Spending a week in the big city comes with certain expectations. Number one on the list would be to set aside prairie life for a week and achieve total immersion in the urban experience.
However, I discovered during a recent vacation in Vancouver that that can be more easily said than done.
Sure, the skyscraper forests, non-stop traffic and bustling sidewalks — not to mention ubiquitous ocean views — made it quite clear I was no longer in Saskatchewan.
But try as I might, reminders of my prairie homeland kept popping up in the most unlikely of places.
For instance, on our first day in the metropolis, we walked past a sign for Moltan Roll Bar + Sake, and my first thought was, “what does Japanese alcohol have to do with safety devices installed on off-road vehicles?”
It didn’t take long to figure out it was actually a sushi restaurant, but it was interesting where my mind stopped first.
By the time I walked by another building with the sign Tractor, I was hip enough to know from the restaurant tables in the window that it wasn’t a farm implement dealership but yet another eatery, this time serving up salad bowls, soups, stews and sandwiches.
The prairie ambush even happened while visiting a downtown condo.
The very urban living space featured a gas fireplace, but we were told the building isn’t set up for natural gas. Instead, fuel is poured into the fireplace the way one would fill up a gasoline-powered lawnmower. Only, in this case, it was ethanol. Like I said, reminders of prairie agriculture were popping up in the strangest of places.
One of the shops we visited at the artsy Granville Island Market sold handmade straw brooms.
These aren’t the shop brooms you buy at Peavey Mart. Many of them are round rather than the usual flat style, and some of the ornately crafted wooden handles looked like they would be more at home hanging on an art gallery wall than sitting in the back porch.
The straw comes from northern Mexico, but of course my mind immediately asked, “why not the Prairies? We have lots of straw.”
It was yet another reminder that the Prairies refuse to remain at home, even while at the seaside.
