Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/303828
joanne blain s u m m e r 2 0 1 4 | w e s t w o r l d 19 and Don who share their love of music. Shannon's parents, Hank and Gyda Nickel, now share the rectory – transformed into a three-room B&B called the Inn of the Seven Sisters – with the Shakotkos and their ener- getic yellow Labrador, Reuben. The inn is named after the French nuns who founded the Couvent St-Joseph across the street in 1905 as a bilingual school for boys and girls. e convent itself has been torn down, but a tiny chapel on the site features a list of the students the nuns taught over the years. I run my finger down the names of students from the 1920s and find my father's and those of a few of my uncles. My cousin Eleanor, a retired linguistics professor from Brandon, Man., who has made the trip to Forget with me, picks out her name from 1949, when she started Grade 1. Later, I visit the Stoughton and District Museum, where I find an undated photo of Forget as it might have looked when my father was growing up nearby. Along a wide dirt road with wooden sidewalks are a three-storey hotel, bank and several storefronts, including a blacksmith shop, general store, post office, butcher shop, restaurant and poolroom. But the Depression and crop failures of the 1930s decimated the town. Most of its 300 or so residents moved away. My father, who never professed any love of farming, left his mother and brothers behind to join the air force in the early 1940s and never looked back. The original homestead is now aban- doned, but my cousin Roger takes me there to see the granary my grandfather built in 1925, its roof collapsing but its thick stone walls still solid. Part of the old wooden farm- house in the photo of the six boys is still standing, although it's been moved off its original foundations, and the windmill that once pumped water into troughs for the cat- tle has folded over on itself, like a marionette whose strings have gone slack. The granary built in 1925 by the writer's grandfather, Emile Blain, inscribed with his name (above). A tiny chapel on the grounds of the now- demolished Couvent St-Joseph in Forget. My trip to southeastern Saskatchewan focused mostly on Forget and Stoughton, where my father grew up. But on our way there from Regina, my cousin Eleanor and I couldn't resist squeezing in a roadtrip. First stop, the Soo Line Historical Museum in Weyburn. Boasting the world's largest private collection of silver, it was bequeathed by local grain farmer Charles Wilson. Its 5,000 pieces are impressive, from tiny salt cellars to massive candelabras. But I was more fascinated by its artifacts from the Saskatchewan Mental Hospital (closed in 2004), including leather restraints and a wall mural painted as therapy by former patient James Eadie. It's a disturbing but enlightening look at the way psychiatric patients were once treated. southcentralmuseums.ca/sooline.html Also in Weyburn is the Turner Curling Museum, housing the personal collection of Don and Elva Turner. My late parents, John and Kay, both avid curlers, would have revelled in the curling rocks dating back to the early 1800s. weyburn.ca We also stopped in tiny Midale, 45 km southeast of Weyburn, to check out the Moser Collection, a captivating hodge- podge of items – from hat pins to bayonets – amassed by Maynard Moser, the town's former barber (and reputedly its bootlegger during Prohibition). Next door is the perfectly preserved office of local physician Dr. William Mainprize that includes a rather frightening collection of old medical instruments. townofmidale.com The doctor was one of the moving forces behind the creation of a park in the area, eventually named Mainprize Regional Park. We spent the night at Harbour View Bed and Breakfast, which really does have a view of a man-made reservoir and golf course in the middle of seemingly endless farmland. harbourviewbandb.ca –J.B. SOUTHEAST SURPRISES The Moser Collection's licence plates. p16-21_Getaways.indd 19 14-04-11 3:12 PM