Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Medicine Hat, Alberta

M. It is a stellar day, bright sunshine under the clear blue dome of sky, and enough breezes to enjoy without having to be tied down. Even the locals said the wind had been terrible. Such nice people.

Today we drove into the historic area of Medicine Hat, Alberta. The wide and muddy South Saskatchewan River has cut deeply into the earth and the town is located in the river valley. From the plain or mesa above, you’d not know the town was there. The name is derived from an Indian legend.

We visited the historic clay district, the area’s first industry, and we toured the Medalta site and the large beehive kilns that produced everything from sewer pipes and pressed brick, to telephone pole insulators, WWII army mess settings, water coolers, butter churners, umbrella stands, chicken feeders, hotel settings, to crocks and bowls and bed pigs. What is a bed pig? A stoneware water bottle for those cold nights when it is windy and 40 below outside!

The kilns were very interesting; how they channeled the heat from multiple gas heaters along the bottom of the structure to a central chimney; the different sized cones used to determine the heat, etc. I have several friends who are potters and I was glad to have familiarity with many of the terms, but the scale of the production was amazing.

A railroad line ran along side the main building delivering white clay and picking up the finished products for distribution throughout Canada, and indeed the world. Inside there were more rails connecting various points in the production process, gears, pulleys, chutes – all very sophisticated, all designed for mass production. Production utilized natural gas to heat the kilns, a piped-in resource of the area.

Most of the standard pieces like the crocks were made using molds, the root beer bottles were thrown by hand – the gentleman puffed on his pipe while turning out 600 a day. When the owner told him he didn’t approve of smoking, to stop or be fired, the fellow walked out. The owner made an exception to the rule the very next day.

I recognized one of the patterns and the guide said that different pieces of that pattern, available in six colors, were free inside a box of Tide. It was fascinating, and I regretted that my potter friends were not there to enjoy it.

W. Margaret is much more knowledgeable than I about this pottery-making thing, so I asked her to write the first part. I just stood around asking dumb questions! There were only four of us on this particular tour – a couple from San Diego, CA, and us. The lady has been a potter for over 34 years and was in seventh-heaven!

Among the miscellaneous things learned: -40 Celsius is equal to -40 Fahrenheit. I’m sure I knew that once but since it was totally academic (growing up in Florida), I didn’t retain that information. Here, it is not an academic issue! As the tour guide said, in Medicine Hat, the temperature ranges from -40 to +40 degrees Celsius (-40 F to +104 F).

Yesterday morning I was sure I heard thunder, but when I looked outside, it was blue sky from horizon to horizon. Today, our tour guide mentioned that the UK Commonwealth’s largest military training base was only about 18 miles west of us and that they frequently announce when they’ll be having bombing practice. I asked about yesterday’s sound and he confirmed that was what it was!

Another interesting relic of WWII is in regard to the above mentioned training base west of here. The South Saskatchewan River flows through the base and the topography is similar to the Rhine in Germany – thus the desirability of training here, that and the miles of open terrain in which to drill.

We’ve seen lots of fair-haired folks here. I thought maybe they were of Scottish descent (easier to immigrate from one part of the UK to another?), but the tour guide said that a large portion of the local populace were German descendents.

Tomorrow we head towards Calgary. We picked out several possible campgrounds just east of town. With the Calgary stampede scheduled to start on July 6th, we probably won’t be able to find an empty spot anywhere close to Calgary after the middle of next week. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but for the moment, we’re going to try and stay in the vicinity so we can see Calgary and the dinosaur digs northeast of Calgary.

Excitement! Our campsite is on a promontory overlooking the South Saskatchewan river (although we can’t see if from inside the camper). Anyway, about 5 minutes ago, while Suki was out wandering, a red pickup went flying by, stopped and went flying backwards. Followed shortly by two guys with the word POLICE on their shirts headed down the hill, yelling into their radios, “Shots fired.” And we heard the shots – four of them in fact! Finally, as one of the policemen ran by, I asked if we should be worried and said we were good. We’re now watching the local news to see if there are any details.

More details. After learning the coast was clear, we went to the crest to see what we could see (typical lookey-loos!). A policeman came up the hill talking on his radio – “We have the two bodies(?) in custody and we shot the dog.” He asked us and another couple if we’d seen anything. We hadn’t but the others had and said they saw a man running with a pit bull climb over the fence and head down the slope. The policeman said that was what they were after and they’d be back to interview the couple. So, it was a pit bull the police shot and the owners(?) were in custody. At this point it doesn’t appear they shot anyone – just the dog.

Finally, the first photo is of the four kilns at the Medalta facility. The second is of some of the clay products made – including the “bed pigs” (the three horizontal vessels at right-center).

That’s enough excitement for one day. I’ll stop and see if I can send this out using my Verizon PC card.