 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Darrell's Bicycle Pages |
| Tours and Touring |
| Use and copyright notice |
|
|
Darrell's Easter ride in Yorkton
Urban exploration on April 19, 2003
Submitted to BikeE and Saskatoon Cycling Club discussion lists, May 7, 2003
My wife and I usually go to Yorkton, Saskatchewan for holidays such as Easter. Colleen grew up on a farm near Rhein and her mom now lives in Yorkton. Ukrainian Easter, like other holidays, falls on different dates than "English" Easter. So, during our visit, there were no religious commitments to attend to. It was mainly a social event, a chance to get together with family and relatives, but there were no visitors expected until Sunday. I checked the weather forecast on Thursday night. Clear, warm weather throughout the weekend. There was no way I was going to leave the BikeE behind.
I carry the BikeE on the back of the car by adapting a trunk-mount rack. By wrapping the rack with foam from old camp sleeping pads that I find at garage sales, I can simply hang the AT and hold it in place with a few bungee cords. I tie guy lines from the handlebar stem to the front of the rack and to the end of one of the rack's protruding arms to stop the bike from swaying as we drive. I'm sure the setup gets some strange stares, but it works.
We drove down to Yorkton on Friday, taking our time and arriving in the early evening. My mother-in-law let me park the BikeE in the entrance of her apartment. Saturday morning, I wheeled the BikeE into the parking lot and took off for a ride.
It turns out that riding from one corner of the city, where my mother-in-law lives, to the opposite corner is about four kilometres. I wanted to try exploring the city and also thought I'd scout some routes in case I decide to run some courses there. I headed for the middle of downtown. Cities grow like trees. Starting from the centre, you can work your way outward and see how growth occurred -- it's like studying growth rings.
At the centre of town, there should have been a railway station and a hotel. The railway station was gone year's ago. There's a small, commemorative park where it used to be. My parents have a photograph of themselves on the platform, waiting for a train to North Battleford, a side-trip on their journey from Montreal to a new life in Trail shortly after they were married in 1952. It's funny how lives cross unexpectedly. Colleen's parents stood on that platform many times.
Across the street and down the tracks, the Balmoral Hotel was gone, too. It's demise was much more recent and, to my mind, a much greater travesty of history. This brown brick building stood at the centre of a colourful period in Canada's past. It ought to have been one of the most famous buildings in the country and preserved because of its significance. It was the centre of the Bronfman empire. In the early 1900's, the Bronfman family sold cars, opened the hotel and ran booze during Prohibition. Rumour has it that tunnels run under Yorkton like holes in Swiss cheese, clandestine routes and storage rooms used by the rum runners. Similar rumours persisted in Moose Jaw, and were similarly dismissed by experts until tunnels in fact were uncovered in that prairie city. Historians are currently searching for verification of Yorkton's tunnels, although it's unlikely that Geraldo Rivera will be there to blast open Al Capone's secret vault. Ironically, the site of the old hotel will be used for a new liquor store.
I rode south, past buildings from before the turn of the 20th Century, up a short hill. At the top, there was a two-story brick building attached to an older brick and wood hip-roofed building that looked as though it dated to the mid-1800s. The buildings had been recently painted and given new roofs. A sign out front said South Hill Apartments, but to me the buildings suggested a different past. The buildings were a reasonable walk from downtown, easily accessible by wagon, and close to the water tower. They were on one of the highest points of land close to downtown, where they would have been exposed to the healthy benefits of fresh air. At the opposite end of the building was a tall, wide chimney, probably from a central heating plant or power plant. The buildings looked more like dormitories or wards than permanent residences. I asked my mother-in-law about them later. They were the old Yorkton General Hospital, in operation until the late 1960s, she said. The hip-roofed building on the end, I later discovered, dated back to the 1860s, one of the first hospitals constructed in the fledgling Northwest Territories. Colleen was surprised to learn that she was born there, not in the new, modern hospital across the street from her mom's apartment as she always had assumed.
Across a field from the old hospital, I rode past the waterworks building. When Colleen first started bringing me out to this part of the country there was an old metal water tower on four, tall spindly legs. Today, there's an even taller concrete tower. Since Walkerton, I haven't regretted the demise of the old tower.
I continued southward, through neighbourhoods of 1960s homes, out along a street leading up a gentle hill. At the end of the street I could see for miles to the south and east. It was the perfect place for the cemetery across the street, behind the wrought iron fence. Not too far from the old general hospital, it occurred to me.
I turned back a couple blocks, headed east, then back north, passing again through downtown. The railway runs diagonally through Yorkton, entering from the northwest and exiting at the southeast. The elevators and mills were all on the south side of the tracks, as was the ice plant across from the railway station. Most of the original development of the city was to the north and east of the tracks. Early development, mostly in the early 20th Century, was sparce on the south and west, but suddenly gave way to modern homes in the 1960s. What at one time appeared to be the "wrong side of the tracks" suddenly became very fashionable to the Dick and Jane sensibilities of the post Second World War period.
Immediately north of downtown I passed some very old stone and brick homes, with low doorways and ceilings. No one I've talked to knows much about their history. I'll have to do some more checking around. Just past this neighbourhood I noticed that each block contained a few huge, grand old homes -- three-story buildings with many chimneys and drive-through entrances. Between each of these homes there were two or three tiny, post First World War bungaloes. Then, just north of this neighbourhood I rode through a vast expanse of post-war bungaloes. There were acres and acres of these buildings, and huge civic parks with clunky wooden teeter-totters and heavy metal monkey bars. Each park also had horseshoe pitches bigger than any soccer field I've seen. Streets close to downtown were narrow, but wide boulevards with even wider medians planted with trees, shrubs, flowers and grass led optimistically out to the neighbourhoods.
At the end of the First World War, Yorkton expanded quickly. Returning veterans moved into the cities. As farming became more mechanised, rural populations moved into the cities. The Great Depression put an end to that, and Yorkton suffered greatly. It lost a significant proportion of its population through the Dirty Thirties. Riding through these neighbourhoods, it's still possible to see the exuberance of the boom times and the scars of the bust.
I continued on to the east. For many years the city's growth was constrained by the highway to Canora (best water in North America, according to recent news reports). In the 1970s, development burst past the barrier and modern subdivisions, shopping malls and fast-food joints now sprawl toward the horizon. At the edge of the city, developers have begun excavations for yet more subdivisions. Yorkton is booming again. As I rode through these neighbourhoods, adults gawked and children waved at the BikeE.
I turned south, reaching the highway that heads east to Manitoba. No one expects anyone to be riding a bike on a highway in these parts. I was expecting nervous or irate drivers, but was pleasantly surprised by the courtesy and respect I got from everyone on the road. Yorkton is on the move, literally. Out on the highway, there's a new Walmart, new car dealerships, new farm implement dealers, new home builders, and other new businesses. Downtown is vacating. A lot of stores on the main drag are closed. On the west side of the city, they've demolished a shopping mall because no one was shopping there any more. Everything's moving east.
Not all is lost downtown. I was sailing under the power of an exhilarating tailwind when I noticed the Frozen Cactus. I zipped around the block then parked the bike out front. I had accidentally left my lock in Saskatoon, but I wasn't worried leaving the bike unattended. The Frozen Cactus, it turned out, was a design shop that specialized in decor from the American southwest -- Arizona and Tex-Mex styles for the garden and home.
Leaving the store, I rode around the downtown blocks, six blocks east to west and one block north to south. Yorkton has very simple traffic light synchronization. All the lights turn green. Then they all turn yellow. Then they all turn red. Before they turn green again, there's a green flashing arrow for left turns. I bet they had no Y2K concerns. I rode up and down the streets in one direction then the other, testing out the traffic for left turns. At one point an RCMP cruiser followed me for a few blocks.
There's one place in Yorkton I never miss, The Zebra X-ing. A couple years ago, a group of wives of South African doctors employed at the hospital (the new one, the Yorkton Regional Hospital across the street from my mother-in-law's apartment) decided to start a business. The Zebra X-ing is a coffee house, tea room, bistro and home fashion store. I used to watch with each trip through Yorkton over the years as the old, stately home that the shop is located in gradually sank into disrepair. I was glad when the property was bought, restored and opened to the public. I'm currently saving my pennies to get a set of their giraffe or cheetah demitasse cups for my espresso. I never miss dropping in when I'm in Yorkton. Usually, I stop in for a cappuccino, as I did at Easter, but I also enjoy their rooibos teas. They make a great peanut butter, banana, bacon and mayonnaise panini. Their South African lemon pie is a real treat. Finding good coffee on the prairies takes a bit of talent. During the Great Depression, coffee was expensive and hard to get. People learned to make what little they had go a very, very long way. They acquired a taste for weak coffee and that's what you'll be served in most restaurants. If it comes from a foil envelope with a generic name dumped into a commercial coffee maker that's never cleaned, it's enough to put you off coffee. That's also why I carry my own beans on tour.
While visiting Zebra X-ing last summer, the proprietor asked me to sign the guest book. I declined, having already signed it during a previous visit. Four hours later, I was back for another coffee and I noticed a new name in the guest book: Dave Rusnell from Trail, BC. Dave was one of the Smoke Eaters that won the world hockey championships in Geneva, Switzerland in 1961. They trounced Russia 5 - 1 at the height of the Cold War. Dave and his family lived four doors up the street from us and they were good friends with our family. I've made it a point to sign the guest book at Zebra X-ing every time I go in now.
Leaving Zebra X-ing, I rode through town to the opposite end of the city, then took the main highways, making a big circle around the outside of the city. When I reached the south side, I took the road down to York Lake Regional Park. There were a lot of ponds in the fields and ditches along the way. Yorkton got above-average snowfall during the winter. No doubt, the farmers will be happy for that. Even happier were the frogs. As I rode along, I could hear the bullfrogs croaking off to the side of the road ahead of me, but they always stopped as I got near. The sound was always ahead, never beside or behind. I turned around at the lake, and listened to the frogs again, still dropping silent as they sensed my approach.
My bike computer was showing 48.2 km as I approached my mother-in-law's apartment, so I detoured into another subdivision, arriving at the apartment just as my computer clicked over 55 km. Colleen said I looked very sunburned.
