (but in a different department), and earned the same income, and even though what she earns is ten times what I earn in terms of relative purchasing power parity, she did not even really need the money because her family was very wealthy in Kerala. I, on the other hand, desperately needed that job to support my family, to start to make some headway so that we could build a better life for ourselves. From my perspective, I saw my colleague as being privileged, and felt more than a little envy. Yet even with that in mind, my colleague still felt there was some sort of hierarchy at play, that regardless of wealth or upbringing, race really and truly mattered – that everything aside, perhaps I was the one to be envied.

In Canada, my colleague would be considered the “minority,” and I would be seen as a privileged member of the mainstream. Here I am seen as a privileged member of the “minority,” and she was seen as just an “Indian.” And in there lay the irony.

Few in Canada would know this, but there are about as many Keralites as there are Canadians in this world, even though Kerala is about half the size of New Brunswick. And when you take into account the diasporic nature of Keralite society, there are probably more Karalites than there are Canadians by a good margin. With this fact in mind, in the context of globalization, words like “minority” and “majority” really begin to lose meaning, but what about concepts like “race” or “racism?”

Racism, in the North American conception, is a matter of the privileged actively thinking or acting against the less privileged. In terms of academia, racism relates to the white male patriarchy, and pretty much the rest of society. While anyone can have a racist thought, only a member of the majority can be a racist. That is, only a member of the privileged majority can discriminate or alter their actions towards others due to race (meaning also culture/creed, etc) and have those actions be considered racist. That’s because the discourse on race and racism has, over time, devolved to being an issue of black and white (figuratively speaking).

But is that correct? Is that true? If not, then who, really, is a racist? What, then, is racism? What sort of behaviour would qualify as being racist in nature?

When I go shopping with my wife, when we go to a jewelry store, I am often asked to stay hidden, outside, and around the corner. The reason being that if the salesman does not see me, and does not see that my wife has a “white” husband, we will pay half as much as we would otherwise. And when we walk in public, and get into an argument, when my wife yells at me or castigates me in public, I have to restrain myself from replying in kind because to my wife it would appear as if I was talking to her like she were a maid. Why? Because to others, the sight of a white man talking harshly to a brown woman would be seen as such.

Regardless of my being her husband, and the love, children, and experiences we share, the colorblind nature of our relationship falls away the moment we step into public view. We both have to play roles, roles which change and evolve depending on who we talk to or interact with.

By conforming to these unspoken dictates, does that make my actions racist, or examples of common sense? By avoiding being seen by a South Asian salesman in the knowledge that my wife’s colour and nationality will help us get a better bargain, I can hardly claim to be “colourblind,” because I acknowledge differences in race, and I alter my actions towards other based on those differences, which is what racism is.

Which makes me what?

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.  

I never make it through a day without thoughts of my grandfather crossing my ever-racing mind, but come January the comforting spectre of his presence is stronger than at any other time of year.  The son of Ukrainian immgrant born in the farmhouse his father built with his own hands, the same house where my father was born and raised, my grandfather passed away on January 20th, 2003.   I am the son of farmer’s son of a farmer’s son, and this is not my story but the story of the North American New World.

More than a century ago the Canadian prairies lay in waiting, with the promise of freedom and opportunity for all those willing to devote themselves to the land and to the back-breaking work necessary in order to make a better life. At the same time, the rich soil of Ukraine wallowed in poverty. The hard-working souls within the provinces of Bukovina and Galicia were dogged by hardship and worked under the unforgiving boot of oppression. The peasantry of serfdom placed many in destitute conditions and life was often barely livable. The near feudal lords of Austria, who at that time controlled Ukraine, along with significant clerical tariffs taxed away not only the farmer’s surpluses, but gouged into what was necessary to simply stay alive.

The majority of farms in Ukraine covered less than ten acres of land and a man who owned more than that was considered wealthy. Moreover, the land was often broken up into different pieces and was rarely a continuous stretch of soil. Out on the Canadian prairies, 160 acres of free land were waiting for anyone who dared to make the long and arduous journey from their homeland. The adventurous trek would take them through Europe and then across the Atlantic, only to then travel thousands of miles across rugged countryside until they finally reached the Western frontier and a brave new world. Between what seemed like a magical place and those industrious enough to make the journey, lay a gap stretching half way round the globe. Far greater than any physical divide was the unthinkable distance between being an oppressed peasant living under tyrannical rule and a new world pioneer living in freedom. There was also the powerful and intimidating barrier of language that stood like a towering wall between oppression and liberty. With that said, all that was needed to begin an influx of some 250,000 Ukrainian immigrants to this new world in waiting was knowledge of its existence.

The plight of the Ukrainian farmer began to draw attention from the intellectuals of the day and by the 1870s philanthropic organizations were established in Galicia. They strived to assist and educate the oppressed in hopes of creating hope for the future. Soon after, they began to market the idea of emigration as an option for a better life.

Word of free lands on the prairies of a newborn nation half way round the world reached Ukraine soon after. At first it was difficult for many to believe, as it seemed to be a fantasy. For ten dollars in taxation fees the government would provide anyone who filed a claim with a 160-acre quarter section of land. Taxation in this strange new world was little in comparison, but most importantly all were equal. There would be no more lords draining life from families and the government existed to help wherever they could. It was a magical dream to the Ukrainian, a chance to belong to oneself and at last find freedom. With that said, it was not easy to leave behind all they ever were. They would have to leave their families and friends, their beloved homes where their parents and grandparents were born, their villages that had raised generations, and their cemeteries that held hundreds of years of history.  But go they did. Entire families carried all their worldly possessions on their backs and began a global trek that took them first through Germany. There they would set sail to Liverpool, before crossing the English countryside to South Hampton, where they eventually set sail for either Quebec City or Halifax.

It’s difficult to imagine the desperation and bravery that inspired so many to leave Ukraine behind and take such an incredible journey. For many, leaving the Ukraine behind was the best thing they ever did, but it was without question the most painful. Such courage and strength is hard to imagine.

The two-week journey across the Atlantic was a difficult one. Fifteen to twenty men, women and children were crammed into each hold and the conditions were unpleasant. Food was available, but sparse and hunger was a part of the steamship’s journey. Despite leaving behind their homes and the difficult conditions, spirits were high. As the ship sliced though the Atlantic, the talk was always about what lay ahead. They spoke of how in the New World they would no longer work as slaves. The land would be theirs and for their children that followed. They frankly discussed the difficulties awaiting them in their first few years, as they fully expected the work to be unrelenting. This was accepted by all because after a few years of sacrifice, the average farm would have a team of horses, a herd of cattle, pigs, chickens and forty to fifty acres of cleared and cultivated land, producing the finest of crops. More than anything, they spoke of how with hard work everyone would have freedom, allowing each and every Ukrainian who made the journey and sacrificed so much to live proudly.

At the end of the trip across the ocean the anticipation of all those on board reached a fevered pitch. When their feet first touched down upon the New World, it must have seemed no less than magical. The young city of Quebec was bustling with activity, but in the end was of little interest to the Ukrainian. It was only a pit stop between their former homes and the land that would soon be theirs. Within a few days they were once again on the move. Whether by wagon, by horse, by train or on foot, they all set off on a journey into the wilderness ranging nearly half way across the country. They wouldn’t stop until they reached the city of Winnipeg. With a population of nearly 30,000, Winnipeg was a large city for its day. It was the last outpost of significance and was the point of no return. What lay ahead was only wilderness and a few small clusters of souls across an untamed land. It was in Winnipeg where they found maps of surveyed areas and information on how to file a claim to secure a quarter section of land out west. As they looked over the maps, it was hard for them to grasp the concept that between Winnipeg and the Pacific lay hundreds of millions of acres of land. They were told they could have any 160-acre section they wanted. It all seemed too good to be true.

The Canadian Pacific Railway had been completed all the way to the Pacific in 1885, shortly after the Louis Riel Rebellion, and many Ukrainians booked passage on the CPR before they even left their homeland. They ventured towards the great West and into the last frontier of the New World.  Little pinpoints of civilization ran along the tracks that cut through a wild and rugged land from Winnipeg to what would today be Vancouver. Even if one combined the population of every single outpost along the way, at the onset of the 20^th century it created an urban population of less than ten thousand people. As they bored deeper and deeper into the heartland, they could hardly believe their eyes. The incomprehensible endlessness of the prairies before them seemed to be no less than a paradise.

Upon arriving, many were astonished at the complete lack of infrastructure. They found themselves in the midst of utter wilderness. Ukrainians didn’t realize what the conditions would be like and had no idea they would be coming to such a harsh and primitive country. Many thought they would be able to acquire land in areas that were at least somewhat developed, but there were not even road let alone villages. Only open prairies, rolling hills, winding rivers, and densely forested wonderlands lay before them. The Ukrainians were there at what was no less than the very beginning and the birth of a new nation. It must have been an amazing feeling.

Upon arriving at the nearest immigration center, they ventured out to examine mapped and surveyed land in the area. Ukrainians always loved forested land. Back in Ukraine the Austrians or Germans had the right to claim land before the Ukrainians and the timbered sections were always taken first, which meant most Ukrainians sat upon barren open land. Now in the New World, they stood on equal ground with everyone else.  As a result, they often snapped up forested land as it was needed for both fuel and for building their homes, barns, and fences. After choosing the quarter section of land they wanted, it only needed to be made official. Returning to the immigration office with ten dollars and a township map in hand, pioneers simply said, “This is the piece I want,” and the land was theirs.

The Ukrainian settlers who arrived at the beginning of this new nation in the late 1800s and early 1900s had very limited means to establish themselves. Yes, the land was theirs but it was wild, stone infested and heavily timbered.  Yes, this was a wonderful opportunity, but it was also a self-serving move by the Canadian government. They had found a way to have this untamed land cleared and structured. After taking the first few years breaking their land and building their homes, a nation’s infrastructure came to fruition. Roads were built, communities sprouted, businesses were started, local governments were formed, and a vast and barren wilderness slowly turned into viable, prosperous, consumer based, economy building taxable cluster of citizens. Much of it was hauled in on the backs of the immigrants who gave up their home and their country to build themselves a new life and a new nation for all those who wished to stem the great divide.

With little means in the beginning, work was done most often with their hands and their backs and the entire family contributed. Cutting down trees and rounding them for building, as well as chopping up fallen timber and stacking into piles for burning were amongst the first duties. The little money some families did have was often spent on oxen or horses. These animals labored long hours, side by side with their owners, plowing through deeply set roots, pulling them through the soil, until the sod was turned over into furrows. The women and children followed behind and broke up the furrows with make shift hoes. While they weren’t toiling in the fields, their homes, corrals and animal shelters were built with wood harvested from the land. After several weeks of torturously hard labor and of ending their days sleeping in make shift shelters or under wagons while cooking over open fires, things began to look like the very beginnings of a farm. It took the average homesteaders about a month of hard labor per one acre of land cleared, so the work that lay ahead of them was still daunting. With that said, eventually a patch of cultivated land would appear as men, women and children working together scratched out a single acre of land at a time. Afterwards, they stared out over the land and saw their accomplishments slowly building with each day and pride surged through their bodies.

At last these people who truly loved the land had their hands back in the soil, but this time it was their soil, their land and what resulted was the birth of a new world. These homesteaders, who lived for generations under the suffrage of tyranny and had no experience of democratic life, had only heard of the concept of freedom. Now they were living it.

And the New World was born.

From David Anthony Hohol…

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On Friday, Canadian and American Muslim Leaders produced a religious edict, or fatwa, which clearly states any attack on Canada or the United States, is tantamount to an attack on the 10 million Muslims living in North America. The 20 imams who signed the fatwa come from Texas, Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario.

Imam Syed Soharwardy of Calgary, Alberta and founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada said an assault on the U.S. or Canada is the same thing as attacking Muslims. “We are part of this society,” he said.

“This is my home… and if anybody attacks Canada, in fact, they attack my home.

The edict states, “These attacks are evil and Islam requires Muslims to stand up against this evil.”

“Muslims in Canada and the U.S. have a duty to protect both countries. They must expose any person, Muslim or non-Muslim, who would cause harm to fellow Canadians or Americans,” declared the group of 20 imams on the council.

The council went on to say, “It is religious obligation put upon Muslims, based upon the teachings of the Quran, that we  be loyal to the country where we live.”

Imam Nasir Qadri of the Anwar Musallah Mosque in Montreal and fellow council member said he spoke to his followers at his mosque about the issue Friday. Most feel threatened by the attacks and call Canada their one and only home.

The fatwa comes after the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. jet bound for Detroit from Amsterdam by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.  The 23-year-old Nigerian born man has been charged with attempting to use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder.

From David Anthony Hohol…

One of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s most enduring television comedies, “This Hour has 22 Minutes” gained headlines recently, when given a quote by the Republic Party porfessoinal celebrity Sarah Palin. Palin, who’s quickly become one of the most famous politicians on the planet, was approached by CBC comedian Mary Walsh while playing her beloved character Marg Delahunty.

At a book signing in Ohio for Palin’s new memoir “Going Rogue,” Walsh did a little gonzo ambush Michael Moore style comedy.

“We told her we’re from Canada, and we’re just looking for a few words of encouragement for the Canadian conservatives who have worked so tirelessly to destroy the socialized medicare that we have. She told us to keep the faith, something like that, and said we’re all trying for the same thing,” Walsh said.

Palin refused to take questions during the book signing, in and of itself a bizarre move.

Walsh was then forcefully removed from the book signing. Undeterred, she remained outside and in character near Sarah Palin’s bus. When Palin emerged from the bookstore she said, “Hey, remember us, we’re the Canadians! We came all the way here from Canada! When we asked you that question, we didn’t hear your answer.”

Unexpectedly, Palin walked over to Walsh and looking through an iron barred fence from atop the loading dock in back of the store said, “Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit.”

For all of Canada’s health care issues, and there are plenty to discuss, at least there aren’t millions of people dying every year because they are refused the care they need to simply stay alive. This happens in the United States, year in and year out, in exchange for a lower taxed populace and more profit for the aforementioned private sector. The socialized medical coverage in countries like Canada, France and the UK, however, is not welcome by many Americans. At their core, those who oppose such a system feel no responsibility to look out for all, but only themselves.

“It was great fun, but also very strange. We’re in a bookstore, at a public event, in a place one would think was a bastion of free speech. And no one was allowed to ask questions. What are they afraid of?” Walsh later asked.

Most likely, Palin’s handlers want her on a firm leash at all times. They know full well she needs to be rehearsed and prepped at all times, so as not to repeat the many gaffes she’s carried out in the past. She has no real policies and rarely takes a firm stand on anything, only going rogue with off the cuff statements that reveal her extreme limitations as a lawmaker of any kind. For the former beauty queen, however, her folksy humor and down home realness is her ultimate weapon. She is the most significant politician of insignificance to come along in years and despite being what many refer to as incapable, she has legions of followers. A run in 2012 is likely, a victory within her own a party… who knows? If not, maybe afterwards she’ll immigrate to Canada.