Swift Current and White Bear
Canadian Dimensions
While villages and cities are located in direct neighbourhood in many places in Germany, the prairies offer a great amound of space - La Reata, for example, officially belongs to White Bear, which is about 25 km away from the Ranch.
Kyle, too - which, unlike White Bear, also has a post office, so La Reata’s postal address is listed there - is more than 30 km away from the ranch.
And if you hear “town” here in Canada, you can’t compare it to a European community - White Bear has about five houses with big yards and a restaurant. And that’s it.
Cowboy-Shopping …
Thanks to the size of the Ranch and the many small and bigger tasks to do at all times I haven’t yet had the urge to actually leave La Reata - it is just too beautiful out here.
But something I noticed early on is, that cowboy boots are really the best kind of shoes available out here. They are high enough to not have blown up dust reaching the feet, there are no laces to collect unwanted plant seeds and the sole is smooth enough to not gather too much dirt even after rain - and in the end, they simply look fabulous.
The decision that I, too, needed a pair of boots for myself was an easy one to make.
The next venue to get shoes like this is Swift Current - a city with more than 15.000 inhabitants (and with that the 5th biggest city in Saskatchewan), but here, too, there is so much space between the buildings that it does not really give off any city vibes.
George dropped me off at Cowtown there - the regional Cowboy-outfitter - while he picked up some other materials we needed around the ranch and the camp.
After trying out a great many pairs and with the help of the nice assistants - who all also knew George - I finally found a pair for myself and am now the proud owner of my own cowboy boots.
… and Chicken Wings
The fact that everybody seems to know George is something I have gotten used to, by now - he has been living over here for quite some time, after all. And the neighbours and many of the people living in close proximity I have met by now, too.
It is still funny when you go to the White Bear Chicken-Wings nights and the owner of the restaurant has come to visit the camp just the other day, on his day off. It is a small, united community here, but open-minded and without fear of meeting “strangers” like me.
I might not be able to join into the old jokes, results of year-long acquaintances, but the mood was wonderful and the chicken wings, too - the restaurant offers a great many different flavours and I was allowed to try out quite a few. Yet, in the end my favourit was still the one I had chosen for myself, chicken wings in honey-garlic sauce with a touch of fire…
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