Saskatoon is one of the most difficult places in Canada to get an abortion, leaving women to navigate a political maze, advocates say.

Along with a Halifax hospital, Saskatoon is the second-last Canadian site where a woman can’t simply make a call to set up the procedure — she needs a doctor’s blessing.

Regina’s clinic is a better model for patients, say several advocates familiar with the system.

Among them is Janelle (not her real name), a 38-year-old mother who had an abortion at Saskatoon City Hospital two years ago.

“I found that the number of steps it took to make the appointment happen was stressful,” she said.

The bureaucracy involved in setting up the abortion left Janelle feeling frustrated.

“I was feeling like, ‘Come on, let’s just get this over with so I can move on.’ Once I had made that decision, I wanted it to happen as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to have to think about it for another week and a half before it actually happened,” Janelle said.

Once a woman is referred to a gynecologist or family doctor who will do the procedure, the system is inefficient and disjointed, she said.

Janelle’s doctor scheduled an ultrasound and referred her to a gynecologist. It was left up to her to call the women’s clinic at City Hospital to find an opening for the surgery.

Janelle said she called for a couple of days in a row, and was told each time, “No, sorry. Call again tomorrow.”

It took three consecutive days of trying to get in.

Although the surgical procedure to end pregnancy is available in hospitals in both Saskatoon and Regina, a family doctor is the gatekeeper for most women in Saskatoon who want the publicly insured service.

That gatekeeper is unnecessary, and doesn’t meet the standard of care across the country, said Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation Canada.

“(A doctor’s referral is) an extra step that isn’t, and shouldn’t be necessary for a woman to access the care she needs,” Saporta said.

Saskatoon family doctor Brian Fern has performed pregnancy terminations for more than 40 years and is one of the few family doctors left who perform surgical procedures.

He’s heard more stories than he can count from women who say other doctors refused to refer them to a colleague so they could have an abortion, he said.

“It’s a breach of what I think are professional ethics.”

That ethical question — whether a doctor must send a patient to another doctor who can arrange an abortion if they don’t agree with it — is a topic of discussion right now before the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan.

One stop in Regina In Regina, women can call the Women’s Health Centre directly to book an ultrasound, schedule a consultation with a gynecologist and get a procedure date. All of the appointments happen at the general hospital and often on the same day.

The Regina centre, which recently marked its 20th anniversary, was established with the aim of removing barriers to abortion, Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region spokeswoman Lisa Thomson said.

“When women are calling and referring themselves, we are better able to assess that it is their choice for the service, and it further allows us to gather the important private information directly from the patients themselves,” Thomson said.

The ability to self-refer matters because some physicians morally opposed to abortion will intentionally stall or refuse to refer women to an abortion doctor, says Evelyn Reisner, executive director of Sexual Health Centre Saskatoon. “Doctors will say, ‘If you choose to do an abortion, you can’t be my patient anymore,’ or ‘That’s murder; I can’t support you murdering your baby,’ ” Reisner said.

The doctor may not know where to send a woman who wants an abortion, said support worker and options counsellor Linzi Williamson, who has also worked at the Sexual Health Centre.

By the time some women find the clinic, it’s too late to get an abortion in Saskatoon and they’re distressed by the runaround.

“Not that I wasn’t sensitive with everybody, but I would just have to take extra care of them. They would often be crying, feel very cheated and abused,” Williamson said.

One woman threatened suicide after her family doctor told her he no longer wanted her as a patient.

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“She was just so upset about the whole thing, because she wanted to access this service, and was made to feel ashamed, and like she was an evil person for doing that,” Williamson said.

In Saskatoon, women can get bookings for the necessary appointments by going to the Sexual Health Centre, or by finding one of the handful of family doctors who perform abortions. Many, though, will go to their family doctors and be referred to a gynecologist. All roads lead to a string of appointments in different parts of town. Some out-of-town doctors also find Saskatoon’s system cumbersome. Ile-a-la-Crosse family doctor Darcie McGonigle said it sometimes takes her 45 minutes of calling back and forth to get her patient booked for the necessary appointments in the city.

She calls Regina’s one-stop model “far superior.”

“There’s someone there to not only support you in your decision, but also to help organize, logistically, the steps that you need to take,” McGonigle said. “To have everything in one fell swoop is much more ideal.”

For Janelle, the clock was ticking on her window of opportunity to have the procedure done in town.

Doctors in the Saskatoon Health Region will only do the procedure up to 11 weeks and six days of gestation. If the pregnancy is any further along, a doctor will refer the woman to Regina or out of the province.

The only exceptions are if there’s a significant health problem with the baby, or the mother’s life is at risk.

Gynecologists in Regina will do the procedure until just shy of 19 weeks.

Counsellors say its difficult to get Saskatoon women booked into the Regina clinic, and that most end up travelling to Alberta.

The prospect of travelling to Alberta for an abortion was looming large in Janelle’s mind as she tried to book her appointments.

Thirteen per cent of abortions paid for by the Saskatchewan government in the past five years happened outside the province. That adds up to nearly 1,400 Saskatchewan women who had abortions elsewhere, according to numbers provided by the health ministry. Ninety-four per cent of those out of-province abortions happened in Alberta.

Many of the women compelled to travel are further along in their pregnancies.

Pregnant women in their second trimester make up 40 per cent of the people travelling outside Saskatchewan for an abortion.

How it is now and where it’s going Obstetricians and gynecologists aren’t getting much feedback from patients who say they’re dissatisfied with the way things are now in Saskatoon, said Dr. John Thiel, interim academic head of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive services for the Saskatoon Health Region and University of Saskatchewan.

Thiel’s practice is based in Regina, and he is a former chair of the Regina women’s clinic. He has limited knowledge of how the process works in Saskatoon. However, when The StarPhoenix requested an interview, he was the only spokesman the health region was willing to put forward.

“Things are done differently (in the two cities), but I don’t think they’re done differently to the detriment of patient care,” Thiel said.

He has an appetite for change and improvement, he said.

“Perhaps what happened is, concerns like (Janelle’s) were lost in the noise of reducing surgical wait times, because that really did take a huge focus. Having dealt with that, maybe it’s time to turn to some other issues,” he said.

Thiel said he can’t understand why Saskatchewan has no free-standing abortion clinic like five other provinces do, including Manitoba.

The less-than-12-week limit on abortions in Saskatoon is due to a 20-year-old decision by doctors to pull the plug on second-trimester abortions.

The further along a pregnancy is, the more technically challenging it is to remove the fetus, Thiel said. Not all gynecologists have the specific skill set needed.

Although he didn’t have numbers, Thiel said the demand for second-trimester abortions is small. “Because they weren’t really common events for later-stage pregnancies, it was felt that the most appropriate way, and the best way to do it for patient care and patient safety was to have one or two people doing procedures in one centre,” Thiel said.

According to health ministry data, 14 per cent of Saskatchewan women who had abortions in the last five years were in their second trimester.

It’s not unusual for medical procedures to be available in only one of Saskatchewan’s two major cities, Thiel said.

He said there’s also help for women who need to travel for the procedure, pointing to funds available from the National Abortion Federation and through some First Nations.

Although Thiel may be open to change, the Sexual Health Centre’s Reisner said altering a complex and disjointed system is daunting.

A group of health professionals, including some young doctors, are pushing for Saskatoon to adopt Regina’s model, Reisner said. She is not directly involved.

The potential political fallout makes change a no-fly zone, Reisner said.

“No one wants to touch it with a 10-foot pole. It’s complicated, messy, and just a political hot potato. The health region doesn’t want to do anything — it’s the ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ approach. (It’s a) ‘Women are getting abortions. What’s your problem?’ kind of attitude.”

Dr. Fern, who has performed thousands of abortions, said the absence of a one-stop shop in Saskatoon has the advantage of preventing women from making rash decisions.

“I felt that there wasn’t anything wrong with a system where the patient had some time to think about it,” he said.

Janelle said she feels grateful she was in a stable, supportive relationship when she had to make the decision.

“What if you were 17 and had to deal with telling your parents and telling your partner and have to figure out what to do? You’d probably have no idea how to go about accessing the services. It would be hard to deal with all that.”

Abortion by the numbers
9,194: Surgical and medical abortions performed in Saskatchewan from 2009-14
1,397: Number of Saskatchewan women who had an abortion out of province from 2009-14
13 per cent: Proportion of Saskatchewan women who leave the province for an abortion
31: Saskatchewan doctors who performed abortions in 2013-14
52: Percentage of abortions that happen in Regina
47: Percentage of abortions that happen in Saskatoon
1: Percentage of abortions performed in other health regions (mainly emergencies)
8,954: Morning after pill prescriptions in Saskatchewan in 2013
22: Percentage increase in morning after pill prescriptions since 2009
70: Percentage of Saskatchewan people who supported access to abortion in 2012 poll
10: Percentage of Saskatchewan abortions that are done in the second trimester
40: Percentage of Saskatchewan abortions done out of province that are second trimester

jfrench@thestarphoenix.com
Twitter.com/JantaFrench

When Shane Tyler was in his early teens, his mom tried to hand him a box of menstrual pads.

Menstruation is often considered a coming of age moment for young women. For Tyler, it was different. The thought seemed utterly absurd.

“It was awful. I slapped the box out of her hands,” he recalls.

Tyler didn’t understand what was happening to his body when puberty began. Tasks typically associated with budding womanhood, such as bra shopping, were horrifying.

None of it felt right. Outwardly, Tyler seemed female, but on the inside, he knew something was different.

“There’s nothing more dysphoric,” Tyler, now 19, says of having his period while identifying as male.

When he was 15, he began to think he was bisexual when he developed a crush on his female best friend. He didn’t know what he was, but he knew he wasn’t cisgender (a word that applies to most people) or straight. It took months after his coming out for Tyler to realize he identified as a male, although he was assigned female at birth.

Shane Tyler, sitting, and Tana Forsberg. The pair both feel they don’t fit into the mold in which they were born, female for Tyler and male for Forsberg.

Tyler’s family was not supportive of his changes. When he began to explore his gender identity, he had to find his own resources.

For transgender youth like him, navigating puberty is an especially difficult challenge.

They are often disgusted or confused by their body changes — more so than the average teen.

Resources in Saskatoon are limited for trans people navigating the health care system, according to Leane Bettin, a family physician at the Saskatoon Community Clinic.

“You’ve got people caring for people who are trans with really no knowledge or training on how to do it,” Bettin says.

She is one of the few doctors in the city to whom Tyler can reach out.

“There is a gap in the medical community,” she says, adding the gap is slowly closing as public education increases and organizations like Out Saskatoon and Trans Sask. grow, but there’s still a long way to go.

Gender Dysphoria (GD) is the condition of psychological distress caused by conflict between felt and assigned-at-birth gender. It’s diagnosed through the Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

It’s when a person’s perceptions of their gender don’t match their body.

Recently, Bettin has furthered her education on trans-focused health care to meet community demand. She says doctors and nurses, herself included, weren’t taught it in medical school.

“I still don’t think it’s even part of the regular curriculum, aside from psychiatry,” she said.

Lacking immediate family support, Tyler found solace through a local reverend and church. That’s where he met Fran Forsberg, a local advocate for gender creative rights.

Forsberg said parental support is crucial to youth navigating gender issues.

“If there’s an issue, you educate yourself and then support your kids.”

When people understand gender is not a choice, understanding and acceptance will come, Forsberg says.

Both Tyler and Forsberg want families to be open to trans education.

“There’s no excuse for not supporting your kid,” Tyler says.

Now he lives with Forsberg and her family. The accepting environment was freeing, he says.

“It changed (my life) drastically. I started making plans for the future and started organizing my dreams.”

Tyler’s self-hate has begun to ease.

Shane Tyler, 19, left, was born female but identifies as a male, and Tana Forsberg, 11, identifies as both male and female, or two-spiritied.

“I’d never have said it was because of my gender, but when it comes down to it, a lot of my discomfort, the limitations, came from that.”

Forsberg runs Sask. Gender Variant Children and Families, an organization for families of trans people to provide resources and support.

“The medical community needs to catch up. Educators need to catch up,” Forsberg says, adding cisgender families should participate in educating themselves about gender.

“People aren’t always ready for change, but there are kids’ lives at stake.”

According to Bettin, public transphobia creates fear among trans people, including those seeking health care.

“With stigmas, there’s only part of the story. If you can give people the (whole) story, it lessens the stigma,” she says.

For every five kids identifying as trans before puberty, only one will persist as trans through adolescence, Bettin says. Once trans children enter puberty, most will affirmatively declare themselves male or female, although some remain gender fluid forever.

Tana Forsberg, 11, is two-spirited, a descriptor for indigenous people who identify as both genders. He says he has felt this way for as long as he can remember. Some days he feels male, on other days, he feels female. Sometimes he feels like someone in between.

He was assigned the male gender at birth, but varies in the ways in which he outwardly expresses his gender. It makes him happy to be able to explore, he says.

On some days, Forsberg dresses in a feminine way; he has been bullied as a result.

“(A bully) told everyone I was gay because I wore a dress and I wasn’t gay; well, I don’t even know if I’m gay,” he says. “I didn’t feel very happy after that.”

Forsberg has begun to consult with a doctor, but says at this point he’s too young to think of medical intervention.

“People don’t understand. It’s not about sexuality, it’s about how they’re presenting in gender. Gender is in your brain,” says Fran Forsberg, who is his mother.

Leaving transgender patients without diagnosis is risky because they may not receive proper health care or understand themselves; nor will their family.

“If I wasn’t clear, I wouldn’t diagnose … but many cases are clear,” Bettin says, adding doctors shouldn’t refrain from it out of fear.

Transgender children aren’t identified by toy preference or having friends of the same sex, Bettin notes.

Instead, they are recognized by what she calls their “insistency, persistency and consistency.”

They will continuously say, ‘I’m a girl’ when born a male, or ‘I’m a boy’ when born a female, she says.

“It’s not just ‘I like to play with Barbies.’ They’re questioning their genitalia.”

In order to help trans youth, GD health care has become a multidisciplinary approach often involving psychiatrists or psychologists, someone with knowledge in child development like a social worker and hopefully immediate family members.

Puberty for trans youth can be gut-wrenching as they try to form an identity while their mind doesn’t match their body.

“They will say ‘my body is betraying me,'” Bettin says.

After diagnosis, transgender youth can choose to begin medical steps to help transition. Affirming their felt gender lessens their psychological distress. They can take puberty inhibitors beginning at the second phase of puberty, medically categorized as Tanner Stage two.

“It gives them time to confirm gender identity before they make more permanent changes,” Bettin says.

The same drug is used for both genders; it suppresses body changes brought on by estrogen and testosterone production that furthers the body’s development to match its assigned-at-birth gender.

The blockers stop menstruation, breast and Adam’s apple development, and patterned hair growth; they decrease erections and stop vocal changes.

They’re reversible, so once treatment ceases, puberty will naturally begin.

Two years is the maximum length of time blockers can be safely used. Further medical research is needed to determine if they can be used longer.

Tyler didn’t take hormone blockers because he came out as trans well after the onset of puberty.

However, he will soon start cross-sex hormones, which are the next available medical step for transgender youth. He will take testosterone to gain male physical characteristics.

“I’m really excited. Definitely nervous, but mostly excited,” he says.

He’s grateful the testosterone will stop his period.

Cross-sex therapy can begin at the age of 16 and includes estrogen and testosterone. The hormones mimic characteristics of the youth’s gender identity and gradually show through physical changes, Bettin says.

Some of the effects are permanent. For example, people assigned female at birth who take testosterone begin male patterned hair growth and develop a deeper voice — changes which are irreversible.

The implications for fertility after taking cross-sex hormones are unclear. However, options exist for fertility preservation, such as egg retrieval, then storage and banking sperm. These options are costly, as are the hormone treatments, and they’re seldom covered by insurance.

“It’s not just cosmetic,” Tyler says, adding these steps are necessary for health reasons.

As with all medications, there may be adverse side effects.

Bettin practices the informed consent model — if the person is capable of understanding the pros and cons of a treatment, they’re capable of providing consent for their own health care.

“At this point, the child is not really a child anymore,” Bettin says. She still encourages parental consent, because it’s important to have their support in the process.

“Make sure you do your own research because your informed consent sheet before starting hormones covers most of it, but definitely not all of it,” Tyler says. Right now, he doesn’t plan to undergo gender confirming (reassignment) surgery.

“I personally don’t feel that the surgeries we have now would be fulfilling for me,” he says, adding he will hold off until further medical advancements are made.

Gender confirming surgery is only available to people over the age of 18. The surgeries can be a mastectomy and male chest reconstruction, a total hysterectomy, and sometimes the construction of male genitalia. They can also include breast implants, testicular castration and neo-vaginal construction.

Tyler wants transgender people to be informed.

“Make sure you know it’s an option, but you don’t have to do it. There are lots of trans people who don’t undergo hormones or surgeries,” he says.

Each person’s medical path is unique. The steps transgender people take are meant to lessen their severe distress. The path they choose has one goal in mind: relieving their personal dysphoria. Some transgender people are fine with gender affirming expression, some with hormones, and others want surgery. For some, even surgery won’t relieve the psychological distress.

The ability to have children is an important consideration for trans people considering medical therapy. Certain treatments render reproduction impossible.

Additional health care supports, such as speech therapy to alter vocal tones, tracheal surgery, counselling and waxing and hair removal services, are available, Bettin says.

Even with additional education, GD health care is not always easy for the physician.

Gender fluid patients pose a challenge to health practitioners, because names and pronouns aren’t consistent, Bettin says, adding the key is communication.

Physical changes aside, mental health is the biggest health issue for the trans community. It’s not intrinsically related to the GD diagnosis, but is affected by external factors such as transphobia and bullying.

“It’s more of a result of the stigma and the social pressures”, Bettin says, noting it can lead to suicidal tendencies, depression and anxiety.

The biggest determining factors for sound mental health are adult supports — parents, health practitioners and teachers.

Trans people are also challenged by photo identification. When someone does not outwardly present as the gender marked on their ID, it creates awkwardness and hardship.

They may inadvertently be “outed” or questioned by receptionists, police officers or even bartenders and bouncers.

“It’s a very daunting thought, because you never know how someone’s going to react,” Tyler says. One day, he will have facial hair. He fears the day a police officer pulls him over, looks at his face, and sees that it doesn’t coincide with the sex on his license. In Saskatchewan, transgender people can’t change their ID without undergoing gender confirming surgery.

“It feels gross. It’s just not good and it’s not necessary. You don’t need it on there — your doctor should be able to tell the difference by looking at your genitals,” Tyler says.

Removing gender on a health card or licence doesn’t mean a doctor won’t know the sex assigned at birth, Bettin says.

In January, the Saskatoon Community Clinic passed a unanimous resolution to improve care for transgender and gender diverse people. This includes using preferred names and pronouns, providing specialized services, developing staff education and visually identifying the clinic as a safe space for trans people seeking health care.

Trans Terminology

Gender Identity: One’s perceived gender based on inner feelings rather than biology

Gender Expression: How one presents as masculine or female. It can include clothing and hairstyles

Gender Dysphoria (GD): the psychological condition of gender distress typically due to conflict between felt and assigned gender

Gender Fluid: One does not match a particular gender and instead move between on a spectrum

Two-spirited: First Nation and Indigenous people who identify as both genders

Assigned Gender: Gender at birth based on biology and sexual anatomy

Trans: The umbrella term for people whose felt gender isn’t congruent with society’s expectations of gender matching sexual anatomy

Transgender: Includes people born with female anatomy who identify as male and people born with male anatomy who identify as female

Cisgender: Gender felt consistent with sexual anatomy and biology

Heteronormativity: The belief that people fall into distinct, complementary and complete genders matching the traditional role of male and female

Gender Confirmation/Reassignment: Sex hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery to make the body (sex) congruent with the mind (gender)

Gender Transition: The process trans people go through to express their self-identified gender

It was the first time in his life Brad Christianson truly feared going to jail.

He was 23 years old on the cold January morning when he walked into court, knowing his fate was sealed.

By that time in his young life, Christianson was no stranger to incarceration.

He was first locked up when he was 12, after pulling a pocket knife on an older kid.

This time around, he was truly frightened. This time, he wouldn’t have the protection of his gang to see him through the hard days ahead.

“This time I was actually scared. I didn’t know how it was going to be. Every other time, I had my buddies, I knew where I sat. I had my homies I could go lean on, and I had drugs I could sell for my money,” he says.

For a gang member, he says, prison is not a scary place. If you wear the right colours and are “cliqued up” with the right gang, a five-year stint is nothing. Jail was a given — another part of the street life, where laws are flouted daily. Higher-ups in the gang exert their control behind bars, as well as on the outside.

Brad Christianson enters the court in Saskatoon in 2012 for a trial where he pleaded guilty to charges in connection to a break and enter with a prohibited firearm.

“When you are in the federal penitentiary, gangs are dominant. It’s open population. You see when you go eat, when you go to the weight pit and the gym,” he says.

When Christianson was sentenced to five years for his role in a violent home invasion in 2010, he no longer had the backing of his gang. He had dropped his colours.

For the first time in his life, he was clean and sober when he walked into that courtroom. He was headed to prison knowing he was on his own without the drugs, and without the protection of fellow gang members.

Christianson grew up in a middle-class household on Saskatoon’s east side — far away from what most people typically think of as the street life. His mother was not a drug addict or an alcoholic, and by all appearances he was on the road to a normal adulthood. Underneath the veneer, however, a lot of pain was lurking.

“My dad used to beat the f—–g s—right out of me,” Christianson says, this time telling his story to a group gathered at the Metis Friendship Centre in Riversdale. “Then he ditched when I was 13 years old. That messed me up.”

Although he doesn’t go into any detail, Christianson also admits he was sexually abused as a kid. He does not say who did it.

Brad Christianson’s tattoo signifies his dedication to Father Andre’s Str8-Up program.

“I soaked everything in, and when I was 13 years old I started dishing it out — running around this city, selling dope, using drugs, pushing drugs on other people,” he told the crowd.

Andre Poilievre, the Catholic priest who founded the Str8-Up program to help people get out of gangs, has worked closely with Christianson for years.

He says even though Christianson doesn’t carry the inter-generational pain from historic traumas like residential school abuse and colonialism like many of his fellow gang members, the crimes committed against him as a child were part of what led him to gang life.

“I think that was a factor,” Poilievre says.

By the age of 13, Christianson was selling his Ritalin prescriptions to fellow classmates. He soon moved on to selling marijuana and eventually ecstasy and cocaine to high school students all over the city.

At first, the idea was to create his own gang so that the older, tougher kids wouldn’t rip him off for his drugs, he says. Soon he decided he could make more money and have access to more drugs if he joined the tough kids and their gang. In the years that followed, his addictions took control of his life.

“That’s when it all got a little bit too heavy. I was so messed up on drugs the whole time. Drinking every day. It’s very easy to fall into it,” he says.

After his first stint in Saskatoon’s Kilburn Hall youth correctional centre, jail became a familiar place. Christianson is now 27 years old, and has spent 13 and a half years — exactly half of his life — in custody. Gang membership and the fact he was a proficient drug dealer made transitioning back and forth between prison and the streets easy. He would get out and be met with open arms, a place to stay and money to buy what he needed, he says.

Nevertheless, the life wore on him. The first time he met his son, who is now six years old, Christianson was in handcuffs.

“It’s a violent life. It’s sad. It doesn’t matter how good you are at gang banging, at selling drugs, you are going to end up in prison,” he says.

He met Poilievre while behind bars, and he says that’s when he started to change. It would take him four years to fully leave the gang life behind. He says he couldn’t have done it without Poilievre and the support from other former gang members involved in Str8-Up.

He has lost a lot of friends on his journey out of the life, but he has made others, including Poilievre.

“Five years from now?

He’ll be working, he’ll be employed, he’ll be sober. He’ll be raising his kid,” Poilievre predicts.

“I see him as a family man, as a good citizen.”

Now going on five years sober, Christianson is making changes for his son, hoping to leave him a legacy he can be proud of. He did his entire five-year stint in the federal penitentiary without rejoining the gang. It was tough at first, he says, but thoughts of his son and his new life on the outside got him through.

“When I die, do I want to leave my son a bandana, a handgun and a bag of dope? Or do I want to leave him a business, and show him what a loving partner can be like, what a respectful man can be like?”

cthamilton@thestarphoenix.com
Twitter.com/_chamilton

Philip McLoughlin has never been a horse person. In fact, he says he’s always been uncomfortable around those “equestrian people” who seem to live in completely different worlds from the rest of the population.

Yet McLoughlin, a population ecologist who can often be found in a third-floor office at the University of Saskatchewan’s biology building, knows he’s living many horse lovers’ dreams.

For the last eight summers, he and a group of students have jetted across the country to Sable Island. The remote and almost uninhabited sandbar nearly 200 kilometres southeast of Nova Scotia is known — and widely romanticized — for its wild horses.

McLoughlin and up to four students spend two months among the 400-plus shaggy animals, observing their health, their behaviours and how they interact with each other.

From July to September, the Saskatoon researchers — who make up roughly half the island’s population — take a close look at how each individual animal contributes to the group.

“It’s basically trying to see how a population ticks from its individual components,” McLoughlin said. “We can ask all sorts of interesting questions.”

University of Saskatchewan professor Philip McLoughlin observes wild horses on Sable Island. Submitted photo.

Horse droppings are collected and their parasites analyzed. Hair is bagged and tested for hormones. Special cameras equipped with lasers are used to determine the animals’ size.

Over time, the crew will be able to answer a wide array of questions about horse evolution, the effects of individual personality on survival, how antibiotic resistance spreads in a population isolated from modern medicine, and other topics.

“It’s definitely not just a study of the horses on this island,” McLoughlin said.

For Sarah Medill, a “horse-crazy kid”-turned-PhD student who’s spent the last four summers on Sable Island, spending months among the wild animals never gets old.

“Four years in, I still get that feeling a lot of the time that wow, it’s still pretty cool to be out here and doing this,” she said.

Wow-factor aside, Medill and her colleagues work hard during the summer. They rise early, often counting parasites in feces before sitting down to breakfast. From there, they disperse across the treeless, crescent-shaped island, which measures about 50 kilometres long by 1.5 kilometres wide.

Grey seals — the world’s largest colony calls Sable Island home — can often be seen lounging on beaches or cruising in the waves. Countless birds, including Ipswich sparrows that breed only on the island, flit overhead.

Some students will walk 10 to 15 kilometres a day, photographing bands of horses and recording notes about their behaviour. Others identify animals for which they need fecal samples, then sit patiently, waiting for the horses to deliver.

Some days Sarah Medill will walk up to 15 kilometres to study the wild horses on Sable Island. Submitted photo.

“It’s pretty tiring work to be walking in sand for 15 kilometres, so it’s nice, every couple of days, to be able to just sit and watch,” Medill said.

The PhD student is perhaps the only person in the world who can identify every horse on the island by sight, amazing even McLoughlin with her abilities. Some horses with unique body markings are easy to recognize, but most are identified by subtleties in scars, wrinkles, whiskers and the growths on the inside of their legs known as chestnuts.

“I’m better at recognizing the horses on Sable than I am with most people walking around in my neighbourhood. It freaks me out,” Medill said.

Each horse is given a unique name and number. The U of S group has a database with information on more than 900 animals that have lived on the island since 2007, when McLoughlin, who had just come to Saskatoon from the University of Cambridge, conducted his first pilot project.

The horses live in bands of about six animals that are named after the band stallions. In light of this, Medill and her colleagues often put considerable thought into assigning monikers to newborn males who could eventually have bands named after them.

For example, Elastic, Contra and Brass are currently running across the island and could eventually form the Elastic, Contra and Brass bands.

“We have a bit of fun with the names when we can,” Medill said.

Wild horses roam Sable Island. Submitted photo.

The researchers aim to study the horses without interacting with them; all try to keep at least 20 meters between themselves and the animals.

Post-doctoral student Lucie Debeffe, who’s spent two summers on Sable Island, said this is not always possible.

“They don’t really care about you, so sometimes they come really close,” she said. “They’re really not scared and I really feel they behave like you’re not there.”

Like McLoughlin, Debeffe said she had never had any interest in working with or studying horses, but the time she’s spent on Sable Island has had what she knows will be a lasting impact on her.

“One of the most amazing things is when you are on top of the island and you are able to see both shorelines so it’s just, ‘Wow, I’m really in the middle of the ocean,’ ” she said. “That is very unique and every day you can experience that feeling of really being alone.”

Sable Island became one of Canada’s newest national parks in late 2013, which McLoughlin said has been “awesome” for his group. He and his students once needed to erect their own structures to stay in, but for the last two summers they have bunked and shared resources with other researchers and Parks Canada staff in a main station area.

The federal government now has a mandate to protect the island and its ecosystems. McLoughlin said he’s optimistic his ongoing research will continue for years to come to help inform plans necessary to make that happen.

“I kind of planned this out as a 30-year project,” he said. “But, now that we’re eight years in, I guess it’s going to be a 38-year project because I want to keep going.”

ahill@thestarphoenix.com
Twitter.com/MsAndreaHill

CARROT RIVER — The boys arrive in ones and twos from farms and nearby houses, their cleats sinking into a football field under the stars.

It’s zero degrees, 6:45 a.m., and dark. But you can’t play six-man football for the Carrot River Wildcats if you’re not willing to drag your body out of bed.

Some boys run laps in the inky black of a late October in northern Saskatchewan. Others are stretching on an adjacent plot of grass, where they’re about to begin practice. Chill seeps into bones.

Visibility’s almost nothing.

“We run ’til we can see,” says head coach Cory Schmaltz, and it sounds like he’s smiling, though his voice emanates from a nearly-invisible body.

Then he puts the boys through wind sprints and drills. They race through the gloaming, pink sky in the east, stars fading, breath coming fast.

Wildcats practice in the early morning.

* * * * *

Hard by the football field and these spirited exertions is Carrot River’s hockey arena, looming large behind the bleachers. Two thousand people, double the town’s population, converged there nearly six months earlier for three funerals, one after the other, youngest to oldest.

Those funerals, and the circumstances surrounding them, caught the widespread attention of provincial media. A quiet town of 1,000 souls became, for a few days, the focus of cameras, reporters, outsiders seeking to tell a story of loss and tragedy.

The press has departed, the town has resumed its normal pace of life, but nobody forgets. The scars cut deep — into family, into friends, into townspeople, into Cory Schmaltz’s high school football program.

* * * * *

The three deceased are Justin Gaja, Kristian Skalicky and Carter Stevenson.

From the clinical, emotionless, clipboard perspective of game plans and X’s and O’s, the horror that played out on a stretch of Highway 6 back on May 3 cost the Wildcats three X’s.

All three would have started on the Wildcats’ 2015 defence — which, in the small world of six-man football, represented half the unit.

In the larger picture, these practical considerations are mere specks.

But the boys cherished their X and O alter-egos. They learned to play, and to love, the game of football thanks to Schmaltz’s efforts years earlier.

He kick-started the program in 1998.

They lost every game that first season. The Raymore Rebels beat them 102-0. But Schmaltz, and the program, proved stubborn. They reached the provincial semifinal the following season and have since won four Saskatchewan six-man titles.

Carrot River Wildcats at practice.

There’s a tight bond between the community and its football program. Nobody gets cut; if you get up early for practice and follow the rules, you’re a Wildcat. There’s pride in that name.

That’s why a handful of them headed to Humboldt this spring for the Kelly Bates Football Camp, which is run by a long-time CFL player and coach who wants to keep Saskatchewan football development strong.

Skalicky, Gaja and Stevenson made the two-hour drive from Carrot River, and they immersed themselves in football.

They were buoyed by memories of their last gridiron appearance, a 45-44 provincial semifinal loss to the Gull Lake Lions — which, as football games sometimes do, ripped the hearts out of those three boys and their teammates.

Here, at this camp, they might find those extra two points buried in a gem of wisdom from a guest coach, or in a honed tackling technique, or a freshly-discovered means of negotiating the gaps on a field.

Then they drove towards home, towards that construction zone, and that semi truck, and the horror of a moment nobody can get back, no matter how badly they want to.

“There was an innocence,” Schmaltz said the other day while sitting in his office at the high school in Carrot River. “They weren’t drinking and driving. They weren’t speeding. It was just an innocent thing, then three at once.”

The boys stopped at a construction zone, waiting their turn to proceed. A semi truck came up behind them. It didn’t stop. The momentum from that crash propelled them into the pickup truck in front of them, and that truck hit a flag-man and a construction pilot vehicle, and all three boys were dead, and the case remains before the courts, and it’s a nightmare too large to comprehend.

“People ask ‘how’s it going’, or ‘how are you doing’, and the easy comeback is ‘fine,’ ” Schmaltz says. “But it’s not, really. It’s fresh yet. And I don’t know if it ever will be fine. The pain’s always going to be there, and I think we learn how to live with it. I might be coping better than the next person, and the family might be coping better, but it’s not that they’re fine — they’re just learning how to move forward. It’s not forgetting about them; it’s just that you have to move on, and live on. It’s been quite a shock to … to life. It’s not just a school thing or a Carrot River thing. It hit home to a lot of people.”

Cory Schmaltz

* * * * *

Allan Schmitt, who starts on Carrot River’s offensive and defensive lines, planned to go to the camp with the three boys that weekend. But the day before they left for Humboldt, he pulled out because of family commitments.

He doesn’t know how that weekend would have ended for himself had he made that trek; all he knows is he spent this fall on Carrot River’s football field, thinking of his friends, wanting them back.

“We were planning on going together,” he says simply. “Whether I would have been in the same vehicle with them at that time … I don’t know. I could have jumped in with other families that were there.”

He paused.

“It’s an eye-opener.”

Allan Schmitt

Before the schedule started, Schmaltz talked to the 17 boys on the Carrot River roster about how to approach this saddest of all seasons.

The question was how to move forward, with three players dead, and a full slate of football games in their immediate future.

Schmaltz told the boys they weren’t to “play for” Kristian, Justin and Carter.

“Instead of playing for them,” Schmaltz said, “let’s play with them.”

The boys bought in, immediately.

Schmaltz knew problems could arise if the kids played for their teammates; he imagined a sense of profound disappointment if they failed on the field, like they’d let their departed pals down.

But when you play with them, you’re sharing the experience, all of it.

The players’ numbers — 00, 10 and 27 — adorn the backs of each helmet and each team hoodie.

There’s a new electronic scoreboard at the field, with a memorial sign above it. The money was raised through donations from townspeople, from football people, from strangers around the province who wanted to lend a hand.

Dean Armstrong, the principal at Carrot River High School, painted a picture that hangs in the hallway. Kristian, Justin and Carter are walking together down a football field, clad in full uniform, their backs to the painter. Carter, the oldest, cradles a football with his left hand. The tiny details are there, such as the tufts of hair hanging out the backs of each helmet, just the way the boys wore their locks in real life.

The bottom right-hand corner of the painting says, simply, The Boys.

“Every day,” Schmitt says when asked how often he thinks of his three friends. “You come to practice, and they’re with you out there — on the back of your helmets, on the scoreboard, anywhere. Practising, playing the game … whatever kind of football you’re doing, they’re with you, every step of the way.”

* * * * *

Justin, the youngest of the three boys, was 14 years old and would have been in Grade 10 this season. He was a smart kid, academically inclined, and Schmaltz was training him to play middle linebacker.

He would have started there this season. By the time Grades 11 and 12 rolled around, he would have played both sides of the football.

He was an outdoorsman — hunting, trapping, fishing. He took pride in his ample skinning skills.

Kristian was 15, and would have been in Grade 11. He was small, but tough — never seemed to get hurt, no matter how hard the blow. His motor never quit.

He would have had a starting job on the defensive line this season.

He found a knack for acting, and loved fixing things. He wanted to be a heavy-duty mechanic.

Carter was 17, and would have been in Grade 12. Schmaltz calls him “one of the best athletes we’ve had.”

He was a two-year starter at strong-side linebacker, and would have played running back this year, as well. He returned punts and kickoffs.

Carter loved the outdoors, and he loved sports — hunting, harvesting, hockey. There was snowboarding, lifeguarding. There were animals and, of course, football. Always football.

Justin Gaja (left), Kristian Skalicky (centre), and Carter Stevenson (in 00 jersey) were Carrot River teammates.

*****

So you’re the head coach of a small-town high-school football team, highly respected by the boys who play with you.

Three of your players die, and each family approaches you, separately, and asks if you can deliver the eulogy for their son.

So you deliver three eulogies, one after the other, when the day of the funeral comes along. Two thousand people are there, paying their respects.

Then the funeral ends, and the school year winds up, and spring moves into summer, and it’s almost football season, and you’re not ready for it, but you know you have to kick things into action.

“I had to sit, and reflect, and think a lot about how I was going to approach situations — how I was going to take this person and put him in Carter’s spot, when they know that’s Carter’s spot,” Schmaltz said following a recent practice.

“I had to go on the emotional side — do we talk about them, or do we not talk about them? It was a real balancing act. Every day, I try and come in with some kind of game plan. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s day-to-day. I try to appease everybody involved in the situation. It gets tiring and stressful, as it does for the players, as it does for the parents and family. Yeah, it’s tough on me, but boy — it’s tougher on some other people here.”

At the beginning of the season, Schmaltz was afraid to get emotional in front of his players, but not anymore. He’s always been the hard-nosed, everything-by-routine type — as seen through the prism of those practice sessions.

After the team does its early-morning running, prior to the footballs flying, the boys take a knee and Schmaltz gives them a little talk about the day, or the week, or the game coming up. A couple of times a week, he’ll add a life lesson. It’s how he’s always done things.

Carrot River players take a knee for Cory Schmaltz’s practice-time address.

This year, those life lessons sometimes touch on the three boys — because, as he puts it, “We don’t want to hide it. It’s still very much there.”

Emotions peaked during Carrot River’s third game of the season. It was planned as a big deal: They’d rented portable lights, run off a diesel engine, so they could play a night game against Porcupine Plain. Proceeds from the evening would be donated to cancer research.

Porcupine Plain’s coach called Schmaltz, said his team wanted to help honour the boys. He outlined his idea.

Schmaltz had already planned a moment of silence and an unveiling of the memorial scoreboard, which they did.

But then there was this: The captains from both teams, and the Carrot River coaches, met at midfield.

Porcupine Plain’s players gave three roses to the Carrot River captains.

The Carrot River kids took those roses to the sidelines, and presented them to the mothers of the three players, one by one.

There were plenty of wet eyes among the 600 or so spectators who filed in for the game.

Then it was football time, and the boys waged a high-wire balancing act between grief, raw emotion and the practical realities of playing your position and trying to win the darned football game.

“You watch those football movies, like We Are Marshall, and it hits home if you go to watch it in our situation,” Schmaltz says. “Yes — that is so real.”

*****

It’s a cool fall day in Wakaw, and the school’s football field is rimmed by cars and trucks from Carrot River.

Fourteen green-clad boys emerge from the school, sit near the doorway tying shoelaces and pounding shoulder pads.

On this particular day, the boys from Carrot River — who went 3-2 in league play — are fighting to keep their season going one more week.

Six-man football is an oddball hybrid, designed for small towns like Carrot River that wouldn’t otherwise have the enrolment to play football. Saskatchewan is the only Canadian province with a large contingent of six-man senior high school programs.

Daylight comes quickly in the six-man game, and scoring runs high. That field opens up, and suddenly you’re Moses hurtling through the gap in the Red Sea, toting your football to the promised land with pursuers at your heels.

Tyrell Nicklin totes the ball for Carrot River.

But on this day, scoring is light. Both defences seal off the corners and plug gaps with helter-skelter efficiency. Early in the second quarter, Carrot River’s Cody Friesen, who plays both quarterback and defensive end, finds some space around the left side and scores a touchdown. The convert attempt is wide, but they lead 6-0.

Late in the second quarter, Wakaw-Cudworth scores on a 52-yard touchdown pass, but it’s called back on a holding penalty.

Still 6-0.

And that’s how the game ends. It’s the lowest-scoring six-man game Schmaltz can remember.

Kyle Janzen and coach Cory Schmaltz go over strategy during a tight game with Wakaw-Cudworth.

Friesen throws three interceptions on the day, but personally picks off two down the stretch to seal the tight victory and ensure a trip to Cumberland House the following weekend.

The Wildcats win that Cumberland House game 49-26, thrusting them into a provincial quarterfinal match with Raymore.

The odds of reaching that game seemed immense before the season started. The team lost several Grade 12 players from last season, and three more starters out on that highway.

The 2015 roster includes six Grade 12s, one Grade 11 and one Grade 10, with the rest of the squad filled in by Grade 9 rookies.

But there they are, in Raymore, as one of eight teams in their classification still standing. That’s where the roller-coaster ride finally terminates.

Carrot River’s season ends with a 48-13 loss, one game short of the semifinal plateau they hit last season.

*****

The wall of Schmaltz’s small office, which is tucked into one corner of the school gym, is packed with photos and memorabilia from a life in coaching and teaching. A lengthy testimonial, written and signed by football players at the end of last season and nicely framed, occupies a small patch of that wall.

The effusive note of thanks was written before tragedy stunned a town.

“(Schmaltz) has taught us many life lessons that we will take with us for the rest of our lives,” the letter says, in part. “He is the ultimate role model, he is the leader and every player follows him.”

Schmaltz, sitting in that office, talks proudly about his players — the ones who are there, and the ones who are gone.

“It’s a struggle,” he says. “I don’t want to this to happen, ever again, anywhere. There was some boys here it affected heavily. It was a tough end to the school year, and the football team stuck together. We’d go out and visit the families. They grew up very fast, these boys. They had to grow into men very quickly.”

There was Logan Van Meter, the team’s linebacker, punter and kick returner, who didn’t play in Grades 10 or 11 but came back this season as a senior. He wanted to honour, with his return, the memory of the three boys. He and Carter were particularly close.

Van Meter was out there every morning, awake and running with his teammates as most of the town slumbered, driven by memories of three boys he so badly wants back.

“I never, never would wish it on anybody, ever. It’s horrible,” he says. “But you’ve got to keep on going. It happened, and you can’t change it. Life goes on.”

Logan Van Meter

*****

In the wake of that season-ending loss to Raymore, Carrot River’s homeward-bound team bus pulled to a stop on Highway 6, at the accident site.

The team’s travels hadn’t taken them there all season, and now, on this final day, it all intersected.

On the bus were three extra helmet decals, each bearing three green ribbons, with 00, 10 and 27 embedded into each ribbon loop.

There’s three crosses at the site, one for each player. On each cross, the team placed one sticker.

They lingered a while. The Wildcats weren’t there for the boys; they were there with them.

“They spent as much time as they wanted there,” Schmaltz said. “Then we got back on the bus, and carried on our way.”

kmitchell@thestarphoenix.com

twitter.com/@kmitchsp

On a chilly fall morning in North Battleford, Fran De Kock straps himself into his favourite airplane, a big yellow Air Tractor 504.

After pulling on his helmet and running through the pre-flight checks, he opens the throttle. Moments later, the ungainly aircraft separates itself from the ground, its nose pointing into the watery September sun.

Not for long.

After cranking the Air Tractor into a steep climbing turn, De Kock pushes forward on the control column. The nose dips and the airspeed indicator inches toward 140 miles per hour.

As the aircraft levels off a few feet above the ground, a series of valves open, connecting the 500-gallon tank in front of the instrument panel with the booms hanging below the wings.

As the aircraft rips across the field, its wingtips below the treeline, the booms spray the simulated crop below. It’s a thrilling feeling, but for De Kock it’s merely another day at the office.

“My favourite place in the world is still when I close the door on my airplane and go to work,” he said. “I probably still enjoy the spraying the most, being by myself in my airplane, in my own little world, doing what I think I’m pretty good it.”

De Kock, who grew up on a farm near Hardisty, Alberta before moving to North Battleford in 1980, has been flying agricultural aircraft for 35 years. In addition to owning and operating Battlefords Airspray — a multi-aircraft aerial application business — he runs one of a handful of agricultural aviation schools on the continent.

Although he won’t admit it, De Kock is one of the most widely respected crop dusters working today.

“It’s as fine a school as there is in North America for teaching agricultural pilots,” said Chip Kemper, who runs Queen Bee Air Specialties in Boise, Idaho and handles North American distribution of the Texas-made Air Tractors favoured by pilots like De Kock.

“I can tell you that course is excellent. I truly feel there is none better.”

Fran de Kock, owner of Battlefords Airspray and lead instructor at the organizations’ agricultural pilot training school, poses for a photograph in the Battlefords Airspray hangar.

Back on the ground, De Kock’s eyes twinkle behind a pair of steel-framed glasses. His measured drawl conceals a childlike love of aircraft and aviation, one that shows little sign of abating. Now more than ever, he is interested in passing on his decades of experience.

“I’m 60 years old,” he says. “I think when I start slowing down, I will probably help out whoever is here a bit when they’re busy, but I’ll focus more on the education part (of aerial application) as long as I’m capable of passing on that knowledge.”

De Kock has been combining his love for agriculture and aviation for almost 40 years — long enough to see his chosen industry transformed — but the history of aerial application, popularly known as crop dusting, reaches back almost a century.

The industry traces its roots to Dayton, Ohio in the summer of 1921. That’s when a U.S. army test pilot named John Macready used a modified Curtiss Jenny to spread lead arsenate across a local farmer’s fields.

Over the last nine decades, the industry has expanded dramatically. Farmers around the world routinely contract agricultural pilots to spray their fields with pesticide, fungicide, desiccants and other chemicals.

According to longtime spray pilot and Saskatchewan Aerial Applicators Association president James Pottage, hiring a sprayplane and pilot can often save farmers money.

“The lack of wheel tracks (in the field) is pretty nice,” said Pottage, who owns and operates the Moose Jaw aerial application company Provincial Airways.

“You can save a lot of money. We estimate two, three per cent at the very minimum.”

De Kock agrees.

“The farmers, they honesty believe that our application service is free because what they tramp (down with sprayers on land) pays for more than our fee,” he said.

Fran de Kock dumps water during an aerial application demonstration at the North Battleford airport.

Aerial application has other benefits, too.

“We can be there fast and get a job done fast,” Pottage said.

Travis Karle, who has flown spray planes out of Nipawin since 2008, takes a similar view.

“You get a good custom applicator, it takes care of everything,” he said. “During harvest they’re busy combining … and we’re doing all the spraying for them.”

Part of the reason today’s aerial applicators are able to turn a profit is because developments in aviation technology allow them to cover more ground more accurately than ever before.

In the beginning, agricultural pilots relied on civilian aircraft retrofitted with crude storage tanks and spray booms. In 1951, a 21-year-old Texan named Leland Snow single-handedly revolutionized the industry by designing a purpose-built agricultural aircraft, the S-1.

Today, virtually all sprayplanes in use in North America were produced by the companies Snow founded, Thrush and Air Tractor. While the airframes are little changed, aircraft like De Kock’s dual-control 504 are outfitted with technology unimaginable in the heady 1950s.
Chief among these innovations is the global positioning system, which uses data from satellites to provide real-time information on an aircraft’s course, speed, and altitude.

“We do a big stress on GPS training because that’s the way of the future,” said De Kock, whose agricultural flying school teaches pilots how to use the system to fly precise spray patterns with minimal overlap.

Before GPS became standard, pilots counted on their eyes and intuition to minimize product wastage, Kemper said.

“(But) that’s all been replaced now by GPS. There’s a great deal of technology that handles the flow of the product that comes from the aircraft, and not only helps the pilot align the aircraft with the proper path but also shows in a printout where the aircraft has been flying and spraying.”

The other major innovation that transformed the industry was the shift from traditional piston-driven engines to smaller, lighter and more powerful turbines.

The advantage is simple, Karle said.

“You can do, like, three times the workload in a day. And fast — instead of ferrying 110 mph to the field, you can ferry at 150, 160 mph.”

Kemper agreed, noting that turbine engines reduce fuel costs and downtime for repairs and other maintenance. Perhaps more importantly, the Canadian-made turbines found in most Air Tractors make spraying safer.

“The Pratt & Whitney PT-6 engine is the most reliable engine in aviation, period,” he said. “They’re a Canadian-made motor and they’re terrific.”

Fran de Kock poses for a photograph in the cockpit of an Air Tractor 504.

The introduction of specialized agricultural aircraft powered by extremely reliable turbines has made aerial application much safer, but it is plagued by its reputation for showboating. Because flying fast and low are necessary for precise spraying, the industry has been slow to shed the image its operators loathe.

“It’s not as risky as the public has been led to believe,” Kemper said before listing basic precautions, such as visual inspections and checks for obstacles and wind drift, carried out routinely by good airpsray pilots. “We never go low-level until we’ve made sure we’ve gone down that list of potential hazards and know how we’re going to go about safely spraying this field.”

De Kock believes training and the right attitude are what separate today’s agricultural aviators from their barnstorming predecessors.
“We run our business in a regimented fashion and we structure our teaching in a regimented fashion and safety is foremost at all times,” he said.

Karle agreed, noting that film and television have perpetuated the industry’s reputation for courting danger.

“Life or death every load, that’s total, total horseshit,” he said. “That kind of stuff just destroys the industry, to be honest.”
But no matter how many precautions a pilot takes, flying fast and low will always carry certain risks. With little margin for error and countless obstacles, accidents can and do happen.

Between 2004 and 2015, 187 aviation accidents were reported in Saskatchewan. Thirty of them, or 16 per cent, were related to spraying operations, according to data obtained from the Transportation Safety Board. During the same period, 244 less serious incidents were reported, of which four involved sprayplanes.

Some pilots attribute the accidents to a handful of “cowboys” who flout the rules and bypass standard safety procedures.
“I’ve seen it on (some of) the planes around Nipawin,” Karle said. “They’ve got duct tape hanging off fabric planes and hay wire holding up booms — it’s just horrible.”

Wayne Silzer, an experienced pilot who owns and operates Fly-On Ag Service in Lake Lenore, is similarly contemptuous of pilots he perceives to be dangerous. He wants the industry — which is regulated by several bodies, including the Transportation Safety Board and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture — to be even more tightly controlled.

“The industry allowed us to combine two passions,” he said. “We owe it to new people coming in that they understand or learn from the lessons we’ve learned over 35 years.”

“We need good training programs and we have to close the back door and (only) allow people to enter the industry through a mentorship program, to make it a profession,” he added.

Fran de Kock flies his Air Tractor 504 above the North Battleford airport.

Which is what De Kock has wanted all along — and what his school in North Battleford is achieving in increasing numbers.

Until recently, he offered the 40-hour flying course to between 12 and 15 students each year. Last year, that number grew to more than 20. The pilots he trains — who come from all over the world to attend the school — graduate as safe, solid aviators, he said.

“The attitude toward safety in Canada and the culture is, I would say, the best in the world,” he said. “That’s not because of Transport Canada; that’s because of the people involved in the industry.”

De Kock has little interest in what he calls “hot-dogging.” Doing good work in a timely manner is as impressive as any low-level aerobatics, he said.

As he lines the big Air Tractor up with the runway, De Kock smiles behind his visor. A safe flight is a reward in itself, because it means there’s another one tomorrow.

amacpherson@thestarphoenix.com

twitter.com/macphersona

Fran de Kock, flying his Air Tractor 504, completes a procedure turn and lines up for a low pass at the North Battleford airport.

Fran de Kock sits on the wing of his Air Tractor 504 a few minutes after landing at the North Battleford airport.

After the impact, it felt like forever until Bri Dodd could draw a shaky breath.

One moment, the 18-year-old was carefully guiding a thick wooden plank along a table saw in shop class at Nutana Collegiate. The next, she was sailing backwards. A fast-moving teacher caught her before her head hit the floor.

“I just remember thinking, ‘I’m not going to be able to breathe again,’ ” Dodd said.

Dodd wondered who was going to fetch her toddler daughter from daycare after class.

Bri Dodd was in Grade 12 at Nutana Collegiate last year when she was injured in shop class.

A school nurse drove Dodd to the emergency room, where she lifted her shirt to reveal the flying wood had ripped a large patch of skin from her chest. X-rays showed she had hairline fractures in three of her ribs.

The underwire in Dodd’s bra stopped the flying wood from impaling her.

About 1,800 injures are recorded in Saskatoon-area schools every year, according to data provided by the public and Catholic school divisions.

Bruises and scrapes, cuts, strains and sprains make up more than half of those injury reports. No fatal injuries were recorded in the last four years.

Yet, injuries are the leading cause of child deaths in developed nations like Canada.

While schools repeatedly say students’ safety is their No. 1 priority, they’re left balancing injury prevention with the possibility of an overcautious approach that leaves sedentary students at risk of obesity and diabetes.

Children need to experience minor bumps and bruises as they test their limits, said Noreen Agrey, executive director of the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute.

“We want to provide children with safe risks they can take on a daily basis so they can learn and grow, and learn how to make decisions and judgments,” said Agrey, whose organization works to prevent catastrophic injuries.

Stumbling blocks

When a child, employee, or anyone else is hurt on school property or during a school-run activity, school administrators are compelled to file a school incident report form for insurance purposes.

The Saskatoon StarPhoenix filed Freedom of Information requests asking for copies of all those reports filed by Saskatoon Public Schools, Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, and Prairie Spirit School Division from 2011-2014. The school divisions denied the requests, citing privacy reasons. The newspaper filed a second set of Freedom of Information requests asking school divisions to compile data from the forms describing the nature of the injury, where and when it happened, the cause, and what the person was doing when hurt. The divisions granted those requests for a total of $335.

The school divisions also released numbers showing how many injury reports came from each of their schools.

The numbers don’t specify who was hurt, but could include students, staff, parents, visitors, and volunteers.

In Saskatoon Public Schools, about five injury reports were filed for every 100 students enrolled. It was three per 100 students in Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, and close to two per 100 students in Prairie Spirit.

The number of injury reports filed each school year from 2011 to 2015 in the three divisions remains similar, while student enrolment grows each year. With some schools packed, administrators see this trend as a sign of success.

Head and face injuries made up nearly half the boo-boos reported in the three school divisions, trailed by insults to legs, knees, ankles, fingers, hands and wrists.

Falling down from standing height caused more than a fifth of injuries, followed by playing sports, which precipitated 18 per cent of wounds.

Concussions were another common occurrence, accounting for more than nine per cent of reported injuries.

Students and staff were most often hurt before and after school and at lunch (43 per cent of reports), in gym class (16 per cent), and in academic classrooms (10 per cent).

Unsurprisingly, the gym was the place people were most likely to find harm, followed by playing fields and playgrounds.

School divisions collect the reports from each school, then forward them to their insurance companies. Central office employees also study the reports for patterns.

“We’re always looking at improving our practices. If things happen, or we’re getting data that suggests we need to review a policy or review a procedure, or put some additional measures in place, we’ll absolutely do that,” said Saskatoon Public Schools’ deputy director of education, Shane Skjerven.

When injuries linger

The causes and types of injuries in Saskatoon schools mirror the national picture of childhood injuries, says Royal University Hospital emergency room pediatrician Dr. Angela Jones.

Head injuries are the most worrisome incidents for Jones. Headaches, memory problems, and missing class can be some of the long-term consequences, she said. If children and teens ignore doctors’ orders to rest after a head injury, this can prolong complications, and in rare instances, be life-threatening.

Little kids in particular are prone to head injuries. Up to age eight, children have disproportionately large and heavy heads for their bodies, which more often bear the impact when they take a tumble. Rugrats can be fearless, have poor strength and co-ordination, and may not get their arms out in time to brace a fall, Jones says.

A fall from playground equipment is likely to prompt more serious injury. Kids are far more likely to be hurt if they fall more than 1.5 metres, Jones says. Schools and parents should ensure kids use playground equipment designed for their age range, and choose playgrounds with soft surfaces such as sand and rubber material.

Helmet use is a huge help in stemming sports injuries, Jones says, adding legislating helmet use for children and adults could help lower the risk of cycling, skateboarding, scooting, and sledding.

Bruce Craven teaches a U of S class on preventing injuries in schools and consults with city high schools in sports injury prevention.

Even when injuries aren’t fatal, they come with a collective price tag. A Parachute report into the cost of injury in Canada found getting hurt cost Saskatchewan residents $1.1 billion in 2010, when 690 people died and 2,292 were left disabled.

School divisions have rules to prevent some of these more predictable hazards. Saskatoon Public Schools has a safety handbook for physical education that spells out precautions staff must take for each sport or activity. More recently, the division has provided staff with more training in recognizing and treating suspected concussions, Skjerven says.

Catholic schools policy requires students to wear helmets on ski and snowboard outings, and prohibits trips in 15-passenger vans, director of education Greg Chatlain said. The division has a playground inspection list that school staff use to check for hazards. The division also recently updated its science lab safety guidelines, and renewed safety precautions in industrial arts classrooms.

Why kids get hurt

Bruce Craven believes the root of many childhood injuries lies beyond safety measures like helmets and playground checks.

The physiotherapist, who teaches a University of Saskatchewan class on school injury prevention, and consults with Saskatoon school sports teams, says most children don’t have enough experience tumbling around freely. The lack of unstructured, active play leads to a physical illiteracy, he argues. When they don’t goof around, kids won’t know their limits and strengths, and lack balance and co-ordination, he says.

Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines recommend children have at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each day. One or two gym classes a week is woefully short of meeting that goal, Craven says.

Parents’ and caregivers’ fear of their child getting hurt could, ironically, lead to clumsy kids and more injuries, he argues.

“That’s the biggest risk out there — people get into this bubble wrap mentality: ‘I shouldn’t play on the monkey bars because I could get hurt,’ ” he says.

To prevent major injuries, society needs to shed its fear of minor ailments, he says, noting broken limbs rarely leave kids with long-term health problems.

“Injury is a fact of being active,” Craven said.

Although the large number of injuries sustained between classes might prompt questions about levels of playground supervision, the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute’s Agrey argues it’s more important for schools to teach children to take responsibility for their own actions and safety.

Kids need to know before they hit the playground what safe play is and isn’t, she said.

Playgrounds with soft landing surfaces like sand, wood chips, or rubber can help prevent child injuries.

“Eyes can’t be everywhere,” Agrey said.

For example, the Cool 2 Be Safe program uses video anecdotes and poster-making sessions to explain risky behaviours and teaches kids how to spot and report a playground hazard.

School principals make their own decisions about which safety programs to deliver in their schools, according to school divisions.

Supervision levels and schedules are also determined by each school (there’s no mandated adult-to-child ratios), and depend on the shape and size of the playground and field and the number of children.

“We’d never be able to guarantee (even) with a huge number of supervisors that nothing would happen,” Chatlain says.

Injury reports in Saskatoon area school divisions

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No call home

How a school responds when a child gets hurt can be more important than how a child is injured in the first place. Carey Riehl is one parent who’s surprised and angry about how her child’s school reacted when her kids were hurt.

Both children ended up in the pediatric emergency room when the nine year old and 12 year old were injured in separate incidents at James Alexander School.

It was after school on June 18 when Riehl’s nine-year-old daughter Taryn Wolfe started crying and said it hurt to breathe. At lunch that day, Taryn had fallen backwards off a swing and hit her head so hard the fall knocked her unconscious.

When Taryn woke up, a substitute teacher doing playground supervision told her she was just a little winded and to keep playing, Riehl said. The puzzled mom said her daughter’s loss of consciousness should have warranted a 911 call. No one at the school called an ambulance, and no one called Riehl to tell her Taryn had taken a hard tumble.

Carey Riehl, left, with her children Mathew, right and Taryn Wolfe. Both Taryn and Mathew were hurt in separate incidents at James Alexander school in Saskatoon.

Riehl took Taryn to a minor emergency clinic, and staff there told the family to go to emergency. Taryn had a concussion and severe bruising to the back of the neck, chest and spine on her left side. She missed a few days of school, and to this day, has short-term memory problems. Health care workers told Riehl if Taryn had medical attention straight away, they could have given the child anti-inflammatory drugs to prevent the swelling that followed.

“She’s my baby. I didn’t want to send her back (to school),” Riehl said.

A year and a half earlier, Riehl’s son Mathew, then 12, landed badly on his ankle while playing basketball in gym class. After a five minute rest, the teacher told him to get back on the court, even though his ankle still hurt.

When Riehl saw him that evening, he was limping and wincing. He lifted up his pant leg to reveal a black and blue ankle. Emergency room X-rays found a hairline fracture, which was splinted and padded with a walking cast. Riehl again wondered why no one at the school had called her. Teachers aren’t medical professionals and shouldn’t be telling students to “walk it off,” she said.

“I don’t think (the injuries) could have been avoided. What has always bothered me and still bothers me is they didn’t get medical attention,” she said.

After she was hurt in shop class, Dodd said no one at Nutana followed up to ask how she was doing.

“I thought there would have been an incident report, or somebody would have asked how it happened,” she said.

Her injury left Dodd with anxiety. She couldn’t return to the school workshop, she said.

“When I hear a table saw, my body just clenches up.”

She was relieved the teacher gave her a passing grade in the class based on projects she’d already completed.

Skjerven said he can’t comment on individual cases for privacy reasons. It’s up to teachers’ and principals’ professional judgment when to contact parents, he said.

“Our principals are expected to adhere to, and follow, all of our administrative procedures that exist for student safety and student supervision,” Skjerven said.

Every parent’s tolerance for risk is different, Chatlain points out.

School divisions are cautiously satisfied they’re doing all they can. Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools’ insurance premiums have been going down for the last decade, and Workers’ Compensation injury claims have also dropped during the past three years.

Still, when Chatlain looks at the number of injury reports across the division, he’d rather it be zero.

“In service to our communities, we try to provide the safest, least-restrictive environment for our children to grow up in. On one hand, we’re really cognizant that we want to provide lots of physical opportunities for kids to play. … On the other end of that is risk around students being hurt. They’re both very important tensions. We just want to try to find a proper balance between those things.”

jfrench@thestarphoenix.com

Twitter.com/jantafrench

Allan Whitecap knows when to pick a fight.

Winter has arrived and it’s cold in North Battleford.

Drunk, the 79-year-old yells and swears in a crowded hospital waiting room. 

A police officer approaches. Whitecap’s punch connects with his ribs.

The elderly man — a beloved figure on the streets of downtown North Battleford — is a former boxer. But years of heavy drinking and living homeless have taken their toll.

The officer gets the better of him.

As Whitecap’s led to a police cruiser, he tries to deliver another blow.

Instead, he loses his shoe and falls. 

Later, Whitecap laughs as he’s locked up. The officer asks if he picked the fight so he’d be put in jail, out of the cold.

“Yes,” Whitecap responds, then shakes the officer’s hand and apologizes.

Allan Whitecap could have spent the winter at the Battlefords Lighthouse this year, but old patterns are hard to break.

Days before Christmas, Whitecap is settled in at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre.

It’s not the first time he’s spent the holidays behind bars. He’s done it so often that some of his friends refer to jail as “Allan’s winter home.”

“It’s a nice place,” Whitecap says, sitting on his walker near his small cell. “I don’t sleep outside, I eat good.”

Younger inmates sometimes fight each other, but Whitecap — sentenced to nine months for assaulting a police officer — says they treat him well. He has a knack for making friends in unlikely places.

Whitecap’s been a fixture on the streets of downtown North Battleford for as long as many there can remember and he’s missed back home.

Staff and clients at the Battlefords Lighthouse supported living centre, where Whitecap spent more than 120 nights this year, wonder what trouble he’s getting into — as do those who routinely chat with him at the corner of Central Park, where he’s often found gazing at the street, bottle in hand.

“Everybody has a lot of respect for him downtown and everyone’s always talking to him and asking about him if he’s not here,” said Caitlin Glencross, manager of the Battlefords Lighthouse, which opened almost a year ago. “He’s got that old man charm, so he kind of plays that up.”

Caitlin Glencross, manager of the Lighthouse Serving the Battlefords, provided shelter for Allan Whitecap more than 120 nights this year.

Jackie Kennedy, executive director of the Battlefords Indian and Metis Friendship Centre where Allan Whitecap spent many nights before the Lighthouse opened, is amazed “the tough old man” is still around.

David Whitecap, Allan Whitecap’s younger brother, said the Whitecaps, born on Moosomin First Nation, never went to school.

Marcus Tobaccojuice looks out for Allan Whitecap on the streets of North Battleford, buying him Chinese food, booze, smokes and the occasional bottle of Listerine.

Ray Fox, North Battleford City Councillor, sits on a bench in Central Park where Allan Whitecap can normally be found. He describes Whitecap as the “eptiome of the chronic homelessness problem.”

Whitecap’s likely the oldest person living on the streets of North Battleford and looks all of his 79 years. He’s hard of hearing and walks with a shuffling step, relying heavily on a walker purchased for him by RCMP officers who regularly give clothing and other items to the city’s chronic homeless.

He could have had a bed and meals at the Lighthouse this winter, but old patterns are hard to break.

“These got me here,” Whitecap says, raising his bony fists and laughing.

Jackie Kennedy, director of the Battlefords Friendship Centre, where Whitecap spent many nights before the Lighthouse opened, said she’s amazed the “tough old man,” is still around.

“Not a lot of people could survive like he has,” she said. “He probably don’t got many years in this world left.”

In the decade or so Kennedy has known Whitecap, he’s been drunk more days than he’s been sober. And she doesn’t expect that to change.

“He’s not ever going to stop drinking unless he’s in a hospital bed hooked up to machines,” she said.

David Whitecap, Allan’s only surviving brother, said Allan — the second oldest of nine siblings — was born on the Moosomin First Nation, roughly 60 kilometres north of North Battleford. The Whitecaps didn’t go to school. Uneducated and illiterate, they worked on farms when they were old enough.

Allan liked the work and did okay for awhile. He had a place of his own, but then started drinking and couldn’t afford rent. He eventually ended up on the streets.

“If he could make it to quit drinking, I know it would be good,” David said.

Allan doesn’t talk about his childhood or about what drove him to drink.

In a single breath, he says he should cut back on the booze and quips that beer is probably the reason he’s lived so long.

Marcus Tobaccojuice, who also lives on the streets of North Battleford, said he worries about Whitecap. His health and memory have deteriorated in recent years.

“He’s a good old man. I loved him and I still do,” 32-year-old Tobaccojuice said. “He’d always get mad at me and punch me, but I got used to it.”

The younger man said he makes sure Whitecap is warm and fed. He looks out for him in jail when they serve time together. On the street, he brings him Chinese food, booze, smokes and the occasional bottle of Listerine, any colour.

“You got to respect your elders,” Tobaccojuice said. “I can’t wait ‘til he gets out so I can buy him a bottle.”

North Battleford city councillor Ray Fox describes Whitecap as “the epitome of the chronic homelessness problem” and the failure of the system to reach people who need help.

“If we can’t solve that problem, with one guy who actually is known to the whole damn city … then what can we solve?” Fox asks.

The Battlefords RCMP hope to hire an analyst next year to identify people like Whitecap who trigger the most calls for police service. Once those people are found, officers can work with agencies, including the Lighthouse, to help them.

If that’s refused, there’s little to be done besides supporting those who choose to live high-risk lifestyles.

Whitecap is a prime example of this. Efforts have been made to get him off the street and into transitional housing, but he’s never been able to stay sober.

“He’s too old for rules,” Kennedy said. “Allan doesn’t like being housed. He prefers to sleep in the park in the summertime. That’s just the way he is.”

Whitecap, approaching a month of sobriety in jail, is already looking forward to returning home.

He knows Glencross from the Lighthouse will pick him up from the bus depot whenever he rolls into town.

The weather will be warmer then. And he’ll already be thinking about his next drink.

ahill@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/MsAndreaHill

PELICAN NARROWS — It’s difficult to talk about the fire. 

The fire is why Eleanor Ballantyne’s husband drinks every day, and why the grieving mother spent the last month in a women’s shelter.

The fire is why Hope Ballantyne, a shy preteen, is homeless, moving from couch to couch on the reserve.

“I never asked them what happened. I really don’t want to know,” Eleanor says, sitting at her brother’s kitchen table.

The phone is ringing but she doesn’t move to answer it amid the din of energetic children. Hope is among the kids, wearing bright pink pants and a long-sleeved sweatshirt to cover the burns.

Eleanor is pensive, her eyes on the memory of her two young boys.

“I’m not angry at nobody. I knew God was going to take my kids, but I didn’t know how he was going to take them,” she says.

Hope’s scars are now hidden. 

The small discolorations on her face are barely noticeable beneath her streaked red hair.

The 12-year-old blends in easily with the throng of children that fills her uncle’s home on the Pelican Narrows reserve in northern Saskatchewan.

She is shy, but she smiles and laughs at her cousin’s jokes.

There’s no outward hint Hope was at the centre of a devastating house fire that changed her family forever.

“She doesn’t remember much,” says Sheldon Dorion, Hope’s uncle. “Besides, she doesn’t want to think about it.”

House fires on First Nations are unmatched in their human toll. Over the last six years, 16 people have died in house fires on Saskatchewan reserves. Ten of them were children younger than 12. Six died in Pelican Narrows.

Structure fires on Saskatchewan First Nations are three times more likely to be fatal than blazes in the rest of the province, according to data obtained from the provincial fire commissioner’s office. In a five-year span, nearly half of the fires investigated by the commissioner on First Nations killed at least one person.

As band leaders and government officials scramble to deal with the escalating problem — the absence of working fire equipment, and the lack of training and education around fire safety — families like the Ballantynes are left to deal with the aftermath.

Burned into memory

The house would have had a spectacular view. Perched atop a hill overlooking Pelican Lake, it was a 600-square-foot wooden bungalow like so many others on the reserve.

Larry Custer can see the spot from his back porch. It’s now camouflaged in the landscape, overgrown with brush and littered with trash.

Down the small hill, kids play shinny on the open road using tree stumps as nets, seeming oblivious to the tragedy that unfolded a few meters away.

Custer finds it impossible to get the memory of that morning out of his head.

“I’m not angry at nobody. I knew God was going to take my kids, but I didn’t know how he was going to take them.” — Eleanor Ballantyne

“I could see that girl standing there, eh, with her skin falling off. She was pretty burned up,” he says quietly.

He was up early walking his dog that crisp Jan. 18 morning, when the smell of smoke caught his attention.

He looked up the hill to see flames escaping from his neighbour’s roof. He kicked down the door, he says, and that’s when he saw Hope. Her mother Joanne was smothering flames on her child’s lower body with a blanket. Custer yelled for them to get out of the house before checking the other rooms. He couldn’t see anyone through the thick plumes of smoke.

It wasn’t until later, after Hope and her mother were rushed to hospital, that Custer found out two boys — Solomon Ballantyne, 10, and his brother Josiah, 9 — had perished in the fire.

“I don’t know what I felt at the that moment,” he says, trailing off. “I didn’t feel right, you know?”

The provincial fire commissioner’s report offers more specifics into what happened that solemn morning. Although names are redacted from the report, it appears Hope was in the bungalow’s attic when she knocked over a candle, sparking the fire. Hope went into the living room with her clothes on fire. Her mother tried to snuff out the flames, burning her arms in the process.

The destruction was so thorough, investigators had to use screens to sift through the ashes for evidence of the two missing boys.

There’s a litany of reasons why fires on First Nations are so deadly, says Blaine Wiggins, executive director of the Aboriginal Firefighters Association of Canada.

In 2012, retired wildfire fighter Oscar Ballantyne and his 45-year-old common-law wife died in their Pelican Narrows house after they went to bed with the door of their wood stove left open.

“When we got there, it was up in flames. It was too late,” says Pat Linklater, Pelican Narrows’ reluctant volunteer fire chief, remembering that night’s fire. He stepped up to take the fire chief position because no one else would.

Linklater was there that morning. He and another volunteer found Ballantyne and his wife so badly burned they were unrecognizable.

Old wooden stoves, which are commonplace on many Saskatchewan reserves, are not the only concern.

Custer, himself once a former volunteer firefighter, says the old wiring in his own house scares him, especially after the fire that killed Josiah and Solomon.

He points to some exposed wires in his living room as a potential hazard.

“You never know what happens in the middle of the night — especially with an old house like this,” he says.

Lack of smoke detectors is also a major problem in homes on many Saskatchewan First Nations.

In five years of investigation reports obtained by the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, smoke detectors were found in the wreckage of just four of the 17 fires.

Seven people died and three were injured in homes which had no evidence of smoke detectors.

Two children died in homes with smoke detectors. Fire investigators weren’t sure if the alarms sounded.

A house burns in Pelican Narrows, Sask. The blaze killed 10-year-old Solomon Ballantyne and his nine-year-old brother Josiah. Their cousin Hope survived, but was burned from the waist down.

The home where Josiah and Solomon died did not have a smoke detector.

On top of that, the local fire department did not respond to the deadly blaze. The fire truck, it was later discovered, was broken down. The hose had frozen and cracked after it was left in an unheated garage.

Lack of response is a story all too familiar to people living on reserves. Of the seven fatal fires in the five years of reports, local fire departments are only confirmed to have responded twice.

“It’s the deaths that really hit a person,” Linklater says.

He wasn’t on the reserve when the fire killed Josiah and Solomon.

He doesn’t know which firefighters were on call that morning, but he believes the outcome at the Ballantyne’s house fire might have been different with better funding and the right equipment.

However, trucks and hoses alone don’t extinguish fires.

“I think if we had people in place strictly for fires, those kinds of things can be prevented. But since there is hardly any funding, you can’t set up anything like that,” Linklater says.

He works full-time as a water and sewer manager on the reserve, and would like the band to hire someone full-time as a fire chief, instead of the patchwork of volunteers that exists on the reserve right now.

Even well-trained firefighters need to be at a burning house within four minutes to rescue people inside. Even city-based fire departments strain to keep up that kind of response time.

Wiggins said many volunteer fire departments exist mainly to prevent fires from spreading to nearby properties.

The Funding Gap

Ask anyone with an interest in fire prevention why the status quo on reserves is so bleak, and their answers boil down to money.

In the wake of six fire deaths in the last three years, the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation bought a new fire truck for Pelican Narrows. Seven people are trained to use it. It sits in the same leaking garage where the previous truck disintegrated.

Harold Linklater, a newly elected band councillor at Pelican Narrows, says the band council is working on a plan for a new fire station and he, too, would like see a permanent fire staff in place.

“We don’t have the resources,”  he says in an interview at the band office.

Every year, First Nations submit infrastructure plans to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), department spokeswoman Michelle Perron said.

In the last three years, the federal government has provided 70 Saskatchewan First Nations a combined total of between $1 million and $2.1 million annually for fire protection and prevention, according to data provided to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

The base annual funding for each First Nation varies wildly. Lucky Man First Nation, population 115, received nothing, while Peter Ballantyne First Nation, which includes Pelican Narrows, got $69,918.

Professional firefighting equipment and infrastructure costs much more than that, Wiggins noted.

Setting up a reserve with a small firehall, mini pumper truck and equipment like hoses, axes and shovels costs about $1.2 million, he said.

An adequate fire truck alone costs between $250,000 and $1 million.

No fire codes on First Nations

First Nations aren’t required to have a fire code.

No fire code means no requirements to amass firefighting equipment or train firefighters. What results is a patchwork of preparedness across the province.

Wiggins said he has been in First Nation schools where he saw gymnasium doors chained shut — a potentially disastrous mistake.

First Nations are supposed to adhere to the National Building Code, but Wiggins says inspectors aren’t enforcing those standards.

Either the inspectors aren’t trained or certified, or they just do a shoddy job, he said.

He has seen inspectors standing on the side of a road, ticking boxes off on a home inspection checklist without setting foot in the house, Wiggins said, adding he’s also watched an inspector approve electrical work after the drywall had gone up and none of the wiring was visible.

“I have never, working with hundreds of communities, ever heard of an inspector stopping a project or having something corrected on a First Nation,” Wiggins said.

Picking up the pieces

One of the brother’s remains were found under a bed in the burnt-out house.

That distressing fact illustrates the need for better education in First Nations schools around fire safety, Wiggins said.

Although visits from fire safety mascots bearing stickers and pamphlets might be routine in city schools, these kinds of programs don’t traditionally make it to First Nations schools, Wiggins said.

Without those safety lessons, children don’t know what do in case of fire. Penner said some hide under beds or in closets, adding kids need to be taught it’s okay to smash a window to escape from a burning house.

Solomon and Josiah’s family is still looking for a new normal.

While Wiggins and others push for national building and fire standards on reserves and more education in schools, the path forward for the Ballantynes is murkier.

Nearly two years after the fire changed their lives forever, Hope and her mother have nowhere to live. After they left a hospital in Winnipeg, they tried to move to Prince Albert, but were unable to find housing.

Larry Custer at the home where two children where killed in the fire in Pelican Narrows on Tuesday, November 10th, 2015. Custer entered the burning home and was able to save Hope Ballantyne.

These days, Hope spends a lot of time sleeping on her aunt Eleanor’s couch, rarely going to school.

Hope’s uncle, David, hasn’t coped well with the loss. He drinks all the time, Eleanor says, and can’t accept that his sons are gone.

“He never spent too much time with the boys and the guilt is eating him up,” she says. “I ask him, but he doesn’t talk.”

An inseparable pair, Josiah and Solomon had plenty of friends and were always laughing and joking.

“When they seen somebody getting bullied, they would back them up,” Eleanor recalls. “I want to remember them as happy, smiling kids.”

The boys’ cousins, many of them close to their age, often have nightmares about their lost playmates.

“The kids are telling us they have dreams about these boys. Sad dreams,” Dorion says, adding he is working hard to find Hope and her mother a permanent home.

Hope is leery of strangers asking personal questions. She doesn’t speak much when a reporter and photographer are around. Her replies are mostly one-word answers. It’s obvious the memories of the fire are painful. Yet, these days, she is always smiling.

“She’s a strong girl,” Dorion says. “The first year was so tough for them, but slowly, they are healing.”

Dale MacKay is sitting in the back corner of a Broadway Thai restaurant, spooning tom kha kai over a bowl of sticky rice.

Watery sun streams in the window, illuminating a rare moment of tranquillity for the 36-year-old chef. MacKay has spent his life working in restaurants, but sometimes he just wants to go out and eat.

“I think a lot of people have this romantic idea that chefs go home and they just want to cook and cook,” he says between bites. “I mean yes and no — if you’ve got people coming over and it’s going to be a thing. But I’m f—king tired by the end of the week.”

MacKay’s fondness for cheap Asian dishes, his mom’s scalloped potatoes and the occasional cheeseburger disguise his status as Saskatoon’s best-known chef. He is generally regarded as a ‘celebrity chef,’ and his Third Avenue restaurant, Ayden Kitchen & Bar, has become a social and culinary hub downtown.

But the bearded and tattooed MacKay seems puzzled by his fame. He says it’s not unusual for patrons to see him in Ayden’s kitchen and wonder, ‘Does Dale, like, work here?’ The question earns an incredulous reply: “Of course I f–king work here. Where do you think I am, out at some cool nightclub?”

Led by MacKay, co-chef Nathan Guggenheimer and general manager Christopher Cho, Ayden’s kitchen turns out French- and Asian-influenced dishes made with local ingredients and served in a hip urban setting. Think duck confit and medium-rare burgers, funky chandeliers and richly upholstered banquettes.

MacKay says the restaurant, which opened in 2013 and is named for his now 14-year-old son, is holding its own financially. He attributes its success to the food and atmosphere.

“I think the difference between here and really anywhere else … in town is you can come here and you feel like you’re anywhere in the world,” he says.

If Ayden was intended to bring MacKay’s experience cooking around the world to Saskatoon, his latest venture is about building on what already exists. Scheduled to open in the historic Birks Building later this month, Little Grouse on the Prairie will serve simple Italian food. MacKay envisions a “neighbourhood” restaurant where the after-work crowd can sip barrel-aged cocktails alongside families sharing big bowls of pasta.

“The food will be something that has never been in Saskatoon before,” he says.

***

MacKay became a household name in 2011 when he won the inaugural season of the Food Network program Top Chef Canada. Mark McEwan, a prominent Toronto chef who served as the show’s head judge, said he was impressed by how the young contender from Saskatoon rose to the occasion.

“He had his good days and he had his bad days, and sometimes he tried too hard and it didn’t work,” McEwan said. “(But) when he needed to shine, like on the last competition day, he had his best day.”

MacKay offers a similar assessment.

“When I went on there, I was in the pinnacle of my most aggressive and ambitious time,” he said. “It was all about the food, and all about being the best — and I’ve never been shy about being confident and proving it.”

Since he appeared on Top Chef, MacKay’s views on food have softened considerably. He believes opening Ayden convinced him that giving customers what they want is vital, even if it means cooking a well-done steak. What hasn’t changed is his skill in the kitchen, talent that stretches far beyond a stint on reality television.

“Everybody knows him as this guy who was on TV, which I wish people would forget about,” said Chris Nuttall-Smith, the Globe and Mail’s enormously influential dining critic. “That has nothing to do with who he is as a chef.”

The team Dale MacKay assembled to run Ayden and now Little Grouse on the Prairie includes (L-R) Nathan Guggenheimer, Christopher Cho, Jesse Zuber and MacKay.

What Nuttall-Smith wishes people would remember is the time MacKay spent working in some of the world’s best kitchens alongside some of his generation’s most important chefs. That culinary odyssey began more than two decades ago, when MacKay quit high school, moved from Saskatoon to Vancouver, and found a job washing dishes at a Red Robin burger joint.

“I knew, I literally knew immediately, that I wanted to do that for the rest of my life,” MacKay said of the first time he was asked to operate the deep fryer, a banal experience that changed his life forever.

After several years developing his skills in kitchens across British Columbia, MacKay moved to London, England with the vague idea of getting a job in a world-class restaurant. To his great surprise, he talked his way into a trial at the Michelin-starred Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

MacKay spent six years working under Ramsay, who he cheerfully describes as “a complete tyrant.” It was a period of rapid growth for the young chef, who found himself opening Ramsay-branded restaurants in England and Japan before moving to New York to attend what he calls “finishing school” with the French chef Daniel Boulud.

By 2007, MacKay was the executive chef at Boulud’s Vancouver restaurant Lumière, which Nuttall-Smith said was one of the city’s best. He held the position until 2011, when he decided to become a restaurateur and opened two places of his own.

***

MacKay’s career has not been without setbacks. Running a kitchen is decidedly different than cooking in one. In 2012, he shuttered his Vancouver restaurants, ensemble and ensembleTap. Last year, he shut down Home Slice Pizza Shoppe, the gourmet pizzeria he opened in Saskatoon’s north end.

“Lots of young chefs think they can just open a whole bunch of restaurants and it’s all going to go well,” said Top Chef‘s McEwan, who runs four restaurants and an upscale grocery store. “I’ve always been of the mind that, don’t run too fast. Establish a beachhead and work it for awhile very carefully, and make cautious moves.”

MacKay says the restaurants failed because “the numbers didn’t work,” and that the experience was an important part of his transition from hyper-aggressive chef to confident entrepreneur.

“What you can rely on is numbers: this much is coming in, this much is going out, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter (what else you do),” he added.

Dale MacKay making vegetable chips in the kitchen at Ayden. Despite his celebrity, MacKay still spends plenty of time working in his restaurants.

David Nobbs has staked more money than he cares to mention on MacKay’s businesses in Saskatoon. An agri-food executive with a passion for fine food, he met MacKay in Vancouver before becoming one of Ayden’s founding directors.

Nobbs admits the decision to buy into Little Grouse “wasn’t a slam dunk,” but says he was persuaded to invest by MacKay’s growing entrepreneurial talent and the team he assembled to run the place, a group that includes head chef Jesse Zuber and manager Erick Strong.

“It’s the ability of a business to hit a budget before it even opens its doors, and we were able to achieve that (at) Ayden,” Nobbs said. “So it was that confidence, and the numbers, that have made me confident in investing in Little Grouse.”

***

MacKay says he decided to open Ayden in Saskatoon rather than Vancouver or Toronto because he wanted to come home to the city where he grew up — the city he loves. Christie Peters, who runs two of Riversdale’s hottest dining establishments, said his return has helped transform a “culinary dead zone” into a thriving market for new and innovative restaurants.

“Calgary and Edmonton are starting to have some really amazing restaurants that are on the map nationally, and I feel like now (MacKay) has helped bring that to Saskatoon,” said Peters, who together with her husband, Kyle Michael, began serving locally-sourced concoctions at the Hollows in 2011 and rustic pasta dishes at Primal last year.

Nuttall-Smith agreed, noting that “one great place with a really good chef and a really good owner” can create an incubator effect that can transform comparatively small centres into culinary destinations.

“When you get a chef like (MacKay) in a city, even if it’s a smaller centre, they’re going to be teaching people, they’re going to be training people, and they’re going to be raising the bar, and that’s hugely important,” Nuttall-Smith said.

Back in the Thai restaurant on Broadway, MacKay sips a cup of ginger tea and outlines his plans for Little Grouse. He wants the restaurant to become a social hub as well as a culinary one, a comfortable place where people gather to eat, drink and laugh. Its opening will mark the beginning of a new phase in his career — one he says is about running a few businesses well and making a lot of people happy.

“We do have one more project that we want to do after Little Grouse, and after that we don’t really have any plans of doing anything more,” he said. “Three totally different concepts (and) change them every year, keep them going. But for us, it’s just to keep Saskatoon rising up and making people realize how great it is here.”

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Thunderchild First Nation — On the frozen surface of Turtle Lake, half a dozen ice fishing holes haven’t seen much action. It’s after 1 p.m. on Tuesday and students from Thunderchild First Nation’s Miyo Pimatsowin program are getting restless. Most have abandoned their rods after a long morning of nothing but nibbles. It’s a warm and sunny winter day, but toes are getting cold.

Then Darius Bull calls out that he’s got something on his line. It sounds like he’s joking, but the bend in his lime green fishing rod indicates otherwise.

A big cheer from his classmates totally changes the atmosphere as the Grade 8 student reels in a decent-sized jackfish. He looks startled but thrilled.

“I caught the prize!” he yells.

Teacher associate Susy Lister couldn’t look more elated, laughing as the students gather around the fishing hole. She’s at least as excited as the kids.

“Now you’re going to have to clean it,” she says to Bull.

“I’m just kidding, I didn’t catch it,” he jokes.

Days like this aren’t uncommon for the Miyo Pimatsowin students. The program’s name means good life in Plains Cree and it aims to bring Thunderchild’s history and culture to the forefront of learning.

We’re plagued with suicides, drugs and alcohol and so on because the kids don’t understand and know who they are as First Nations people, as a Thunderchild, Cree citizen.

-Chief Delbert Wapass

Both grades seven and eight take part in the program. On any given day, you might find the students learning to snare rabbits, bead traditional clothing or use a canoe. Kids can take part in optional sweat lodges and overnight camping. No two days are quite the same.

Back in the classroom, the students will use what they learned ice fishing as part of biology studies. They learn to clean and filet the fish, but also study its anatomy as they do it.

Prior to the launch of the program four years ago, teachers in Thunderchild, a 10-minute drive from Turtleford, struggled to get kids to class. The status quo wasn’t working.

Now, attendance is up 20 per cent. According to the First Nation’s director of education, 95 per cent of the students complete the program (the remaining five per cent accounts for students who have moved).

Staff at Thunderchild’s K-12 Piyesiw Awasis School worked with Chief Delbert Wapass and his council to develop the program. They also brought in Shelley Loeffler, a retired teacher who co-founded the EcoQuest program in Saskatoon in 2001.

Miyo Pimatsowin student Darius Bull, right, celebrates after catching a fish while ice fishing with his class.

Hands-on history

Doreen Carrier is in her second year teaching the grade seven and eight girls. Miyo Pimatsowin classes are divided by gender, but come together often for trips outside the school and daily activities.

Carrier believes in the program, smiling broadly as she talks about her students in a classroom that smells of sage from the morning smudge. Recently, the girls have been doing intricate beadwork. These pieces were showcased when some of the students performed with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra during a January concert.

“It’s hands-on, it’s history and it’s their work. You should see the smiles on their faces when they’re done,” she says.

It’s also a huge commitment from the staff involved. If Carrier had a catchphrase for Miyo Pimatsowin it might be “it’s a lot of work.” Carrier lives in Saskatoon, commuting there on weekends, but her week days are dedicated to her students, and not just during class hours. Last year, she spent hours ferrying the girls from several communities to and from broom ball games. Sometimes she wouldn’t make it back to the reserve until 1 a.m.

Carrier, a 20-year teaching veteran who grew up on Thunderchild, instructs a dozen young women who are encouraged to take a leadership role in all aspects of school life. That includes cooking their own meals, transporting necessary equipment and helping teach one another.

The small but passionate staff also includes the boys’ teacher Ryan Baptiste. Originally from Poundmaker Cree Nation, he also spent years in Saskatoon, away from his culture. He came to Thunderchild after getting his education degree in 2013.

That distance from his heritage means many of the activities are new to Baptiste as well. In some cases, it’s the students teaching him.

“I’ve been out of the culture scene. I don’t hunt or fish, but since I’ve come to this program we’re doing all that,” he said. “I participated in my first sweat in my life this year.”

Four years in, it’s still too early to measure the long-term effects of the program, but teachers report increased confidence and a stronger sense of cultural pride. The program’s first students are now in Grade 12.

Iesha Smallboy is in her second year of Miyo Pimatsowin. Carrier said she barely spoke when she started Grade 7. In January, she sang lead vocals in front of a full house at TCU Place as part of a Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra concert.

Before joining the class, Smallboy thought it looked like cool program.

“They would always go and play games outside in the summer and it just seemed real fun,” she said.

The program introduced the student to many things she’d never done before, like tanning hides and ice fishing. She gained an appreciation for how her ancestors used to do things. Prior to Miyo Pimatsowin, she said she would mostly stay home and watch TV.

She’s also gotten to know her classmates better.

“In Miyo Pimatsowin we just connect and it makes us closer,” she said.

Thunderchild First Nation Chief Delbert Wapass stands outside Piyesiw Awasis Community School.

Making the connection

Wapass, an educator by trade and chief from 1998 to 2002 and 2010 to present, said Miyo Pimatsowin aims to give students back their identity.

“There seems to be confusion amongst our children, taking on other cultures instead of their own culture. We’re plagued with suicides, drugs and alcohol and so on because the kids don’t understand and know who they are as First Nations people, as a Thunderchild, Cree citizen,” he said.

The knowledge students gain in Miyo Pimatsowin is practical and helps them connect to their home and history. Children are excited to go to school again, Wapass said, because they are rediscovering who they are.

When Wapass, who was born and raised in Thunderchild, first proposed the idea to staff and parents, there was some hesitation. The idea was new and untested. It challenged the staff to approach their jobs in a new way.

“Don’t just just come and teach here,” Wapass said. “Bring our people and customs into the school to make it relevant to the kids, so they understand who they are. Our teachers are getting it, it’s slow for some, but we’re excited about it.”

Change takes time. After several years the Miyo Pimatsowin teachers still face skepticism from their colleagues.

“There was one comment made to me that was ‘What do you guys teach in there?’” said Carrier. “I said ‘We teach everything. It’s Miyo Pimatsowin.’ ‘Well, I think it’s just a lot of fun and games.’ Well that’s what learning’s all about, fun and games. That’s how kids learn.”

Images of community elders who have died wrap around the inside and outside of Piyesiw Awasis Community school on the Thunderchild First Nation.

Building a plan

On a crisp Wednesday morning, the sun rises on Piyesiw Awasis Community School as kids arrive for the day. Two hundred eighty-three students, including those in Miyo Pimatsowin, attend the kindergarten to Grade 12 school.

The building stands out from the rest of those found on the Thunderchild First Nation. Built in 2002, the structure is a state of the art place of learning, with culture built into every element.

The aerial view of the school looks like an eagle. The school features a teepee-shaped culture room. Photos of community elders who have died wrap around both the inside and outside of the structure.

The Miyo Pimatsowin kids have spent the morning in North Battleford at the swimming pool. It’s a weekly trip designed to help with fitness and water safety. When they return to Piyesiw Awasis, the day includes singing and stretching hides they prepared the day before.

The students slip on blue plastic gloves to handle the moist deer hides as they form two circles around the edge of each. It’s a good way to get rid of an abundance of adolescent energy. The volume in the room bubbles over as they tug the hides in all directions.

The hides are strong enough to support a person’s weight and the students are quick to let their classmates hurl them in the air, nearly hitting the ceiling tiles during the most enthusiastic throws. Lister gets in on the action herself, screaming and smiling with every toss.

Community health worker Linda Harris, who taught the students the traditional songs they performed with the SSO, isn’t so eager.

“I’m not getting on that,” she says.

Miyo Pimatsowin is part of a larger plan. Wapass said they want to develop programming that extends into Grade 12.

“We’re on the verge of something great,” said Wapass.

“I told them Miyo Pimatsowin is a very special program. You’re going to learn respect, to love yourself as a Cree person and language and culture is number one here.

-Doreen Carrier, grade 7 and 8 girls teacher

Grade 9 student Terron Okanee is a graduate of Miyo Pimatsowin. He said he loved camping and learning survival skills. The program had a big impact on the young student.

“It made me feel a lot better about where I came from,” he said. “It’s really fun to be here. I don’t think I’d want to miss a day of school.”

The school, particularly Miyo Pimatsowin, has tremendous buy-in from the community. They call upon elders and other community members to share their experiences with the students.

While the program is aimed inward at their culture and history, it also tries to expand students’ world view. Some of the kids have never left the reserve or heard of places like North Battleford, just an hour away. Incentive trips, like going to Saskatoon for a Rush game and a movie or even Disneyland, help expose kids from all grades to the larger world.

Students from the Thunderchild First Nation’s Miyo Pimatsowin program toss teacher associate Susy Lister in the air with a deer hide they stretched.

Teaching leadership

For all their effort, school staff knows there are still social issues that the kids deal with every day.

“We have situations that are no different than La Loche or other communities where we hear a lot of things happening. We have the drugs here, we have gangs trying to start up here. We’re managing that right now. But it’s only going to get worse if we don’t do something different,” said Wapass.

Miyo Pimatsowin students are asked to become leaders and encourage their classmates to abstain from drugs and alcohol.

Counsellors and wellness workers come to the school regularly to speak with students about things like mental health and substance abuse. The school also provides breakfast and lunch to the kids. Sometimes that’s enough to get a student through the door.

It’s a world away from Carrier’s childhood school experience. The teacher, whose first language is Cree, lived a traditional life until she was sent to school in Turtleford. It wasn’t a happy time.

“We were always treated different and I knew that wasn’t right. We weren’t allowed to take French because we already knew Cree. Because we were Cree speakers we were put in what was like a special needs classroom. I learned reading through a tape recorder. I put on little earphones, playing the tape recorder and read along,” she said.

When she went to Saskatoon for post-secondary education she still had much to learn. Something as simple as the concept of vowels was still foreign to her. But she worked hard and graduated. All three of her children have university degrees, but they also know their culture.

After teaching in Saskatoon, Whitefish, Ministikwan, Piapot, Carrier went back home. The school combines her education background with her love for her heritage and where she comes from. That’s something she wants to give to her students.

“I told them Miyo Pimatsowin is a very special program. You’re going to learn respect, to love yourself as a Cree person and language and culture is number one here. We have to love ourselves for us to grow,” she said. “They’ll carry that knowledge on for the rest of their life.”

Grade 7 and 8 students Ashanti Threefingers, left to right, Shakira Wuttunee, Emily Wapass, and Nicole Frenchman return to class after an ice fishing trip with their class.

Thinking beyond paper

When Loeffler helped found EcoQuest 15 years ago at Buena Vista School she wanted the program to be about student voice. She took a similar approach while consulting with Thunderchild’s council and school staff. For it to work, they needed to hone in on what makes Thunderchild unique.

“Way too often we think education comes from pen and paper, but the First Nations people have a great oral tradition,” she said.

She’s seen huge growth from the students, particularly in areas like reading. Novels are chosen to reflect the indigenous experience, not only in Canada, but around the world. The students can connect more readily to the subject matter.

“They gain from it because it’s about them,” Loeffler said.

She still visits the First Nation every year, helping the fledgling program develop further.

Miyo Pimatsowin is unique in the province. Only Westmount School in Saskatoon has a similar opportunity for students with its Nikanetan – Let’s Lead program. The two groups make annual trips to visit one another. Loeffler said they see huge growth for the kids through these experiences.

Wapass said other first nations, and the broader school community, should be knocking on their door to learn how to implement something similar at their schools. It costs $25,000-$30,000 more per year to run the program, and all of that money is sourced from Thunderchild, but the chief and council believe in the program enough to fund the shortfalls.

Loeffler said it can and should be adopted by more schools.

“It is so simple it hurts,” she said. “The more First Nations kids buy into education the better it is for all of us.”

The people involved in the program all have a palpable sense of pride, not just about Thunderchild and its history, but about what they’ve accomplished by creating Miyo Pimatsowin.

Carrier said her girls now have a vision for their future.

“These students that I’ve taught want to become somebody. They want to be a nurse, they want to be a lawyer, they want to be a marine biologist. They have dreams.”

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Last summer, at an otherwise routine city council meeting, Ward 4 Coun. Troy Davies floated an idea.

He suggested selling the naming rights to the $295.1 million Circle Drive South Bridge and using the money to repair the city’s pockmarked roads. 

“Why do things the way they’ve always been done?” the first-term city councillor told reporters after the late August meeting. “It was just an idea I threw out there to make sure we’re always thinking outside the box.”

Davies said he knew his idea would be “very controversial.” He wasn’t surprised when Ward 6 Coun. Charlie Clark called it a “dangerous path,” or when Ward 2 Coun. Pat Lorje said “selling our souls for corporate naming rights” is not “the right way to go.” 

But the idea refused to die. 

On Jan. 25, city council voted to explore the idea of generating much-needed cash by selling naming rights for bridges and other public projects. The city administration is currently examining options, which it plans to relay to council. 

Davies is still committed to the idea. He believes rapid population growth over the last decade has eroded the city’s ability to pay for routine road and sewer maintenance, much less expensive amenities, and that selling naming rights is a viable alternative to raising property taxes.

“If we can make a significant amount of dollars off of naming a bridge and putting those dollars into helping out with amenities, why not? Why wouldn’t we do it?” he said. 

Corporate sponsorship of public infrastructure is not a new idea. Over the last decade, Saskatoon has made millions by selling the rights to name arenas, pools, concert halls and playgrounds:

-In 2014, the city inked a 10-year, $3.6 million deal to rename its major hockey and concert arena SaskTel Centre. The deal replaced a previous agreement, worth $1.6 million, that resulted in Saskatchewan Place being renamed Credit Union Centre.

-In 2010, the city accepted $5 million from Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan for the rejuvenation of Kinsmen Park. The fertilizer giant eventually contributed $7.5 million, with Canpotex chipping in an additional $1.5 million, to the project, which was renamed PotashCorp Playland at Kinsmen Park. 

-Eleven years ago, TCU Financial Group bought the rights to rename Centennial Auditorium for $1.1 million; in 2013, the organization spent another $2.1 million to renew the deal through 2026. 

Like its predecessor, the Mendel Art Gallery, the Remai Modern Art Gallery is also named for a corporate donor. However, documents submitted to city council show the city administration volunteered the name after the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation donated $30 million to build and operate the $106 million project. 

At the most basic level, naming rights are a way to finance amenities without raising the mill rate, according to Mayor Don Atchison. It’s clear that some projects — among them PotashCorp Playland at Kinsmen Park — would not have been built without corporate investment, he said. 

Edwards School of Business professor and Rawlco Scholar in Advertising Barbara Phillips believes naming rights deals will only become more prevalent in Saskatoon.

“These sponsorships … have tremendous value, and they’re amenities that we all long for, but in a lot of cases, can’t afford,” Atchison said, adding he’s interested in seeing and evaluating the administration’s report on future naming policy options. 

Naming rights agreements between cities and corporations have the potential to become what the city calls “mutually beneficial business arrangement(s),” according to Barbara Phillips, an Edwards School of Business marketing professor and Rawlco Scholar in Advertising.

“The problem is, we want the government to pay for things but we don’t want them to increase our taxes, so the money has to come from somewhere,” Phillips said. “Money has to come from somewhere, and who has the money? The corporations have the money.”

Although sponsorship policies vary, large, publicly-traded companies are generally interested in prominent spaces for their names and logos — in other words, advertising — as well as creating a sense of public goodwill, Phillips said. The trouble is that public relations efforts are notoriously difficult to measure, she added.

“Even a billboard is better and more effective than putting your name on a building, because with a billboard, you have a message (and) you can see if people believe that message (through market research),” Phillips said, noting there is often “a lot of ego” involved in sponsorship deals. 

While she said most companies would be better off buying traditional advertisements than sinking millions into an arena or civic centre sponsorship deal, corporations headquartered in Saskatoon seem very interested in splashing their logos on public facilities.

“It’s a trend that’s not likely to go away,” said Jason Aebig, a partner at the public relations firm Creative Fire and former chair of the Remai Modern Art Gallery board. “Over the last decade or so, many companies have seen the economic and brand benefit to well-placed community investment.”

Aebig said corporations generally look for public investments that “align strongly with their brand” and create broad support in the surrounding community. In other words: “You know it’s a winner when the business case is strongest and the community’s need is strongest.”

Jason Aebig is a partner at Creative Fire and former trustee of the Remai Modern Art Gallery. He says while the benefits of naming rights deals may be hard to measure, they’re far from imaginary. 

At the same time, corporations tend to treat sponsorship deals the same way they treat other business decisions: the bottom line is considered and dispassionate risk-reward calculations are made, Aebig said. After all, no company wants to waste money or have its good reputation compromised by an unforeseen disaster. 

Like Phillips, Aebig said he believes the value of a naming rights deal can be difficult to measure. It can take many forms, from affirming a company’s “social license to operate” to creating a “trust account” that can be drawn down in times of need. But while the benefits may be intangible, they’re far from imaginary, he said.

“(Sponsorship) may not drive results to the bottom line immediately, but you cannot underestimate how important it is to build goodwill among your neighbours when you’re operating in a community, especially if you’re an industrial business where at some point you may need community support to move a particular project or a particular initiative,” Aebig said. 

Just as corporations are bound to make decisions that benefit their shareholders, cities are expected to provide value to their citizens — and sponsorship deals come with significant questions about their worth.

Phillips said a range of considerations, including the ethics of advertising in and on public facilities, contribute to decisions about what is and is not for sale and what to do if a sponsor goes bankrupt or ends up embroiled in a scandal.

Davies said he is aware of the issues surrounding sponsorship agreements, and he has responses for all of them.

Ultimately, a well-crafted policy outlining the basic rules should insulate the city from most problems, while refusing to sell anything but major infrastructure projects is an easy way to draw “a fine line,” he said. 

“I have no interest in selling names to streets or names to parks,” Davies said. “I think we’ve got a great policy in place for (naming those) right now, and I think it’s served well.” 

Phillips said she is more concerned about how cities decide what is for sale than the effects of widespread advertising on the people who live in them. Consumers can separate corporate identities from civic facilities, she said. Although it’s important to ask questions, it’s equally important to remember that being exposed to advertising may have no effect at all, she added.

“I think transparency is key and I think people should ask for it. If we’re going to name bridges, then how are we going to name them? How much does it cost?” she said, noting that these types of questions will only become more important as corporate sponsorships grow increasingly popular in Saskatoon. 

As she believes they will.

“I think Saskatchewan’s a pretty conservative place,” Phillips said.

“We’re still arguing about, ‘Should we have names on things?’ … And so we as the public assume, ‘Of course that would never happen.’ But of course it will. As soon as you let some people in, you have to let everyone in.” 

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Notable Names on Public Facilities

2014 — SaskTel commits $3.6 million over 10 years to rebrand the former Credit Union Centre as SaskTel Centre.

2014 — The Yansie and Weenk Family confirm the name Saskatoon Minor Football Field at Gordon Howe Park for 30 years after contributing $1.5 million for capital upgrades at the football facility. 

2013 — TCU Financial Group inks a $2.1 million deal to keep the TCU Place name until 2026.

2011 — The City of Saskatoon offers to name its new art gallery for the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation after it committed $30 million to building and operating the facility.

2010 — Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan commits $5 million — later increased to $7.5 million plus $1.5 million from Canpotex — for the rejuvenation of Kinsmen Park, later named PotashCorp Playland at Kinsmen Park.

2007 — Shaw Communications Inc. commits $1.3 million over 15 years to name the city’s newest sports and recreation facility the Shaw Centre.

2006 — SaskTel pledges $750,000 over 15 years to secure naming rights for the new multi-sport facility in University Heights, now called the SaskTel Sports Centre. 

2005 — TCU Financial Group pledges $1.1 million to rename Centennial Auditorium as TCU Place for a decade. 

2004 — Saskatoon Credit Union signs 10-year, $1.6 million deal to rename the former Saskatchewan Place hockey arena as Credit Union Centre. 

LA RONGE — Devin Bernatchez will never forget the last time he saw his cousin.

It was a chilly afternoon in late December 2014. Bernatchez, then 34, was driving down the streets of downtown La Ronge.

Kevin Richie — who’d lost his job and battle with addictions less than five years earlier — was making the same journey by foot with a group of other homeless men.

Richie, also 34 at the time, was easy to pick out of a crowd; he had a distinctive gait because his toes had been amputated in his late 20s after he’d trekked barefoot through the snow.

Bernatchez pulled over and offered Richie a ride to the Scattered Site Outreach Program. The organization was hosting a Christmas meal for the town’s most vulnerable, and Richie wanted to be part of it.

“I’ll always remember the conversation I had with him is that he wanted to get a job, he wanted to do good things,” Bernatchez says. “I could see the determination that he wanted to do better.”

Richie never got the chance.

By all accounts, the former lumberyard worker from Lac La Ronge Indian Band had a jovial evening at the Scattered Site Christmas dinner. Workers there cajoled him into sitting on Santa’s knee for a picture, despite his protestations that he didn’t want to sit on a man’s lap.

Then evening came, and Scattered Site closed for the night.

The next time Richie was seen he was dead, frozen in a shack on the side of the highway. Bernatchez was told alcohol poisoning took his life before the cold did.

Richie was not the first homeless person in La Ronge to die that way. Workers at Scattered Site say that, on average, three of their clients die outside at night each year — some from exposure, some from drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning or untreated illnesses.

“That’s a lot of people to lose in your community,” says Jackie Ballantyne, a community outreach worker with Scattered Site. “If this was, say, a small community down south, if you’d lost that many people, you’d think what the hell’s going on? Why does this continue?”

Bernatchez knows Richie’s addictions led to his death, but he can’t help wondering if his cousin’s fate would have been different if Scattered Site — or any place in the town of roughly 3,000 people — had provided overnight shelter for the homeless at the time.

***

Jackie Ballantyne works for the Scattered Site Outreach Program.

Bernatchez wasn’t the only one with those thoughts. Less than a month after Richie’s death, Scattered Site started a temporary overnight program.

“We got very disturbed at losing people each winter,” says Rob MacKenzie, former chair of the North Sask Special Needs group that oversees Scattered Site. “One person freezing to death is one person far, far too many and we recognized that problem and felt that it was absolutely essential that we try to do something about it.”

Scattered Site launched a community fundraiser and collected $13,000, which allowed it to hire staff to open five nights a week from mid-January until the end of March 2015.

The aging Scattered Site building did not meet building code requirements for beds to be set up, nor could the centre have afforded them if they were allowed. Men and women curled up on couches or sat in metal chairs, heads resting on plastic tables.

When money for the overnight operation ran out, Scattered Site returned to its normal daytime-only hours. Because of the high number of people who relied on the extended service — more than 20 — Scattered Site was able to write a compelling grant application for federal money. In November, Ottawa awarded $80,000 so the shelter could be staffed seven nights a week over the winter.

MacKenzie was “ecstatic.”

“It would have been really tough to go into November and say ‘Well, the lake’s freezing and so are people and we can’t provide anything,’ ” he says. 

Scattered Site re-launched its extended hours program in mid-November and purchased 10 lounge chairs for clients to sleep in at night — they’re cheaper than beds and technically allowed.

Ninety people have spent at least one night in those chairs in the last six months. The shelter has capacity for 10, but will house more on the coldest nights. Most who seek shelter are men, and only one one identified as non-aboriginal. Many are from the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, but others hail from Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, Montreal Lake Cree Nation, Hatchet Lake Denesuline Nation and other northern communities. The clients range in age from 19 to 62.

All could be looking for other sleeping arrangements soon. Money for the extended hours program has dried up again. It runs for the last time tonight.

***

Spring has arrived in La Ronge, but people continue to seek overnight shelter at Scattered Site.

Temperatures still dip below zero when the sun sets, and the lake remains covered in ice.

On one of the last nights the centre is open, two men arrived before the doors opened at 10 p.m. There was never enough money for Scattered Site to run 24 hours a day, so clients have to find other ways to stay warm during evenings and on weekends when there’s no daytime program.

One man in an tattered, oversized coat rubbed his shaking hands together to warm them. Another rocked back and forth on a pair of crutches, his large rubber boots scuffing the ground. As they fidgeted, the motion-sensor light above the shelter flickered on and off, occasionally illuminating the unassuming Scattered Site entrance, which is accessed from an alley off the town’s main downtown road.

When outreach worker Jackie Ballantyne arrived and pushed her key into the lock, they rushed into the warmth.

“You guys need to use extra blankets tonight because our fuel has all run out,” she told them as she bustled to the kitchen to make dinner.

It was the latest hiccup in a rough week; days earlier, the building shifted so much that the door jammed shut. Staff had to pry it open with a crowbar to let people in.

As Ballantyne buttered bread for sandwiches, Scattered Site filled up. A half dozen men milled around the main room, watching TV and talking as a staff member deftly moved tables to the side and turned lounge chairs into structures resembling beds.

Regan McKenzie, a regular at Scattered Site, said he’d sleep in the bush when Scattered Site was no longer open at night.

Surviving in spring is manageable, but McKenzie said he hopes the centre reopens next fall.

“Winter is different,” he mumbled. “People pass on.”

McKenzie spoke from experience. Last winter, before Scattered Site offered extended hours, one of his friends, who he declined to name, had too much to drink and tried to get into the centre at night. The doors were locked. The man passed out and froze to death.

“It’s hard to talk about,” McKenzie said. “He’s there now.”

He inclined his head upward and it was unclear whether he was referring to heaven or a collection of paper feathers on the wall above him. Each feather bears the name of a Scattered Site client who died since the organization opened in 2007. Twenty-seven feathers adorn the wall, including one with Richie’s name and two that were added this winter.

Ballantyne said there have been more losses than feathers.

***

Homelessness in La Ronge has been a problem for as long as most people can remember, and it appears to be increasing, say politicians and those who work with the town’s most vulnerable people.

“We live in a community with some social issues, and some of what’s refreshing about it is they’re not under the carpet, they’re right out there, and so it’s no secret that we have a population that experiences various forms of homelessness,” says Carla Frohaug, chair of North Sask Special Needs.

Northern residents agree homelessness there is different than in the south. There’s more poverty, higher unemployment, less access to mental health and addictions services and less affordable housing. A significant number of people relying on Scattered Site services are part of a transient homeless population — they may be couch surfing, with roofs over their heads one night, but not the next.

A lack of affordable housing means many people are often crammed into a single home. NDP MLA Doyle Vermette, who represents the northern riding of Cumberland, says he’s heard of houses with so many people that they sleep in shifts so that beds, couches and patches of floor can be shared.

“It’s getting worse, not better,” he says.

While the homelessness “crisis” is present across northern Saskatchewan, Vermette says it’s felt most acutely in La Ronge because the town — the largest in northern Saskatchewan — is a gathering place for vulnerable people across the north.

A year ago, Vermette presented a petition to the Legislature asking for funding to build a permanent 24-hour homeless shelter in La Ronge. No action was ever taken. 

“How many people do we have to lose before governments and people respond?” Vermette asks. “We need something, a better shelter, a place where they can have a bed.”

Frohaug says a big part of the problem is jurisdictional: La Ronge bumps up against Lac La Ronge Indian Band reserve land, which can complicate things when looking for money.

“On-reserve and federal funds and off-reserve provincial support are right across the street from each other,” she says. “Those are significant barriers to serving the population that we’re trying to serve here.”

There’s agreement among those working with the town’s vulnerable people that all levels of government need to pitch in if La Ronge is ever to build a permanent 24-hour emergency shelter that would have luxuries — like beds and a sprinkler system — not present at Scattered Site.

“It’s very important, very needed for the community,” says La Ronge mayor Thomas Sierzycki. 

“The municipality will do everything in our power, whether it’s tax levies, making sure that we can supply land if there is a shelter that we will be built … But, as a municipality, we’re very limited in what financial ability we do have, and (in) a community of our size, budgets are very tight.”

In an emailed statement, Saskatchewan Ministry of Social Services spokesperson Leya Moore said the government is in touch with leadership at Scattered Site and is aware that “a significant majority of the individuals they provide services to fall under federal government responsibility.”

She said the provincial government can play a role by connecting individuals to other human service providers, including the federal government, and that anyone in La Ronge can go to a provincial income assistance office to request emergency accommodation, which could consist of a night in a local hotel. The province’s practice is to provide emergency accommodation for one night, even for people who would typically be federally funded.

Georgina Jolibois, NDP MP for northern Saskatchewan, says groups in La Ronge may have more luck seeking federal funds for a 24-hour shelter and that opportunities are greater now than they were under the Conservative government. The Liberal government’s budget, released last month, pledged $57.9 million to tackle homelessness this fiscal year. Jolibois said she hopes her constituents in La Ronge — where the need is among the greatest in the country — get some of that.

The cost to build a 24-hour emergency shelter would likely be in the ballpark of $1 million, says Ron Woytowich, executive director of La Ronge’s Kikinahk Friendship Centre. He’s in the process of finding funds to make it happen.

The shelter would benefit the whole community, he says. Businesses wouldn’t have to worry about homeless people seeking refuge in their entranceways, and fewer homeless people would end up in jail cells and hospital emergency rooms, ultimately saving governments money.

Plus, the benefit for vulnerable people would be significant. Woytowich, like other leaders in the community, is adamant the need for shelter continues even after winter ends.

“Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, it’s not so bad because it’s summer,’ but it rains big time here and everything else, and we have bears in town,” he says.

***

A 24-hour emergency shelter won’t eradicate homelessness in La Ronge, but Lac La Ronge Indian Band Chief Tammy Cook-Searson says it would go a long way to help people who want to turn their lives around and become contributing members of society.

“If you don’t feel safe, if you don’t have a good night’s rest, if you don’t have a good meal, then you’re not able to deal with the inner issues that you need to deal with and are causing the addictions in your life,” she notes.

Bernatchez wishes his cousin had had that opportunity.

After Richie’s death, Bernatchez went to the shack where his cousin died and collected his belongings. Among his clothes and some sleeping things, he found scribbled notes outlining Richie’s goals. The “proud man” had wanted to get sober and become a carpenter.

“Homelessness took that away from him,” Bernatchez says sadly. “He succumbed at an early age and probably shouldn’t have been a homeless person. He probably should have been doing something really good with his life right now.”

With the future of a 24-hour shelter in La Ronge uncertain, leaders there are hoping to at least find money to reopen Scattered Site overnight next winter.

“It’s a bit of a Band-Aid, but it’s what we can do right now,” Frohaug says.

ahill@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/MsAndreaHill

LA LOCHE — It’s late winter, 1983, and the boys from La Loche are on the move.

Nobody breaks down tire tread like these kids from the boreal forest. They criss-cross Saskatchewan six, seven, eight hours at a time, gym rats on the fly, weekend after weekend. Nobody wants to go to La Loche. So La Loche goes to them.

They’re headed to Saskatoon this time, for Hoopla, the provincial high school basketball championship.

Walter Lemaigre, a defensive wiz who can walk down a school hall and execute a flip on his feet, has a seat on the black and yellow school bus. So does Julius Park, whose jump shot is the best in Saskatchewan.

There’s Bruce Janvier, with that ritual he devised and swears by: He drinks copious amounts of water two hours before a game, continues to guzzle in the lead-up, takes a shower to keep the hydration going — storing it all up, camel-like, for the battle to come.

Their coach is Greg Hatch, the only white guy on the bus. He arrived in La Loche seven years earlier from Dryden, Ont. — just a few days before the switch flipped on the town’s first television, and two years after direct-dial phones came along.

Now they’re on a court in Saskatoon, and they’re fast, like rabbits, with unending stamina. They speak in the Dene language. Nobody understands them, so when Julius tells Walter to cut to the basket for a pass, codes aren’t needed.

Opponents have heard of La Loche only through whispers and rumours. They’ve heard of Julius, too, because he’s a star.

Julius’s family lives off the land, like their ancestors. His father works a trapline and his mother sews mukluks and vests; they eat the game his dad brings home, and forage for berries, which they store for the winter. Julius’s culture, his identity, is strong. So is his game.

The three-point line hasn’t yet been implemented in Saskatchewan, but he’ll score from anywhere. His shot offers laser clarity. There’s no backspin after release; it just floats up, seams suspended in the air.

Julius exudes greatness, and it’s so confusing, because you’ve heard about his community, and everybody assumes it’s hell on earth up there, and how can you be great, in La Loche?

If you look down the sideline, scan the opposition bench, and seek out a skinny kid with a pipe-cleaner body, you’ll see me, the guy who’s writing this story 33 years later. That Birch Hills Marauders bench is where I spend my afternoon, bouncing up only when there’s a timeout and my hard-breathing teammates plunk down for a strategy session, trying to answer this question:

“What do we do with Julius?”

I’m a 140-pound rookie, the team’s youngest player, with five inches to grow, toothpick legs, spaghetti arms.

If Julius and I were to engage in some one-on-one, I’d require a year’s worth of trauma counselling in the aftermath. But the closest we ever get is the post-game handshake, which ends my cameo appearance in this story.

Julius — his last name’s Park, though most people there don’t know that — pours 30 points onto our heads during a 71-63 win, and the next day he scores 38 against Maple Creek. La Loche wins the provincial 2A (now 3A) basketball title.

“His shooting range,” my old high-school coach, Bill Yeaman, tells me admiringly years later, “was gross.”

It’s funny, the things we remember. Decades later, guard Vincent Janvier recalls his enduring memory of the moment following that 76-44 gold-medal victory: A team manager jumps out of his shoes, literally, while leaping up and down on the La Loche bench at game’s end. He keeps bouncing in his sock feet, because when you’ve conquered a province, shoes are optional.

They’re the first all-aboriginal team to win a Saskatchewan hoops title since a residential school from Lebret captured girls gold in 1969. They cut the net down, and Julius drapes it around his shoulders, and they get in the bus, drive home in the dark, land at their respective homes several hours later, and get some sleep.

Thirty-three years later, I’m in La Loche, talking to Bruce Janvier, the kid who drank all that water. His hair — uncut since his high school days — is wild and long, as he lovingly fingers a team picture he hasn’t seen since he was a teenager.

Bruce Janvier

Sometimes, even now, when the room is dark and his eyes are closed, Janvier sees himself in that uniform with “La Loche” splayed across the front, shooting basketballs, running, running, running. He quit school early; spent years awash in alcohol abuse; has always wondered what would have happened if he’d stayed sober, headed somewhere south, played some college basketball.

Janvier went back to school a few years ago and got his Grade 12. He says he’s been clean for eight years. He works as a security guard at the local hospital, and every so often, he pictures himself back in 1983, with the team he never stopped loving.

“You were just grabbing the whole world in your hand, and holding it,” Janvier says quietly. “To accomplish something like that … it’s so good. Today, it’s still fresh. Sometimes, I dream I’m still playing. And it’s so good, eh?”

* * * * *

This past January, a La Loche teenager took a gun and shot two kids in a house, and more people in the high school, and four people were dead. Blood had barely stopped flowing when reporters poured into the province, sped through the forests and past the lakes, bouncing over chewed-up asphalt, into a place that even by Saskatchewan standards is terribly remote.

Vincent Janvier, the guard on that 1983 team, works as a janitor at the adjacent elementary school. He’d just dropped his daughter, Vayda Park, off at the high school, minutes before everything came crashing down.

“I was in the other building,” says Vincent, whose custom-made cellphone case is covered with photos of the victims.

“I was told there’s a shooting going on at the high school. We did all the lockdowns, checked all the doors, covered as many windows as we could. We had all the kids in the classrooms sit on the floor. I wanted to leave that building and come here to get my baby, but the principal told me I can’t leave the building until everything was done. They won’t let me go. I had the keys, but not knowing where that guy’s going to be with a gun … it was scary. I had my only daughter in here. I was hoping, praying that she’d be okay.”

And she was — though her close friend, Dayne Fontaine, was dead, and so was teachers’ assistant Marie Janvier, who had dated Vincent’s son. The town was shaken to its very core, and La Loche was suddenly flashed into every household in the country, and beyond.

Vincent Janvier

There’s copious dysfunction in La Loche, and now everybody knew it, both in and out of Saskatchewan. The town’s troubles turned into an international talking point on newscasts, in newsprint, in online forums. The suicide rate is high. People linger aimlessly both inside and outside the town’s drinking establishments, and heartbreak is a steady, sharp-elbowed companion.

But Hatch, who moved to the town in 1976 after getting a job offer and looking it up on a map, never left. They’ve named the gym after him. He raised a family here. Personally and professionally, La Loche gives him everything he needs. He’s still at the school, teaching a second and a third generation.

Sure, he says, talk about the trouble and the trauma — but don’t forget the other side: There’s much to love about this town, and these people. He feels blessed to be here. There’s good in La Loche, he says. So much good.

That 1983 basketball team, he says, is an example of what’s possible in a far-flung community with limited resources.

Everybody on that team is alive. With the exception of Julius Park — who’s a teaching consultant in La Ronge — they’re all still in La Loche. They’re all employed, providing for families, men being men.

They’re tied together by a gold medal, and a basketball season, and the coach who never left.

* * * * *

When Bruce Janvier was a kid, he owned a rubber soccer ball and a square milk crate. He cut the bottom out of the latter, hung it on a pole several feet in the air, fashioned a crude backboard, and taught himself to play basketball. He still remembers the traumatic day when somebody flattened his ball.

Hatch opened things up for him when he got old enough to play at the school. He opened things up for everybody.

Top row, left to right: Keith Janvier (manager), Lester Janvier, Harold Janvier, Vincent Janvier, Greg Hatch (coach) Bottom row, left to right: Walter Lemaigre, Allistair Lemaigre, Bruce Janvier, Julius Park, Gilbert Lemaigre, Ian Janvier.

That 1983 team was small in stature. Park and Gilbert Lemaigre, at 6′ 1″, were the tallest on the team. So Hatch, whose background was hockey, with a collegiate playing stint at Bowling Green in his rear-view mirror, preached fundamentals, discipline and conditioning. The team ran three different types of zone defences; their full-court press was a thing of beauty; their half-court trap deadly. Julius was the star, but every player had a role.

Players were drilled to dribble equally well with both hands, because they knew most of their opponents couldn’t, and they worked under the theory that you had to run as fast with the ball as without.

“Repetition, repetition, repetition,” Hatch says now.

During the Christmas break, they practised two times, three times a day. Their workouts ran late into the evening. Hatch worked them into exhaustion, knowing fatigue would send them to their homes, and their beds.

Temptation offers a seductive, beckoning finger in La Loche, like so many other places, and trouble was close at hand.

“It wasn’t all hugs with those guys,” Hatch says. He made it clear to his players: If they acted up in the community, they’d pay for it. They’d practise without balls two hours at a crack; they’d run and run.

“And when we were sick and tired of running, we just ran more,” he says.

A certain parent would phone him when things got sketchy — “Oh, by the way,” the parent would say, “the boys were doing this.”

Hatch will never reveal the name of that parent; he’ll take it to his grave. The players thought he had psychic ability.

Greg Hatch

Money was in short supply, and because nobody would come up to La Loche, their entire season was one big road trip. If a player didn’t have enough cash to buy food, Hatch would take care of him.

When he first started coaching in the late 1970s, he bought a box of canvas Converse sneakers, telling the boys to help themselves, and to pay him back a little at a time. He’d stopped doing that by 1983, but the footwear challenge was never an easy one.

“We weren’t rich,” says Bruce Janvier. “It was hard for money back then. I had a hard time, but I’d go (on the road) because I wanted to play, eh? We didn’t have much, but we still did good.

“You know how it is when you’re not rich in a place like this, and you have to find decent shoes, and clothes, you have financial problems … but for some reason, we’d find runners, and those runners you’d use the whole year. We were all taught to be positive in mind, and that’s how we started to achieve in basketball.”

They were an easy team to overlook, at first. The boys from La Loche won a provincial bronze medal in volleyball during the fall, wearing their basketball uniforms, because that was all they had.

Hatch remembers one of those volleyball games — Julius pounding the ball, the opposing coach yelling at his player to block him, for crying out loud.

“I’m blocking his right hand,” the player yelled. “Now he’s hitting with his left hand!”

“The very first time we saw them (in 1982, the season before), they didn’t have matching uniforms,” Yeaman, my old coach, said a while back when I called him to chat about that La Loche hoops team. “They weren’t quite sure of their warm-up. I’m thinking ‘oh my goodness, this is gravy time.’ We had the Marauder outfits and everything. But I remember, at halftime, (one of our players) said, ‘They don’t even sweat!’ We didn’t take them seriously, at first. But in ’83, we sure did.”

They never got tired, Yeaman said, and he was right: There was no better-conditioned team anywhere in Saskatchewan.

They took on all comers; played big-city and small-town teams; logged highway mileage that would make an odometer sick.

“Humour is part of our nature,” Julius says. “We’d laugh at each other, and going down south on a six-hour drive, what else could you do? We weren’t sitting on cellphones. We talked and had fun and slept, sometimes, coming home late. That team environment … it’s what we did.”

During the team’s run-up to provincials, Julius — “the Steph Curry of the early ’80s,” Hatch calls him now — fouled out of a critical playoff game. The opposing bench could be seen celebrating his departure. Hatch called a timeout; moved Vincent Janvier from point guard to the right wing; shifted Walter Lemaigre to the point; Bruce Janvier was on the left wing.

In the dying minutes of that game, new stars were found.

“We got hot,” as Vincent Janvier puts it all these years later, and they preserved the victory, and at game’s end, they heard a common refrain: We thought you had one player, but I guess you had more.

There was Vincent, running the fast break all season, working a tight tandem with Julius. There was Lester Janvier, netting a crucial 23 against Birch Hills at Hoopla, supplementing Julius.

A local administrator with ties to Pennsylvania sent a Julius Park video to Slippery Rock University. They were intrigued by what they saw, and invited him down. The world of American college hoops suddenly opened up, but Julius couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave Saskatchewan.

“It would have been a culture shock for me, coming from La Loche to a large city in the States,” he says now. “Looking back … yeah, I wish I would have gone. I don’t regret not going, but I had my chance, it didn’t happen, and I left it at that.”

Julius Park

Julius’s gold medal from that season is gone; lost in a move, he figures. He went on to a career in education — teaching at La Loche for several years, getting his masters, and now working as a consultant five hours away. He specializes in aboriginal education and language, and remains rooted in his culture, just like his parents taught him.

Sometimes in his travels, he’ll tell somebody he’s from La Loche, and they’ll ask if he knows this old basketball player from there, name of Julius.

He arrived in La Loche the day after the shootings, because there was no other place in the world to be.

“This is where my heart is: my community,” he said late last month while sitting in the same high school where chaos reigned several weeks earlier.

“When I came here, I went to the community hall. That’s where the people were. Lots of singing. Lots of praying. Lots of talking. Lots of tears. Lots of food. They were coming together as a community, beginning to heal. I was proud of that. I’m proud of how they did that.”

The gym which bears Hatch’s name is decorated with banners, commemorating La Loche sports teams who won the province. There’s some provincial wrestling championships, and a couple in volleyball, which is now the big game in town. There are multiple sportsmanship banners, awarded at the conclusion of volleyball provincials.

The first, chronologically, is that 1983 basketball banner. That’s the one that showed La Loche kids how barriers could be crushed.

La Loche’s 1983 hoops banner

When La Loche sports teams venture out, their uniforms have the town’s name emblazoned loudly and proudly across the front. That’s by design, says Hatch; their sports teams are an outreach, a bridge to the wider world.

“Nobody comes here to play. We travel,” he says. “And we play for what’s on the front of that shirt. We always have. It’s about La Loche, and part of that is about trying to knock down those stereotypes people have of La Loche, and of aboriginal people, and people of northern Saskatchewan. If we can start to break those down by being out there participating …”

That 1983 squad, which built off the growing success of teams before it, was the first to break through, and sometimes they still talk of it there. Not the community, so much, but the players who lived it.

Bruce Janvier is happy to tell anybody his story, at any time.

Vincent Janvier, the janitor, sometimes tells people, too — about this team, and this medal, and those boys who all grew up to be men. Sometimes, they even listen.

“If I see a few different people playing around the gym, I’ll join them,” Vincent says. “I’ll tell the story.”

He smiled, glancing down at the gold medal with rumpled ribbon he’s kept safe all these years.

“And our maintenance guy will say ‘Oh, there he goes again …’ ”

kemitchell@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kmitchsp

Author and Saskatoon resident Yann Martel loves the winters in Saskatoon, but thinks the city remains “tainted” by racism and hindered by outdated thinking. As the author of Life of Pi and The High Mountains of Portugal marks 13 years of living in Saskatoon, he talks about why he’s chosen to raise his family here with his partner, Alice Kuipers. Martel, 53, was born in Spain, but has lived all over the world. He won’t commit to staying in Saskatoon forever, but “so far, so good,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with Phil Tank.

The size

It’s a city with a terrific quality of life in that it is just the right size. I find cities between a quarter of a million and 400,000 or so, if they’re far enough away from a large metropolitan centre, are just the right size to be big enough that there are things to do, but small enough that you can get out of them, move around them easily, connect with people. Once they get bigger than that, I find, you start getting these oceans of solitude. You start getting discontinuities in the community. Big, big, big cities are communities within communities, but they don’t necessarily talk to each other. Sometimes, I find it’s very hard in a big city to connect with people. It’s funny. You’d think that in a city of 15 million people, you’d have 15,000 friends, but no. I find that people in really big cities know remarkably few people, considering they’re surrounded, literally, by millions of people. 

Big enough

I find, in Saskatoon, it’s very easy to connect with people. And it’s big enough that there’s things to do. For example, there’s very good theatre in Saskatoon. One of my stories has been adapted to the stage and it’s a terrific production. Really good. It could just as well be playing in Toronto or New York or London. We’re going to have a spanking new gallery shortly. There are better restaurants than there used to be. Of course, we can’t compete with big cities. Of course, the Remai (Modern) will never compete with the Art Gallery of Ontario or the MET in New York, but, overall, quality of life is terrific.

Famous author and Saskatoon resident Yann Martel poses for photos Thursday, May 26, 2016.

‘I love winter here’

And, you know what? I’ll be the only person who never complains about the weather here. I love the weather here. I love winter here. It’s a dry cold. That should be what they have on licence plates: “It is a dry cold.” I find I’m colder in New York or London or Paris when it’s five degrees above zero than I am here when’s minus 20 because it’s so dry. If you’re well dressed for it, you’re fine, whereas in those cities, if it’s five degrees, you’re cold inside because the damp gets into everywhere. And it’s sunny here. I think I read somewhere it’s the sunniest province in Canada. I love that.

Small city celebrity

Celebrity as an author is great because it’s actually your book that’s well known. People have read the book and they liked it. Because they liked it, they project positively on to you — whereas if they didn’t like the book they just wouldn’t talk to you. So I’m not my product the way an actor is his product. If an actor plays a horrible role — a rapist or someone — that sort of taints who they might be. And also, people project a certain egomania to actors or pop stars and they don’t particularly to writers. So I find it hasn’t bothered me at all. It’s nice to connect. I mean, a book is a profoundly social thing. All art is very social. It’s a gift, so to have people who have accepted that gift is very gratifying.

Changes good and bad

What I like is Saskatoon has become more diverse. I see that in my children’s school, Bronskill. There’s more visible minorities. There’s more kids from the sub-continent, from India, from Pakistan. More Muslims, more people of African origin, a greater diversity. The restaurant scene has improved radically. When we moved here, it was terrible. The food was terrible in this city. And now there are actually good restaurants that you can actually decently bring people from big cities to. The downside, it’s more congested. Now, we actually have traffic jams. Now, we’re actually delayed crossing the University Bridge at rush hour. That didn’t used to happen 10 years ago. The problem with the city, too, is it hasn’t really rethought itself as a 21st century city. It’s still thinking, slightly, in old terms. For example, it continues to expand outwardly rather than increase densification. I don’t think the city’s really pushed to change its urban model to one that is to do with urban density. We’re still building these absurdly named suburbs that keep on eating up farmland and, ultimately, they will cost us more than it’s worth in terms of the infrastructure that they build and the cost of maintaining that — not that there’s an easy solution to that, too. It’s facile to criticize. It is obviously more difficult to administer a city of this size. But like I said, I like the diversity. 

Famous author and Saskatoon resident Yann Martel poses for photos Thursday, May 26, 2016.

Quality needs investment

What’s needed is more investments like the Remai. I know people say, “Oh, it’s too expensive” and all that, but once those things are built, they’re there for decades and decades and decades. And they become what people come to the city for and why they stay. People might come initially for a job, but they’ll only stay if life is good for them and their children. And what makes life good in a city are the things like parks, the quality of the schools, the quality of what you do outside of work. So, galleries, theatres, cinemas, restaurants — that’s what makes people stay here, not necessarily things that are within the purview of the city (administration). The schools should be even better.

‘Divided by racism’

There’s always that fight against racism. This remains a city tainted, divided by racism, mainly between the people of European origin and the First Nations. We have to continue making that effort of integration. And I think that has well begun. I think there is a genuine willingness to do that. We have to keep on doing it. We have to keep on doing it — speaking about diversity, welcoming diversity, whether it’s the First Nations or all the other people who are moving to the city. Welcoming difference.

Big ideas

The Remai’s a really bold idea: The largest gallery between Winnipeg and Vancouver. Who’d have thought it would be in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan? So that’s the kind of bold idea I like. To me, a big thing down the line is climate change. Our climate is going to change. We have to start moving away from the carbon fuel economy. We have to find modes of living here that aren’t as energy hungry — you know, public transportation. In 13 years, I have never been on a city bus. Never. I remember one thing that struck me: Portland, Oregon. Within a certain perimeter in Portland, Oregon, public transportation is free. The downtown core, you just hop on a bus, you just hop on and it’s free and it transports you. I think we have to get really savvy about ways of transporting people that don’t demand the individual car. There’s that. There’s the kind of standards for building houses and apartment buildings and office buildings that are more energy efficient. We are the sunniest province in Canada. We should be seeing solar panels everywhere. That’s not something that’s in the purview of the city. It’s probably more provincial … I guess, changing our economy to the 21st-century post-carbon. That has to be the ideal, even if it’s going to take us 50 years to do it.

The next mayor

Don Atchison, I think, has done a commendable job. What I like about Charlie Clark is he has both vision, but as a result of being 10 years on council, he’s also pragmatic. You don’t want airy-fairy dreamers because they often don’t last long. What you want, in a sense, are policy wonks who have dreams. And I think Charlie Clark is like that. I think he’s rooted in his experience as a councillor. For example, I was on the library board for six years. The next big project I think we need is to build a new downtown library. I was at a meeting where that was being discussed and Charlie Clark asked some very pertinent, pushy questions because he thought our plan wasn’t good enough. And, sure enough, our plan was voted down. Our next big project should be a new downtown library. We need a big, new, beautiful bold one that makes you go, “Hey that’s the new library.” It’s a vital space, a public library. 

Staying in Saskatoon

Life’s always uncertain. My partner is English, she misses England. We’ve been here 13 years. So far, so good. There are other cities I could say have a “wow” factor. You arrive in Toronto and New York and there’s a certain dazzle to the place: The architecture, the sheer size of it. And then you go to their big museums. And then you realize people go to these museums and they live 15 miles away in some suburb and it’s taken them an hour to get to that museum. And I say, “Do I want to spend two hours of my life commuting?” No, I don’t. OK, I work at home, but do I want to live in a suburb? Or do I want to live in a city, downtown, but in a place where I’m surrounded by fellow millionaires because we’re the only ones who can afford to live in these neighbourhoods because it’s too expensive? Those kinds of strains are not good for individuals or for families. So wherever I move, I’m convinced the quality of life will be — maybe the restaurants will be better or the museums — but overall it’ll be lower quality of life.

Nutana neighbourhood

We have beautiful trees (in Nutana). Now they are fated to die. They’re all Dutch elms. They’re going to die. So in 20 years, this will be a treeless neighbourhood. One thing I like about the older neighbourhoods of Saskatoon is their diversity. One of the great things I like about Saskatoon that really struck me and it’s changing — that’s one negative trend — is its material modesty. There’s so many little houses that were built after the war for returning veterans. Kitschy little things, but they’re fine. They’re all you need. We don’t need these McMansions with double, triple garages. These huge things. That’s just not the way to go. Now, we live in a free society. People can do what they want. But what I like about Nutana is the great variety of houses. Every single house will be different from the one next to it. I like that. And many of them will be of a modest size. This is all you need to live well. What else do you need? Why do you want a bigger house? What are you going to do with it? You’re going to have to pay more for it, spend more time fixing it up, cleaning. Why do want such a big house? I like that they’re generally modest houses, each very different. And it’s great we’re so close to the downtown. We’re literally minutes from the Remai, from the Persephone, from the cinemas, from the restaurants. So it’s a great location, by the river. And it’s very pleasant.

Few fences

And another thing I like about Saskatoon that I noticed when I first moved here is how few fences there are. It’s a bit of a symbolic thing, but so few houses here have fences between them. And it speaks to me of that gregariousness, that openness. “Hey, you’re my neighbour. Why should I have a fence between you and me?” In bigger cities, between every house that you see, you will see a fence. It’s not necessarily aggressive, but there is something about it. “We live in a big space, it’s kind of aggressive. so I want to parcel off my little kingdom from your kingdom.” 

Sense of place

I moved around so much in my life, being the child of diplomats and then travelling around on my own and moving around — I don’t have a very strong sense of place. I have more of a sense of people and of emotions and of thoughts and less of place. Unlike, say, Guy Vanderhaeghe, I don’t write about any particular place. Life of Pi starts in India; it’s not about India. High Mountains of Portugal takes place in Portugal; it’s not about Portugal. Of course, I’ve been there. I’ve looked at the place. I’ve listened to the people. But that placeness of my stories is quite superficial. It’s more about something else.

Prairies versus mountains

In a couple of my books, I’ve mentioned prairies, flat landscapes, which I like. I actually like prairies. I find mountains get in the way of the view. I find them slightly claustrophobic. And I find beyond their superficial appeal, they’re kind of not as interesting. It’s interesting how the prairies, there’s a whole school of writing from the prairies. Any number of great writers have come from the Canadian Prairies or, indeed, the American Prairies. So I think there’s something elevating about the prairies. After all — and this is an exaggeration — on a prairie landscape the tallest thing about will be a man or a woman standing. Or they’ll certainly be taller than they would be in a mountain landscape. You go to a mountain landscape, you’re squashed by the mountains. You’re reduced. On a prairie landscape, you’re somehow elevated. The human element is elevated and not to the point of arrogance because you’re still drowned by that great space, but at least the human drama seems of greater import on a prairie landscape than in a mountain landscape. So it’s interesting how there’s this whole prairie tradition of writing. There isn’t a mountain tradition. I can’t think of any great writer who is really from the mountains of B.C. Not that B.C. hasn’t produced great writers, but they’re probably from Vancouver. But I can’t think of a mountain writer. I’m not setting up a competition here, but it’s just striking. For example, the prairies are populated. The great mountains of B.C. are not really. People don’t live in mountains. They live between them. 

Saskatoon in his books

My next novel will start during the Trojan War, so 3,000 years ago in what’s now west Turkey. There will be no mention of D’Lish (by Tish) or the Broadway Roastery in it. But obviously living here has infused my experience of life. My four children were born here. I’m more involved in the life here. I’m a more social creature here than I ever was, let’s say, in Montreal. For example, you mentioned Charlie Clark. I know him personally. I know the president of the university. That greater social involvement has infused my experience of life and will eventually show itself in my books, but not in a literal way.

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Seated at a black Steigerman piano, BJ Harris warms up the Joy of Vox choir, a group so large it threatens to spill out of the sizable band room at Centennial Collegiate. He’s warm and enthusiastic, exuding showmanship even in a casual setting.

It’s fitting that Harris, also a substitute teacher, is surrounded by voices. From 1991 to 2002, he was part of another group with a playful X in its name: the a cappella band Streetnix.

Sporting a wild array of ’90s hairstyles, he and his bandmates performed more than 300 shows every year. They found fans at elementary schools and high schools across Canada with voice-only renditions of songs like The Lion Sleeps Tonight and U2’s Mysterious Ways, eventually recording an innovative album of originals.

They weren’t signed by a label, rarely got radio play and didn’t have a music video. But they sold at least 40,000 albums and made $20,000 to $30,000 a month through live shows and album sales. A 2002 StarPhoenix article called them “the most commercially successful independent band in Saskatchewan.”

It’s hard to prove, but they might have been one of the most successful indie acts in the country.

But the band never quite hit the big time. Streetnix disbanded in 2002. It was a disappointment for some in the group, a relief for others. Today, the three longest-serving members reflect on the band’s unique place in Saskatchewan music history.

[Tap card to see the other side]

Leaving music in the past

Aaron Genest

“I don’t really like a cappella music, actually. I’m not a big fan. I don’t really find it that cool.”

Any trace of Aaron Genest’s musical past has disappeared, as the former Streetnix member enjoys a second career in computer science. He would be the least likely of the original three to be up for a reunion tour. He doesn’t regret the experience, but he was ready for the band to end when it did.

“We were going pretty crazily, doing 350 shows a year, on the road 10 months of the year. I didn’t have a fixed address for three or four years,” he said. “You reach that point in your career where you decide whether or not you’re going to be a musician for the rest of your life and try and figure out how to turn that into a pension, or you’re going to do something else.”

The thing that kept him invested in Streetnix toward the end was the shift to original music that pushed a cappella boundaries. He remembers with joy the last time Streetnix had to perform The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

“I think it was ’96 or ’97 before we sang The Lion Sleeps Tonight for the last time. I remember thinking to myself, ‘This is the last time I have to sing this song.’ I was over the moon.”

A 1994 promo shot of Streenix featuring Tony Hughes (from left), BJ Harris, Aaron Genest and Dave Young.

That unforgettable feeling

Tony Hughes is a stay-at-home dad with two young children, but he’s never forgotten the feeling of having an audience in the palm of his hand.

Today he doesn’t do much performing.

Tony Hughes

“Maybe there’s only so many performances a human can do in the course of their life,” he said.

When Streetnix ended, Hughes left to manage its spinoff group Hoja. He thought he’d enjoy a nice office job, but often found himself filling in as a singer for the group. He eventually moved to Winnipeg and parted ways with Hoja, though they still call him about once a year to play a gig.

Hughes tried his first solo performance in 2014 with a Fringe play. He had done plenty of Fringe shows with Streetnix and thought he knew what to expect. A lot had changed.

“As soon as I started doing it I thought, ‘Holy crap, I’m so unprepared for this,’ ” he said. “When Streetnix did it, it was ragtag, loosey goosey. But now the bar is so high.”

It didn’t hit Hughes’ high expectations, but it was a great way to show family and friends what he had devoted a decade of his life to. He has more performance ideas, but they’ll have to wait until his kids, aged two and five, are a bit older.

[Tap card to see the other side]

The way to a girl’s heart

Streetnix traces its history back to Aden Bowman Collegiate. Several boys from the choir, among them Genest, formed an a cappella group and started performing at school events.

“Here were a bunch of geeky guys who were musicians, who suddenly realized that other people thought it was cool when we sang without instruments,” Genest said.

Hughes, who wasn’t a member yet, was not impressed.

“I thought, ‘What the hell is this? This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. These guys are dorks.’ “

He had a different reaction the next time he saw them perform at a pep rally.

“The girls lost it. I immediately thought, ‘I’ve got to figure out how to cash in on this because I like singing and I like girls,’ ” he said.

Hughes was a fill-in for the “Beau Men” and joined outright shortly after.

Harris had his doubts about singing as well. He was in the Regina Boys Choir, but didn’t enjoy it. His mom forced him to join the school choir after they moved to Moose Jaw. But by the end of Grade 12 he was also singing in jazz choir and had started an a cappella group.

At the University of Saskatchewan, he struggled in his music history class, at one point having a 36 average. His prof suggested he join a local singing group, hinting that it might improve his mark. That’s where Harris met Genest. He finished with a 51 in the class.

In 1991, engineering student Ward Arnold put up posters looking for singers. Streetnix was born.

“We thought we would hip it up by putting an x on the end,” Harris said with a laugh.

The name was commonly misspelled.

The group began as a six-piece with Rich Sinclair and Xylon Cozens. Their first gig, if Harris remembers correctly, was a fundraiser for Pat Atkinson.

They had no idea when they began that the band would become a full-time job and take the young men all over Canada.

“I’m sure in the dark, remote corners, just before falling asleep people would sometimes hear thunderous applause inside their heads and hope for a career in music, but it certainly didn’t ever seem possible,” Genest said.

Trial by fire

Streetnix lost and gained some members in its first few years. The band went full-time in 1994 as a five-piece. The tour schedule that year included a stint on the Canadian fringe circuit.

“Boy was that a gong show. It was one of those things where if you had known about it beforehand you wouldn’t have done it. But because we had no idea, we just went to it,” Hughes said.

The first show didn’t pay anything, but they were allowed to sell merchandise. They made just enough to get to the next city.

They crashed on couches, slept in cars and ate whatever food they could find. Once, that meant eating promotional Spork — canned pork — from another fringe show that was named after the tinned meat.

“Spork, for the record, is disgusting, but beggars can’t be choosers,” Hughes said.

Genest recalls eating green apples from a nearby orchard because they were so hungry.

Hughes actually remembers those times most fondly.

“It was a series of mishaps and mistakes and fun and adventures. It was awesome,” he said.

A 2000 promo photo of Streenix featuring Tony Hughes, BJ Harris, Aaron Genest and Thom Speck.

Band becomes business

After the fringe tour, booking agent Jim Hodges started working with the group. He first saw them perform at the University of Saskatchewan at the suggestion of a friend.

“When I got there I was actually blown away,” he said. “They were hot, young and good.”

He thought he could help Streetnix sell their show outside of the province.

The group agreed to work with Hodges, who was connected to arts council circuits across Canada.

The band showcased in several Canadian provinces and in the U.S. Streetnix booked a full year of shows the first time the band played the B.C. showcase.

Hodges remembers one buyer making a comment that would define Streetnix’s appeal: “I just want to say this: I hate a cappella. But I love these guys.”

On the showcase circuit, Streetnix was one of the few groups to fire up the notoriously impassive talent buyers.

“You don’t get standing ovations at showcases, because it’s business,” Hodges said. “But they started to get standing ovations wherever they showcased. They were just totally infectious.”

For about five years, B.C. was the band’s hottest market. They also found lots of work in Ontario.

[Tap card to see the other side]

The perfect market

The vast majority of Streetnix’s performances were school shows. The band would play up to three shows a day at various schools. They were also responsible for set up and take down.

In the summer they performed at fairs and exhibitions across the country.

Every so often, the band would get hired for a ladies’ night and Harris suddenly became the heartthrob.

“BJ would get money stuffed in his pants left, right and centre,” Hughes said. “The most horrible thing is for a woman to come up to you with her money out and think, ‘I’m going to get some bucks, this is awesome.’ And she goes ‘Hey, hey, could you give that to BJ?’ ”

The toughest market for the band was the members’ own age bracket.

“College shows would have been a lot more fun. But that was at a time with bands like Nirvana coming out,” Harris said. “Gritty guitars and the alternative scene is what university kids were into. We didn’t ever really fit there.”

A 1998 promo photo of Streetnix featuring Joel Cherland (from left), BJ Harris, Aaron Genest and Tony Hughes.

Surviving constant togetherness

Things could get tense on the road. After a few fights, the band instituted a rule: No talking between show two and show three.

“I know it seems like an unreasonable, silly thing, but it worked really well for us,” Hughes said. “We spent more time together than married couples do. How did we survive that? I don’t know.”

Harris said the group members just got tired of each other.

“Thankfully, no one ever took a swing. We were all kind of wimps that way,” he said.

For the most part the members got along, as long as they weren’t flirting with the same girl or hogging the company computer.

A new direction

Streenix was so popular they turned down up to 200 shows one year. To help with demand, they created Hoja, which still performs today.

Hoja took the pressure off and gave Streetnix, growing weary of its set list, the chance to evolve creatively.

They didn’t want to be called a barber shop group or a boy band.

“We kind of wanted people to see us as a band that doesn’t use instruments rather than some barber shop group,” Harris said.

In 1998, Streetnix released its third album, Ignition. Gone were the Nylons-esque covers. With help from producer (and former 54-40 drummer) Daryl Neudorf and engineer Dave Mockford, the band used technology to create a suite of sounds with the human voice alone. The vocals were digitally manipulated and pieced back together to create a full band sound.

“We were getting tired of playing for kids,” Hughes said. “We didn’t want to be a kids’ group, but we got pigeonholed into that. We wanted to be cool amongst our peers.”

Ignition was voted best pop/rock album that year by the members of the Contemporary A Cappella Society. They were the first Canadian group to win the award. They lost out on their other nomination for best pop/rock song to Rockapella (who performed the Carmen Sandiego theme song).

International recognition from their peers was exciting, but Streetnix also hoped the album would change the way they were viewed as musicians. But it actually made the band harder to market.

“Everyone thought it was really cool, but they didn’t know what to do with us,” Hughes said.

A 1995 promo photo of Steetnix featuring Tony Hughes (from left), Trent Funk, Aaron Genest and BJ Harris.

Time to call it quits

The singers are proud of Ignition, but it signalled the beginning of the end. Hoja was eating into their school show market. The band had a hard time holding onto a fourth member. They were burnt out.

Even with Hodges helping out, the band made some business mistakes and had internal struggles over how they should approach that side of Streetnix.

“It took us a long time to figure that out, and we never did. To this day we have regrets about the way we ran the business, I think,” Genest said.

There were GST hassles with the Canadian Revenue Agency. The band was making money, but little of it was going to the singers. Recording Ignition was also costly. Breaking into the European and Japanese markets stalled. They didn’t make as big an impact in the U.S. as they expected.

Hodges said you could feel the end of the band coming.

“They were frustrated, the debt was a burden, they weren’t making money personally. Something had to break.”

Streetnix’s farewell show was on March 15, 2002 at the Broadway Theatre. But it took another couple of months to wind down all of the band’s commitments.

Former Streetnix member B.J. Harris conducts the 160-voice Joy of Vox choir. (Gord Waldner/Saskatoon StarPhoenix)

A unique experience

Today, only Harris seems keen for a reunion.

“I still think one of these days I’m going to phone everyone up and be like, ‘Hey, let’s do some singing, do a tour,’ ” he said.

Looking back, Hughes, Genest and Harris all seem grateful for Streetnix.

They had memorable shows at Telemiracle, sporting events and music festivals. They opened for groups like The Band and 54-40.

They saw and did things most 20-year-olds never get the chance to do.

“A lot of people my parents’ age are saying, ‘Now that we’ve retired we wish we had travelled more in our 20s,’ ” Harris said.

“Even though I don’t have $7 million tucked away from my Streetnix days, I have just a ton of awesome memories. I have seen all of Canada.”

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BLACK LAKE — John Toutsaint was driving home on an unseasonably warm New Year’s afternoon when the wreckage loomed in front of him.

The road from Stony Rapids to Black Lake.

A car travelling along the icy road connecting the northern Saskatchewan communities of Black Lake and Stony Rapids had plowed into an oncoming half-ton truck with such force that it ripped in half.

Bits of metal littered the road. The driver of the car had been thrown from his seat and lay metres from his mangled vehicle, covered in snow.

Toutsaint threw his truck into park, punched on the emergency lights and ran toward the debris. The Black Lake First Nation band councillor brushed snow off the motionless driver, sure he was dead, and was amazed to discover he was still breathing.

Toutsaint fished in his pockets, found his phone and dialed 911.

His call for help would have been impossible weeks earlier. Cell service didn’t come to Black Lake and Stony Rapids until late December 2015, more than 26 years after cellphones first became operational in the province.

***

Work on the steel towers that would eventually bring cell service to the 1,400 residents of Black Lake and the 300-some people living 20 kilometres away in Stony Rapids began less than a year ago. Even as the structures grew upward, gradually becoming part of the rugged northern Saskatchewan landscape, many living there didn’t believe they were finally getting cell service.

A cell tower in Stony Rapids became operational in December 2015.

Rumours had flown for years that cellphones would one day ring in the remote communities roughly 1,000 kilometres north of Saskatoon. But the incredibly high cost of getting workers and equipment so far north to build cell infrastructure on the unforgiving Canadian Shield had always proved an insurmountable obstacle.

When the two towers were finally complete and the switch flipped, people were euphoric.

“All of a sudden our cellphones started dinging with text messages and everything,” recalled Stony Rapids School principal Kevin O’Brien. “The excitement level was as high as you can imagine.”

It was the end of a two-year, $6-million effort to bring cell service to four communities along Lake Athabasca. As part of the efforts spearheaded by Crown corporation SaskTel and supported by Athabasca Basin Development (which invests in northern Saskatchewan businesses) and Huawei (a private information and communications technology company), cell service was also switched on in Fond-du-Lac and Wollaston Lake in September 2015.

At last, the remote reaches of northern Saskatchewan were connected to the rest of the world.

“I think it’s the best thing that’s happened here,” says Black Lake First Nation business manager Terri-Lynne Beavereye.

Terri-Lynne Beavereye, business manager for the Black Lake First Nation, uses her cellphone on the shore of Black Lake.

Beavereye, like many in the Dene community, had owned a cellphone for years, but couldn’t use it to send texts or make calls until she drove 200 kilometres south to Points North, a pit stop en route to La Ronge.

“All of a sudden I would go beep-beep-beep-beep-beep,” she recalls. Dozens of week-old texts and voice mails would appear on her phone from business contacts who hadn’t remembered — or couldn’t believe — that her phone didn’t work at home.

This year has brought a lot of changes for Beavereye. It’s become easier for her to communicate with business contacts, friends and family members. She’s needed to invest in pants with pockets so she can carry her cellphone at all times. She works more because she can be reached outside the office.

“I don’t know if it’s for the better, but it’s changed the pace here,” she says. “People can’t hide anymore.”

The tight-knit community has changed in other ways, too. People are more often seen with their heads down, noses buried in their phones. Kids who used to constantly dash across the crushed gravel streets to meet friends are doing so less and less.

“Now a lot of them are doing it from the comfort of their bedrooms and living rooms,” says Gloria Sutherland, vice-principal of the Father Porte Memorial Dene School in Black Lake. “People are still interacting, but I think they’re probably spending a lot more time now using their electronics communicating.”

***

With cell towers operational in Black Lake and Stony Rapids, 99 per cent of the province’s population now has cell coverage. The one per cent without includes those travelling along the 200-kilometre stretch of Highway 905 that winds from Black Lake to Points North.

“If you have a flat tire or something happens, you’re completely on your own. So there’s still that problem,” Sutherland says. People making the trek north or south pack food, warm clothing and emergency kits in case the worst happens because it could be hours before another vehicle trundles along the road to provide help.

People in the community say cell coverage along Highway 905 would make the long journey safer and that the need for this will grow as more people travel to and from Black Lake next year, when ground breaks on the long-anticipated Tazi Twé hydroelectric project, which will be the province’s first power production facility entirely on First Nations land.

Despite those concerns, SaskTel spokesman Greg Jacobs says there are no plans to expand service along this route.

It’s sad news for Toutsaint, who knows how cell service along northern roads saves lives.

On that January afternoon when he stood amid the wreckage of the crash, phone in hand, he marvelled at how much worse things could have been.

If he had come across the scene just two weeks earlier, he would have had to jump back into his truck and drive 2o minutes to the Stony Rapids RCMP detachment for help. Instead, Toutsaint stayed at the scene and an ambulance arrived 30 minutes later.

The injured driver was airlifted to Saskatoon, where he began a slow recovery. Two occupants of the half-ton truck were taken to the Stony Rapids Hospital with minor injuries. Toutsaint tucked his phone in his pocket and continued home.

“Cell service here is good,” he says. “Now we want to upgrade it to save lives in the future.”

ahill@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/MsAndreaHill