At first glance, you might think I've interrupted Johnny in the outhouse. But no, this is his home-built ice-fishing shack!
Johnny is 13 and this week I visited the Saskatchewan farm where he lives with his sister, Josephine, and his parents Tom and Judy. He built the shack and can tow it onto the lake by hand -- note the cross-county skis it's sitting on. There's even a stove on the side for heating water to wash his hands after gutting his catch, or for frying the fish for lunch.
The farm has no electricity so oil lamps are used for light and woodstoves deliver the heat. We used horses to haul deadwood from a poplar grove for firewood. The food we ate was pretty much all grown there. (The mustard was particularly flavourful.)
There's no running water on the farm, and call me soft, but it's tough pulling on boots and a coat to trudge to the outhouse at night in February. There's also no TV so I've missed several days of Olympic coverage.
I'm catching up on my TV watching this week in Prince Albert. Go Canada! (And U.S.A., and New Zealand, and Australia, and Great Britain, and Japan, and the Netherlands, and...)
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