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I’m into answers. On this mule journey, I’m learning more about the Lost Sea, the sea that, millions of years ago, stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Sea. I want to know why the baculite fossil has that funny tube at the top (It helped the critter regulate its buoyancy as it navigated the Lost Sea). I want to know why the Lost Sea Wagon squeaks so badly that, when it drops into a gopher hole, it deafens Prairie Dog Town (I haven’t greased the springs).


“what’s that noise, bernie…?”

Still, there are mysteries I don’t want answered because, as much as I pride myself in being Answer Driven, I just like that little void feeling of being stumped out here on the Great Wide Open. It gives the mind something to chew on as the needle-and-thread grass rolls by and the tumbleweeds bounce toward the horizon.

Take Ted’s bottle.

The Great Plains are known for terrific winds and rain. The other stormy day, Ted and Gertie Fladeland of Glamar offered to put mule Polly up in their barn. After Polly was bedded down hock-deep in Canadian straw, Ted brought me inside to thaw out.


Ted’s barn


Ted and Polly

Now you have to understand that the folks I’m visiting are a self-entertaining bunch. Of good Norwegian stock, the Fladeland clan, especially Ted, spend their cold rainy days, not hovering over a computer or TV, but working in the shop. Ted’s forte is woodwork.

With me parked at the kitchen table, coffee cup in hand, he showed me his handiwork.


Ted Fladeland
Gladmar, SK

First came, “tables and chairs for little folks that move a lot.” Ted showed me a block of wood he’d sawed into three tables and six matching chairs. Apart, they could have furnished a Lilliputian apartment for eight.



Together, they made a block of wood that fit into Ted’s palm. There was no blue-print for this treasure. Rather, Ted worked it all out in his head.


Stacked furniture

Impressive.

Then I saw the bottle.

“How did I do it?” Ted asked, handing me a glass bottle with an arrow shot through it.

Hmmm….

I inspected the bottle and missile. No tricks here. It was just a bottle with a hole in it and an arrow thrust through the opening. The arrow’s fletches and head were larger than the hole.

Hmmm…

“I didn’t glue it,” Ted offered as I inspected the arrow, searching for a tell-tale glue line where the arrow had been split, pushed through the bottle and reassembled. “In fact I guarantee you that you can send it to whatever lab you want and have it analyzed.”

Hmmm….

Ted went on to show me a whole array of objects he’d shot arrows through. Washers, bottles, even a pair of shot glasses.



The real mind blower was an arrow shot through an arrow that had already pierced a bottle.



This arrow and bottle thing was turning out to be a real stumper. Finally, I broke down and asked Ted how he’d pulled off the stunt.

“Well,” he said with a wink and a hint of a Norwegian accent, “I put a bottle on Gertie’s head. Then I put an arrow in my bow and, while Gertie stands real still, I shoot that arrow right through the bottle.”

“No really,” I tried again, “How do you do it?”

“Like I said, I put a bottle on Gertie’s head…” This time I got the hint. Ted was handing me a gift. A secret to be pondered as I traveled across the Plains.

The next day the weather cleared and Ted sent me up the road – yes with a bottled arrow. I tucked it onto a shelf of the Lost Sea wagon, just by the front door, where I could pull it out on the straight stretches of road. As the prairie rolled slowly by, I inspected, and reinspected, the Great Plains oddity. I still haven’t figured out how Ted got that arrow through the bottle.

And I don’t want to. Here’s why.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to do the obvious, hamfisted thing to solve the arrow-through-the-bottle mystery. Nope, I’m not going to Google articles on how to stick an arrow through a bottle. Because that would ruin the mystery that adds to the magic of a guy being able to roll over these prairies, passing the time, no, not with an iPod crammed in his ears, but twirling a bottle around an arrow. A bottle that had an arrow shot through it by a Norwegian with a wife that didn’t finch. Now that’s something to be savoured.

So please, don’t email me saying “I know how Ted did it!” That would ruin the magic of traveling through a land where folks still know how to keep themselves, and wagons passing through, occupied.


Bernie and Polly take a Prairie Mystery Break
Neptune, SK

Any ideas how Ted did it? Please don’t tell me.

Have a great day and enjoy the mysteries that carry you across your personal Great Plains.

Bernie
RiverEarth.com
In Plentywood, Montana getting Polly harnessed to go to the drive-in theater

PS: Thanks Ted and Gertie Fladeland for sheltering and entertaining mule Polly and me this week. Bernie

Radville, Saskatchewan is a town of about 800 nestled fifty miles north of Plenytwood Montana. I’ve spent the past week here, guest of the town, preparing mule Polly for the Lost Sea Expedition.

First, thanks loads to Mayor Dave and everyone else who came out to visit with mule Polly and me last night. According to Jeannette Verhelst, “We were cooking up hamburgers so fast in the Zamboni room we had to keep sending back to the Co-op for more.” The Zamboni is an ice-grooming machine that keeps Radville’s curling and skating rinks in top condition. The Co-op is the grocery store.

Thanks, also, to the kid in the hamburger line that informed me she’d taken a donkey into the rec center for the Christmas Nativity scene. Yep, that got me thinking…


Food for thought. Heck, the wagon was alread in there…

So that’s right, we brought mule Polly inside.


Mule Polly shamelessly working the young crowd

Okay, now back to Radville.

Here’s mule Polly and my favorite things about the prairie town.

Coolest sign we haven’t figured out:
Cattle-Lack Ranch Supplies


Favorite place for a Fish Sandwich (I think it was whiting, not Lost Sea shark):
She Ray’s Snack Shack


Favorite abandoned grain elevator:
We had to travel to Brooking for that. Radville’s elevators have been removed.

Brooking elevator
Outside Radville, SK


Minimum weight


Promise


Mill scale and abandoned homestead

Place mule Polly and I will go bowling next time we’re in town. (Yes, I’ll make Polly wear her rubber shoes…):
The Alley Oop Bowling Center


Favorite sculpture:
Bucephalus by reknown Radville stone sculpturer Scott McCleod.
Scott carved this sculpture from a piece of petrified coral, a remnant of the Lost Sea. It came from six miles outside Neptune, a fitting send off I figured – a stone horse from the Lost Sea. Bucephalus was Alexander the Great’s mount. Scott made no mention of carving a mule in honor of Captain Bernie.


Coolest fire truck:
Unit #1
This one’s for fighting stationary fires only. It reportedly doesn’t “pump and run”, a fire truck skill needed in this prairie fire prone land. Around Radville, the volunteer fire fighters have to chase down their blazes.


Best place to have your remains scattered:
Radville Laurier Scattering Garden
(Note: You must be cremated before you can be scattered.)


Largest camera: Lindsay Hoemsen – Okay, so she came from CTV television in Regina…


Now, for the Expedition.

Today, mule Polly and I strike off for Neptune, Saskatchewan. It’s blowing a Lost Sea gale, with gusts over 35-mph reported. Hazards to navigation include tumbleweeds, dust clouds and we just narrowly missed a bow-on collision with a wind-blown fertilizer bag. Fortunately it was empty.


“we’re going where…”
Mule Polly questions Bernie and Albert’s motives

From Neptune, we slip into the Sea of Grain, climb a 10,000 year-old glacier moraine and roll toward Lake Alma, Gladmar and Regway. A sailor gets lonely here at sea so if you’re in the area and feel like dropping in for a chat, or picking up a copy of the “Woody and Maggie” book, remember to bring Polly a carrot. Okay, if you want a copy of the book and don’t feel like trekkng across the plains, just click on the link above and I’ll send you a copy from the General Store.

Have a great week in whatever sea your in. I’ll check in with you next time I drop the hook.

(Traveling by mule isn’t a solitary ordeal. In fact, it takes a whole army of folks to see me across the Great Plains. I’d like to thank all the folks who’ve made my stay in Radville such a treat. Thanks Vic and Jeannette Verhelst for hosting me, Ray and Jeannette Galarneau for hosting mule Polly, and to everyone else, I say “Fair winds and thanks for helping me with my dock lines!”
Captain Bernie
Radville, Saskatchewan
May 2, 2007