Growing up in small-town Saskatchewan, one of my earliest memories was driving down gravel roads in my dad’s old Ford truck. He had an acreage on the edge of the Qu’Appelle valley and there were times we’d go driving on roads that were little more than tracks in the grass. On the top of the valley, Dad used to occasionally let me, the oldest child, sit and steer the truck across his property. I started out sitting in his lap and then, as I got older, was eventually allowed to drive on the acreage roads myself, with Dad beside me keeping a watchful eye on me!

For many children in Saskatchewan, those times spent out with our fathers were our first driving lessons, often started a decade before we would be eligible to actually take driving lessons and get that coveted Learner’s License. Any child whose parents owned a farm or acreage had so much open private property that it just made sense to take advantage of it. And those bonding moments with my dad driving around in that old Ford truck remain some of my favourite memories of time spent with him to this day. [Read more…]