After amusing the trout of the Bow River today and Monday with my hilarious imitation of a fly fisher, I drove back to Edmonton via MacLeod Trail, taking me just to the east of Calgary's downtown before rejoining Highway 2 northbound at 16th Ave. North and the Deerfoot Trail.

An eye-opening majority of fast-food joints and other service industry businesses had signs up looking for help, advertising either "above-average" or "top" wages.

If you live in a place like Toronto long enough and you never leave, you might start thinking there are between six and 10 stars in the skies.  You are wrong. To cleanse yourself of the perception-limiting effects of light pollution, follow these simple steps:

1. Drive Highway 7 (Sask.)/Hwy. 9 (Alta.) between Kindersley, Sask. and Hanna, Alta. (I was en route from Saskatoon to Calgary) on a clear summer night after dark (this Google map link is centred around Oyen, Alta., pop. 1,099).

2. Somewhere around Alsask, or as far east as Youngstown, pick a place where the farmyard lights are miles and miles apart. It isn't hard to do; you're in the heart of the Palliser Triangle, one of the most sparsely populated non-wilderness areas in this country.

3. There will be little side roads leading off into the wheat fields. Watch for the turnoffs, and if the weather's dry, get off the highway so you aren't hit by the lights of passing vehicles.

4. Turn off your vehicle's lights and the engine.

5. Look up. W-a-a-a-a-y up. You'll see stars. Millions of stars. Big ones, small ones, even carpets and caravans and constellations of stars (you'll be too far south for the northern lights, unfortunately).

6. If it's a moonless night, walk away from your vehicle. Even with the starlight, the blackness will almost swallow it up. Depending on the time of day, there will be a brush stroke of fading violet blue illuminating the horizon to the northwest, while everything south is a void. There isn't much vehicle traffic, so the only sounds you'll hear will come from crickets and birds.

7. Stay until your sense of cosmic wonder is restored or you're creeped out -- whichever comes first. :)

8. Finally, stand up on your tippy toes, reach up and try to touch the stars. They are millions of light years away, but they'll appear to be just dancing out of reach of your fingers.

Addendum

For a soundtrack while driving through this region, you can use pretty much any Corb Lund CD, but I was listening to Modern Pain. The song Manyberries (Manyberries is at least 140 km south of Oyen, but in the same type of hardcore plains country) fits the rhythm and the spirit of the region quite nicely.