There is a place that I know of where you can stand on the roof and see the land as far as the eye can see. It flows endlessly to the North, East, West and South in a never ending field of grass and tree. Quiet and peaceful, a man can disappear into this wilderness and still find himself alone on this planet. Try doing that in the metropolis centres of this world.
When I first returned to the prairies from the mountains of British Columbia I swore I would leave. I longed for the comfort of the mountains wrapped around me and of the ocean air blowing into the valley. I remember the first drive through the mountains when I was a boy. There I was pressed up against the windshield of the car looking at those great peaks and feeling tiny. I never thought I would leave their embrace.
That was before the big sky opened up before me and I understood what feeling small was really like. The infinate sky tells me that I am just a spec of dust in the imagination of the world. No more than an ant. I may move through the mountains and I may harness the power of the rivers and streams, but I can't change the face of the sky. Big and vast and infinate.
There is no doubt in my mind that I love the prairies. I feel it everytime I drive into the big sky and watch the endless movie in my windscreen. The never changing view that suddenly becomes a town or a city rising from the grasslands. This land makes me think of the pioneers who came to this vast untamed prairie and fashioned the blanket of democracy from the rocks cleared from the field.
Long live the big sky.
