The back 40

There is nothing like family history and being able to experience a piece of it when it has been in your family for generations. We got out to what once was Ken's grandparents farm when they first came over and homesteaded from Scotland. His Aunt and Uncle are still at the farm, and for now, it is still being farmed by family.

The original house still stands, and it puts things in to perspective when you consider how little space a whole family could live in (quite happily). I love being able to explore the land - the old red barn, the original buildings, those prairie things called Quonset huts, and grain elevators, and old machinery, and just cool stuff that gathers on a farm over time. Chasing the barn cats, the sun on our faces, and being able to bring the generation back to where part of it started. I did do a search on the old titles, and on the government websites you can find the old homesteading deeds. We have a bit of a shared heritage because my mom's grandparents also homesteaded in 1905/1906 when the west was opened up but they chose Saskabush instead before eventually heading west.

I think the prairies are beautiful in their own way - the big skies and rolling hills (even if they are brown and spotted with the last remnants of winter), but it is the smell of the ocean that lifts up my heart and where I feel the most at home. I have come to really appreciate Alberta through our visits, and I really think that being able to go to farm and visit it just really something else. Being able to touch and smell history, to hear the stories, and experience the timelessness of the farming, and then to have a warm house to retreat too, and the smell of fresh apple pie.

Driving home, full and satiated, it is strange to drive for so long in a straight line. This part of the trip meant a lot to both of us, and driving home we were both quiet, taking it all in.