A WEEKEND IN THE PRAIRIES
Location: Shellbrook, Sasketchewan
Date: May 2014
Camera: iPhone 4
Lenses: N/A
Since moving to Tokyo, something that has never ceased to amuse and puzzle me, is the usage of the Japanese word inaka, meaning “countryside.”
Most people from the Tokyo area or some other big city—perhaps Sapporo or Osaka—tend to refer to suburbs with populations of hundreds of thousands of people as the “countryside.” To them, a town like Kisarazu, with a population of over 100,000 and a population density of 980 persons per square kilometer, or even Tokorozawa, with over 300,000 people and a density of 4,761 per square kilometer, is somehow the equivalent to a region like Hokuto in Yamanashi, where there are fewer than 50,000 residents and a population density of 78 inhabitants per square kilometer. What’s more, is that it doesn’t seem to matter that Tokorozawa, for example, is a mere 20 minutes by train to the massive urban hub of Ikebukuro. It simply isn’t a factor.
It is primarily for this reason, that I get such a kick out of showing Japanese folk whereabouts my parents grew up.
At 1,780,650 square kilometers, the Canadian prairies are almost 5 times larger than the whole of Japan. The entire province of Saskatchewan, which accounts for only about 37% of the prairies, has a population density of under 2 people per square kilometre. As such, in comparison to Japan, the prairies are undoubtedly “the middle of nowhere.”
My most recent visit (the better part of a decade ago) was to Shellbrook in May 2014 to celebrate my grandfather’s 90th birthday. There, my family stayed at my uncle’s place next to his honey farm. It was the first time I’d visited the town or province with a camera (in the form of an iPhone 4) and I felt a newfound appreciation for the surroundings, which were so very different than Greater Vancouver, where I was born and raised. The prairies really are a neat place to visit… for not more than a couple days or so.
I didn’t know then that it would be the last time I’d see my grandpa, grandma or a couple other relatives. I wish I had captured more than just scenery, but in any case, I’m glad to have captured something to help me hang onto the memory.
