AMBASSADOR OF SOUTH EASTERN SASKATCHEWAN - PART III
AMBASSADOR OF SOUTH EASTERN SASKATCHEWAN
III.
“Old George’s Hidden Village, Museum and Antiques.”
“Hello, is this Old George?”
“Old George speaking.”
“Hello sir, my name is Blake Berglund, I’ve been by your place a hundred times and have never stopped in - I was hoping you’d be around later today.”
“I’m usually always here, yep, you just come on down, we’ll get ya.”
“It’ll be my wife and me, as well as a camera guy, if that’s alright? We are doing some running around the southeast corner for Tourism Saskatchewan.”
“They talked to me one time. Sure thing, bring your camera, there’s lots to see.”
* * *
We eat the hamburger mole and naan bread that Melanie packed on a service grid road running parallel to the TransCanada. Old George’s homemade iron sign looks like it has oil company origins, its template being 25 feet tall and industrial. One can almost feel its iron heat as the midday sun continues to burn.
Old George’s sign is recognized by all southeastern Saskatchewan, prominently placed outside of his 135 year old mansion. For decades, travellers have taken their eyes off the highway for the longest look possible, reading; OLD WEST HIDDEN VILLAGE OLD GEO’S ANTIQUES MAGNIFICENT PERIOD HOME 1885 WHITEWOOD SASKATCHEWAN CANADA BOX 118 S0G 5C0 Ph 735-8155 BUY SELL. The mansion looming behind the trees and with the collection beginning at the laneway.
I was asked in 2014 by a Toronto music producer if I had ever been to Old Geo’s? His tale of touring through the prairies and making the stop, unexpectedly eating up 6 hours of daylight and traveling back in time, repeatedly referencing Old George whenever we would cross paths.
“Welcome to the messiest goat trail museum you’ve ever been in,” George opens the front door. A note on it reading I am hard of hearing so holler for me.
From the front yard we are pulled into a lifelong transition. George’s collection is abounding and intricate. Random thematic curations from every hinge and hook, ceiling high. As the entry floor creaks, we shift into the house and are ushered into place by George - his points are many and short, a quick little breath between every thought in a pleasing run-on sentence. He is aged among his surroundings. A sepia toned photo of himself as a young man hangs on the inside wall - a tanned and tasselled buckskin coat, a huntsman frontier look complete with beaded cuff-work. A rifle casually across his lap, a child-like face under a stylish wispy mustache and pointed beard, long hair flipping out at shoulder length. His vintage feel is still on display, yellow tinted aviators, a well worn cowboy hat and that lengthy snow white hair.
“...but this is my place, I moved here something like 35 years ago, got this beautiful big old house and the gentleman that built it his name was Benjamin Limoges, so the 17 rooms you’re going to go through right now is the 1885 section of the house.” George points through his labyrinth of findings. Fashion mannequins, spice containers, taxidermy, oil paintings, lamps, leather tooling stacked and stored.
“I quit drinking, quit smoking when I was 19, started collecting junk, if you’ve noticed I didn’t quit collecting junk, some people don’t quit drinking and they don’t quit smoking, well I seem to keep collecting things.” He moves past us into a front dining area holding eras of paper on the table. He picks up a magazine and opens to an article, “Look at that, they even wrote about this place in the Chinese Cosmopolitan.” Sure enough, glossy paper, foreign language, trendy advertisements and Old George.
“There’s 45 windows, 50 doors, 7 staircases, 4 fireplaces, so what you do is you go upstairs, you be snoopy, look in each room, then you go up the stairs and cook, oh it’s hot, then you come back down, make sure you close the doorway, make a u-turn and there’s another stairway that leads you into the kitchen and then when you come out that kitchen door you make another u-turn and it’s a godforsaken mess down in the basement and you go have a look down there.”
I’m out of breath listening.
Melanie walks under the living room centrepiece, a mounted moose head staring down while its rack reaches the ceiling. George sits in a low armchair as we wander through the main floor towards the first staircase, he picks up two strange iron tools resembling hammers used to tack around corners, their handles curving into a C shape. He holds them up, inspects over the tip of his nose as if seeing them for the first time and sets them down again.
Rooms on rooms of collections. Alterations and stair-like platforms for displays. All filled to the corners and each bearing the weight of their own story. Through one doorway two hundred oil lamps, through the next the room of a child. A similar tone in each display as if someone just picked up and walked away. A depth sits beyond each curation forcing an observer to wonder why certain collections are existing together. Paintings of early inhabitants with extraterrestrial like features overlooking a child’s bed and baby carriage. Butterfly collections near shrines of holy figures. Another layer upwards through a much tighter stairwell and glass displays fill an attic. Toy cars, animal pelts, razor blades, wicker baskets, tin signs, badges. A feeling like each vision continues to be added to, as Old George admitted, he has never quit collecting.
New stairwells appear as we head downward towards the basement. The stone foundation twists back around on itself with individually lit glass casings attached to the cellar walls. Colour coordinated vials and bottles behind frosted glass, rows of blue, green, and amber. A layer of coal dust covers it all as the house’s original furnace is still in use. Dimly lit and in need of a good wipe, George’s authenticity is felt in every placement and despite its overwhelming nature you feel a patience throughout the home.
We are greeted by Old George as we make our way up from the cellar and back out the front entrance. His goat trail through the trees opens to a ghost town. Makeshift streetways grown in with grass and boulevards of buildings scooped up, moved in and set down again. Fake fronts, stoops, verandas and pillars recreating a community of characters without one to be seen. A greater accumulation of findings, hand picked and setting the stage, sprawling remnants of hustle and bustle. In an instant, every actor vaporized with cash left in the registers and chips on the table. Store shelves stocked with thousands of cylindrical tins: Alpha Creamed Honey, Empress Apricot Marmalade, Mother’s Apple and Strawberry Jam, Prairie Maid Wax Beans, Helmet Corned Beef, Watkins Breakfast Cocoa, Happy-Vale Moist Mince Meat, and thousands of small square tins of spices. Single room structures to house cookware, tight aisles of coffee perks, stove pots, and oven roasters. Tools of all eras. Merchants and tradesmen, businesses and their signs, squared wooden letters, phone numbers, WHITEWOOD SASKATCHEWAN CANADA. Half-realized art pieces, a grain bin kaleidoscope, coloured vials and lights. Plankwork walkways taken over by sapling trees. LARRY’S BLACKSMITH SHOP, MINERS & TRAPPERS SUPPLIES OWNERS MAIERHOFFER BROS. DANGER POWDER + DYNAMITE, HIDDEN VILLAGE SHERIFF OLD GEO OFFICE 306 735 2255 WHITEWOOD SASK CANADA. Homesteads and hotels, families erased with tables set awaiting dinner. Bones and antler racks as decor, a bed made of caribou legs. More goat trails, a shrine in the woods, a headless Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child, smaller Madonnas. The ANTIQUE GRAVEYARD. A mound of bleached bones, bison skulls. Another sign, WELCOME TO MY DREAM. A wild manifestation, the likes of Dr. Suess, slouching in on itself. Old George, breathing heavy, one step ahead of us.
PISS TANK SALOON, Old George sits in a barber’s chair in yet another solarium of coloured vials and bottles. The sun basks him as he catches his breath, hands across his stomach. The saloon stands as a focal point of his expression, polished bar top and brass, liquor cabinet and corner stage. Gambling and sex work. The same photo of George as a young frontiersman, framed and hanging beside a full size brown bear. Trophy-esque. The room is sweltering but we sit and collect ourselves with George reciting the stories of trinkets and show pieces. Nights where his town came to life, cross country travellers, intermingling strangers, destined to have found the Hidden Village.
One of those visitors, destined to have found Old George suffering a heart attack in the mansion’s kitchen four years ago. Returning to his property after emergency bypass surgery, George has been unable to keep up with his vision. Big ideas halted due to health. THE MUSEUM. A massive structure off the back end of the house, a final home for everything to live out its existence on permanent hiatus. A lumberyard worth of wood, refurbished and unused. You are pulled into his lifelong transition.
What’s going to happen with all of George’s stuff? The thought creeps into the wonder of his world. Generations of prairie life preserved with his twist. To be left as is, a heartache. To renovate or maintain, a fortune. He would undoubtedly have memorabilia deemed priceless by niche collectors or maybe he sits on one item that could fund the all encompassing completion to the piece, for it to live beyond George. Or maybe there isn’t. This will never be to anybody what it is to Old George. It’s all up for interpretation, a twisted wonderworld surrounding him with his hands resting on his chest, smiling like Willy Wonka.
He asks if we would sign his guestbook and we ask if we can sing him a song.
* * *
Our drive south on Highway 9 to Kenosee Lake is quiet. George’s was an experience for the extrovert and we are left with our own thoughts, not to mention, hunger. An apple each helps Melanie and me move through our shortness as we are caught in a back and forth of whether to first set up the camp or order pizza.
An evening to relax would be most successful without cooking or cleaning and as we pull into the last available campsite in the park we agree to divide up the chores and reset. Melanie unpacks while Little Jack and I retrieve supper. A Large Captain’s Choice from The Moosehead was a staple growing up. The resort restaurant uses its supernatural lore as a selling feature to locals and tourists alike - chains dragging down the halls upstairs, chairs thrown across rooms, dishes smashed across the kitchen, one of the most haunted places in Saskatchewan. The ghostly trickery giving a clear hostile message. We pick up our order and decline the invite to return for wing night - the price is right but I’ll hold off until after a pandemic for finger-sucking goodness.
The pizza meat has changed with restaurant ownership and my claim as it being the best pizza in southeastern Saskatchewan could be challenged but it hits the spot nonetheless. The day’s heat dissipates and off the back end of our site the sun dips into a marshland. We hike our chairs down into the reeds, roll up a joint, and think about Old George.
* * *
“Didn’t I pack a second collared shirt for today?” I ask myself while rooting through my canvas duffle.
A veteraned traveller and I somehow packed three pairs of jeans, one t-shirt and a change of underwear and socks. As Melanie disembles the tent and Little Jack awakes from his van, I stand over my bag confused with my lack of thought as to what I am to wear. I repeat yesterday’s attire, a hint of sweat lingering in the fabric.
Our site is cleaned and our vans are moving. As we skipped cooking last night, a morning coffee is also a purchase away. A morning ritual of purchasing coffee from Michael Ellis in Carlyle could never make up for the support he has put in my direction. His coffeeshop, Michael’s Coffee Shop & Bakery, has generously offered me a stage and sent me packing with cinnamon buns for years. My old friend Michael is masked up and excited to see us.
“You know, I never thought I would wear one of these things,” he pulls a black facemask from its packaging, “King’s is selling them now.”
“They are the one thing we can do to bring live music back quicker,” I respond as my own justification to wearing one.
Socially distancing and enjoying an Americano, we are the only patrons to have entered the building with our faces covered. A line-up forming for morning cinnamon buns.
I can overhear comments at neighbouring tables, “the chances of it coming to Carlyle is rare,” as if the Coronavirus could not be bothered. We put our masks back on for a photo wanting to put my arm around Michael but resisting.
Saskatchewan’s mitigation of the virus has been loosely successful thus far. However, low rates of infection and conspiracy theories have rural Saskatchewan acting like it doesn’t exist. I’m confused by the behaviour and fight off desires to be combative over masks as arguing against ideas of control or science denial rarely convinces a mind already made up.
* * *
Our province has fostered a musical boom despite the lack of industry infrastructure. Resilience drives our musical community, especially the venues. The smallest of towns boast of their roles in presenting live music and many are defined by it.
Tucked away off the 33 highway sits Forget (For-jay), a town of a few dozen with their local venue determined to prevail through the pandemic. The Happy Nun was awarded the 2020 Saskatchewan Country Music Associations Venue of the Year for good reason, tonight a sold out show with Tyler Lewis and Morgan Robertson. Tyler, finding national recognition through the Canadian Idol series generously recorded one of my songs on his debut album. I’m happy to see him, sitting with his guitarist as we walk into The Happy Nun for lunch.
Gayla and Leon Gilbertson have the tables spaced out for a fraction of the attendance they would usually attract yet remain their optimistic selves. Leon delivers food portions large enough for two meals each. I devour a Reuben having only had a cinnamon bun for breakfast. We venture the streets for the afternoon with Little Jack using up the last of some purple lomochrome film before making our way back to the venue to catch Morgan’s performance.
The room is filled to a new capacity as meals begin to leave the kitchen, a feeding included with the price of the ticket. Melanie and I grab a couple chairs at the back. It’s bittersweet, too similar to the feeling of Old George’s yet for a whole other reason. Watching people in a room as a musician is about to take the stage feels like a distant past. I always said that as long as I can sing everything will be ok. That outlook feels naive.
Morgan is refreshing. Her youth comes with an innocence on stage. Well rehearsed as she finds her feet in front of a pseudo full house. Her introductions to songs are short and genuine. As I watched the rise of my friends Jess Moskaluke and Tenille Arts, Morgan may be another Southeasterner about to turn heads.
Unable to search out Tyler for a goodbye, I motion to Leon that we are about to hit the road. He mouths a thank you.
Melanie and I grieve our old lifestyle as we are rarely on the road without it being connected to performing. The drive back to Regina is somber. Happy to have spent time with Leon and Gayla, Michael, and Old George, it is hard to see businesses struggle. Happy to have spent time with Greg, it is relieving to see his business boom. We are all navigating uncharted ground but there is an irrepressible spirit unique to our province and its people. We bare down and power through.
We pull back into our parking stall as the sun slips behind the houses across the street. Our venture out into the world was reviving but as we load back inside reality sinks in knowing we may be housebound for much longer than expected.
“Sweetheart, I think we should do some decluttering this fall,” Melanie says, still slightly traumatized by Old George’s estate.
“For sure,” I answer, knowing I’m about to begin filling up every window with bottles - blue, green, yellow and red.
THE END
Thank you to Jenelle Jakobsen and the Tourism Saskatchewan team for seeing Little Jack, Melanie and Me as worthy of representing an area of the province that is dear to us through our own voice. Receiving word that our submitted video footage was described as a love letter is an ultimate compliment to our artistry.
- DBLB
MELANIE BERGLUND - AMBASSADOR OF SOUTH EASTERN SASKATCHEWAN