Stop #8: Prairie Skies

October 21, 2007

The next stop on our virtual tour is one of the Seven Wonders of Canada: The Prairie Skies.

http://www.cbc.ca/sevenwonders/wonder_prairie_skies.html

William Francis Butler was a military officer during the first Riel Rebellion.  In his book The Great Lone Land (1872), he described the prairie skies and landscape as follows:

“No ocean of water in the world can vie with its gorgeous sunsets; no solitude can equal the loneliness of a night-shadowed prairie: one feels the stillness, and hears the silence, the wail of the prowling wolf makes the voice of solitude audible, the stars look down through infinite silence upon a silence almost as intense… One saw here the world as it had taken shape and form from the hands of the Creator. Nor did the scene look less beautiful because nature alone tilled the earth, and the unaided sun brought forth the flowers.”

Here’s a link to an interesting photo album featuring grain elevators of the Prairies: http://www.flickr.com/groups/grainelevators/ and is well worth a visit if you enjoy art photography.

To commemorate our visit to the Prairies, we will create this block:

Prairie Queen

http://www.quilterscache.com/P/PrairieQueenBlock.html

And here's my version: