'You can hear God speak' in abandoned community.

GREEN, YELLOW AND lavender blue, with patches of brown are the dominant colours of Saskatchewan from my airplane window on this bright mid-July day. Rev. Joanne Beacon, parish priest of St. Andrews's, Humboldt, explains that the green patches are mostly wheat and oat fields that have yet to turn golden yellow; the bright yellow are canola and the lavender blue are not rivers but flax fields. The brown patches are farmlands that are either fallow or, in some areas, destroyed by snow and more recently, spring floods. I have learned a new word--slough. It is the small bodies of water that I see mostly around barren fields; they are fresh water from rain or melting snow that didn't dry up but turned into stagnant swamps or ponds.

From above it doesn't look like the farmers of the so-called "bread basket of Canada" are struggling. But in early spring a tiny news story appeared that Saskatchewan's ministry of agriculture had increased the suicide hotlines for farmers in flood-stricken areas struggling with depression over the potential loss of land that had been with the family for generations.

MS. BEACON TAKES me to what she calls a special place--St. Peter's, Mancroft, located approximately five miles southwest of Humboldt. The green rolling hills, occasionally dotted by barns and houses now empty, is breathtaking in its otherworldliness. There used to be a vibrant community here 100 years ago. St. Peter's was built in 1907 to minister to homesteaders. Today, the people (save for a family or two, including a recent transplant from Belfast) are gone.

"You can hear God speak here," said Ms. Beacon, gazing at the expanse that surrounds the tiny church, which sits on a hillock. Behind St. Peter's is a cemetery, where the descendants of the early settlers are buried. On special occasions, Ms. Beacon holds services at St. Peter's, which has been maintained as a "living reminder of the pioneer beginnings of Saskatchewan Anglicans."

Ms. Beacon talks about an emotional visit to England, where she met some of the people who donated money to build the early churches in Humboldt. "I told them I was from Canada and I thanked them and they were surprised and happy to hear that I came from a church they helped built," she said.

MS. BEACON AND I stop for gas at a co-op. Co-operatives are part of the time-honoured tradition of Saskatchewan; the province has nearly 20 per cent of all co-operative associations in Canada, according to the Canadian encyclopedia.

"It's key to our survival. We have to help one another and that goes for churches here too," says Ms. Beacon.

I READ SOMEWHERE that Saskatchewan has more roads per capita than anywhere else in Canada. No kidding. Ms. Beacon averages 2,000 km of travel each month to fulfill her duties as rural priest. "That translates into a lot of wear and tear in your car," she says. "The diocese has done its best to offset some of that. We have a unique travel pooling system that helps relieve some of the cost of that from the parish and balances it a little bit. But it's a continual challenge because the cost of fuel isn't going down." But travel and visit she must. "The church puts a lot of trust in a rural parish and priest. I have to be the church here," said Ms. Beacon.

Note: A longer version of the Saskatchewan Notebook and a photo gallery can be found at www.anglicanjournal.com.

MARITES N. SISON

STAFF WRITER