We’ve been busy the last several days, banging away on abandoned objects and in abandoned places. We stayed at a brilliant little B&B on a horse ranch outside Kindersley where they had accommodating hosts and an extensive junk pile. We were directed by our hosts to a site about a mile away where three combines which date back to the 1950’s have been left to rust away. We had a picnic dinner (which included local buffalo sausage – tasty!)   and banged away on oxidized combine harvesters for hours, watching the sun go down into a distant red mist and we made our way back watching a red harvest moon rise awesomely over the distant plains.

On Saturday we detoured from our route to Saskatoon and went to the ghost town of Fusilier, Saskatchewan – Population 0. I learned about Fusliier through this great website about Ghost towns in Saskatchewan . I learned that

Every once in a while visitors to the area, noticing the old grain elevator from a distance, will come into the old townsite. They will walk around the dusty streets and poke around in the abandoned buildings. When the enter the community hall, they still find a dozen old-style theatre seats – waiting for occupants that never come. On the wall, there is a homecoming sign, welcoming people to the 1971 event.”Anybody that wants to use the hall, I let them for free,” said Zlatner. “I was going to put a dance on but who would come to dance?”

This seemed like an excellent place to go.

We took our time looking around – I climbed the grain elevator and saw an owl – and then made our way to the community hall where there was electricity as promised and an excellent acoustical environment. We set up the van and loaded in and spent the afternoon and into the evening playing drums in the disused space. There were beat up chairs and a striped stage curtain and nobody else for miles around.

I can’t even describe how cool it was to find this space and just be able to use it – wander around, establish ourselves and get comfortable. We just loaded in and threw down and it was a great afternoon of playing toether and bringing some life back to a space which had once thrived with it. The hall was a warm, resonant, welcoming enclosure in the spread of fields and prairie sun. Yes, there are recordings – patience.

In the end we played ourselves out and made our way to Saskatoon, where it is awesome. Tomorrow we move on.