#10: Long Gone to Saskatchewan

There's potash under there.  Take my word for it.

The sound track as we were driving into Saskatoon, was Corb Lund's Long Gone to Saskatchewan. 

Considering that we were jockeying through more traffic that we have previously experienced in Saskatoon, this was perfect -- a song about a guy who comes to Saskatchwan looking for opportunities he can't find back in Alberta.  The trucks on Circle Drive told us that he - and a lot of others - had come to the right place.

It's all about potash.  It turns out that this province, formerly known just for big fields of wheat and canola, is solidly potash a couple of thousand feet down. Fertilizer producers the world over the world need this stuff. and suddenly Saskatchwan is giving new meaning to the expression "resource based".



Patick looks like a SaskEnergy angel in his reflective suit.

There are other resources, too, as we discovered when we went to Patrick's workplace, a natural gas sequestering site at Asquith, just outside the city.  Patrick, a millwright, maintains the huge engine that compresses the gas which is stored underground in cavities washed out of potash deposits.  (Potash again.  It's everywhere.) 

Our Asquith lunch at The Vault, a Vietnamese restaurant in an old rural bank, was memorable too.  The place was packed.  I noted a group of older ladies celebrating a birthday,  a road crew in vivid orange safety vests,  and a table of suitably attired cowboys.  Still wearing their big black stetsons, they dug appreciatively into bowls of noodles, barbequed meat and fish sauce.  Then they headed out to their horse trailers. I just could imagine Corb Lund on their truck radios as they pulled onto the highway.