ABSTRACT
Mary Heimstra’s (1955) pang of loss is one of the primary impetuses behind publicly protected heritage areas (PHA) in North America. In Saskatchewan, where Heimstra’s family settled in 1904, it was the children of the original settlers who sharply felt this loss. As they reached the end of their active lives, they undertook the rituals of their age – burying parents and remembering their own initiation to the place they learned to call home. And they, and their children, took action to remember and honour their home and its creators. The family picnic sites, berry-picking patches, community rodeo grounds, swimming holes, the beaches on the fish-stocked reservoirs created by the federal Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act (PFRA), these remnants of ‘God’s own garden’ and those human-created contributions to it, were made into regional parks. Unguided by any national or even provincial organization, local communities identified these special places that spoke to the achievements of their pioneer forebears – the transformation of a wild place to a productive home. The children and grandchildren made sure there were places of memory and reflection on their good life.
