Picturepostcards from the Touchwood Hills

By Wes Hartley

Standardsize postcard. Colorful historic map of Saskatchewan. A star graffitied middleway between Saskatoon and Yorkton, an inch or so above and a little to the right of Fort Qu’Appelle. Caption on flipside. Saskatchewan, The Prairie Province.

July 27th. Sunday afternoon. Deplane at Regina terminal. Brilliant prairie sunlight, zero humidity. Sweltering windblown pooltable flatness, sky everywhere but under foot. Buy a doublehandful of prairie picturepostcards of assorted sizes and a packet of index cards to scribble notes on.

I’m greeted inside the terminal by easygoing easy-on-the-eyes Casey, the resident horsewrangler at the queer guest ranch. Casey has been dispatched by My Man Ty, The Chef at the ranch, to escort me to the ranch in the lavender-pink stretch limo shuttle van. Case tells me that The Cook is on kitchen duty until after suppertime tonight. Our planned five-day holiday starts tomorrow morning. It’s gonna be hot. . .

The Rowdy Prairie Fairy

Casey is the nephew of the lesbian senior who owns Touchwood Hills Guest Ranch. The Cook’s teaser letters about Horsy Casey weren’t just vanilla porno. The wrangler is superfriendly. His Saskatchewan homeboy persona and awesome whiteblond whiteboy whiteness are dazzling. Ty described Case as “an XL-size snowyblond killergood-looking bullriderjock.” Case likes older men, “mature intellectual silvertip grizz-types.” Ty has reportedly told Case all about me, his best pal.

I’m installed in the shuttlevan, riding shotgun alongside Big Casey. I’m the only passenger. As we careen north toward the Qu’Appelle River, Case keeps checking me out and beaming his whitehot welcome smile across at me. The humpy horsyboy likes me a lot. Ty predicted he would. A rattlesnake stirs and flexes its coils in the bulged-out crotch of Casey’s supertight Wranglers. I almost hear rattling. . .

Standardsize scenic postcard. Turquoise blue and yellowgold tall sky prairiescape cut across diagonally by a splitrail and pinepole Russell fence. Beyond the fence an endless expanse of ripe wheat. Caption on address side. Saskatchewan wheat field at harvest time.

Sunday afternoon. En route to Touchwood Hills Queer Guest Ranch. (Touchwood is the oldenday term for highly inflammable tinder.) Notorious prairie two-dimensionality, kinda hot. My awesome welcomer and escort is yesterday’s duderanch broncobuster Casey. This Casey, is twentyfour, six feet three, and weighs maybe two hundred forty pounds in his jockstrap. He’s all muscle with skyblue eyes, cute little nose, kiss-me lips, and whiteblond curls in long springy coils like sheepwool. He’s decked out blue and white checkerboard cowboyshirt and way-too-tight Wranglers. He’s got a barrelchest, bulging pecs, incredibly tapering torso, huge butt, hulking thighs, and sports brandnew grey-suede pointytoe boots. Case is the resident horsy wrangler at the ranch. He’s a bullrider and gold buckle winner and is he’s into Nietzsche, keeps a barn owl, and is vegan same as me. An Aquariusboy. I can’t breathe. . .

The Smitten Greenhorn

“Trailmap notations.”

THE SANDFORD FLEMING EXPEDITION, 1872. Between Fort Ellice and the South Saskatchewan River.

Plains flanked by ridges of drift hills partially wooded and enclosing swampy ground. Aspen poplars, birches, and willows in clumps give the countryside a parklike aspect. Abundant leguminous flora on the raised prairies, members of the rose family in the valleys. Good black loam in the hollows, rich pasturage, abundant water. Drift as much as 100 feet thick consists of sand, clay, and boulders of various sizes.

Oversize scenic picturepostcard. Magenta and golden midsummer vista of undulating shortgrass prairie at sunset. Horses grazing. Cattle in the distance. Text on verso in tiny print in upper left corner. Touchwood Hills Guest Ranch encloses four thousand hectares on the eastern margin of central Saskatchewan’s legendary Touchwood Plateau. The southwestern boundary of the ranch is close to the historic Red River Cart Trail of The Overlanders which extended three hundred and seven miles northwestward from old Fort Ellice on the Assiniboine River past old Fort Touchwood and on to old Fort Carlton on the North Saskatchewan River. The thriving horsebreeding and cattleraising working ranch was established in 1904 by the greatgrandsire of the present owner.

Arrive at Touchwood Hills Guest Ranch. The low-rise sprawling dining hall abuts the grand four storey main building. It’s suppertime. It’s the peak of the season, the ranch is booked to full occupancy, and the weekender cowboys and cowgirls are heading to the chuckwagon to chow down. Case escorts me into the steamy kitchen where Ty The Cook works his culinary wonders among the chilipots and skillets. Bearhugs, buttpats, and lingering mouthkisses get swapped. High-spirited Saskatchewan horseplay and hilarity are indulged in to the max. Things get kinda rowdy in the kitchen. Ty slicks me up with his spicy sweat and we both pop a woody. Case pops a woody too. It’s kinda big.

Out, Rutting Among The Studhorsys At The Dude Ranch, Buddybuddy of The Woodypoppers

In the cavernous heart of the stainless and enamel kitchen, the dark handsome face of the Master Chef gleams in the heat. His broad bare chest glistens and his muscular arms resplendent with tough tattoos ripple as he stabs the thick steaks with his iron fork and flips them over. Ty’s headgear is a black and blue bandanna tied piratestyle over his westerncut raven black hair. He sports a black satin tuxvest in place of a workshirt, and his shorty folded apron is wrapped tightly around the narrow waist of his lean slim extralonglegged black Lee jeans

The bumpy backroad of my ongoing secretive queer connection with Ty The Bi-Guy has weathered numberless sidetrips and detours these fifteen years. I witnessed his teener rentboy and keptboy intrigues, participated in his switchhitter xperimentations, and waited-out his rollercoaster two-year marriage, sexclubbing swinger sagas, and messy divorce. My queer receiver is finetuned to the highpower pulsations of Ty’s testosterone-supercharged bisexual libido. I know the various kinds of sultry tightsqueezes he tends to enjoy plunging it into. My jaded queerelder gaydar is warning me that I’ve blithely jetted into the rowdy ground zero of a prairiefairy hankypanky setup.

Oversize wildlife picturepostcard. Fullcolor actionshot of a half-submerged bullfrog, mouth open wide, his long pink tongue zapping a bluegreen dragonfly resting on a nearby reedstem. Caption on reverse. Western Bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana.

Sunday p.m. Ty’s suppertime culinary duties now accomplished, the popular chef is a free man for five whole days and nights. Ty intends to unwind in the company of his best pal The Greenhorn on a three day boots-andsaddles horseback trek around the Touchwood Plateau wide-openspaces. Every detail has been taken care of, including my tofu vegetarian dietary requirements. A surprise announcement - I’m totally not surprised - meticulous Ty has accessorized our outing. Our duo is now a threeway. Horsy home- boy Casey has been recruited to be our trailguide and campy facilitator. This already overloaded plot keeps thickening. My Man The Chef is cooking up something stickysweet and tasty. He’s got something up his sleeve besides scary tattoos.

After sundown we go out strolling under the starspeckled dome of the prairie nightsky. We don’t get far. We scurry back quick to the safe inner sanctum of The Cook’s exclusive bunkhouse next to the grub- shack, because the pushy mosquitoes want to get personal and suck up to us bigtime.

The Itch Scratcher

First night sleeping arrangements are Spartan and for sure not private enough to suit hot-to-trot Ty. His bachelor accommodation next to the cookhouse is shared cowboystyle with eighteen year old Sweet Willie the diminutive spudpeeler and cutiepie cook’s helper. Willie is the youngest fulltime employee at the ranch. He looks like everybody’s kid-brother. It’s easy to see he’s a queerboy, but his false bravado lets us know he’s still in his prairie closet. He’s also got a major puppycrush on the way-too-goodlooking head cook.

Nervous Willie’s single bunk runs crossways at the foot of Ty’s king-size bed. To make space in the cramped bedroom, maybe four feet of Willie’s bedstead disappears into the depths of the narrow cornercloset. Poor Willie. Sweetheart is in his closet all day and all night too. We can tell he whips it way too much.

Freaked out Willie tosses and turns in his dark bunk at our feet as we content ourselves with buddybuddy cowboystyle steamynaked close-contact under the clingy sheets, alternating positions in the clench, nestled like nested spoons. As usual, Ty sleeps with his arm around my waist and his left leg thrown across both of mine, tuffy topmanstyle.

Kingsize botanical picturepostcard. Colorful closeup of a cactus clump, purple-pink blossoms with yellow stamens, dense clusters of radiating spines. Description on verso. The Prairie Cushion Cactus, Coryphanta vivipara in bloom. Common on open prairies and south-facing hillsides across southern Saskatchewan. Fruit edible.

Monday a.m. Daylight dawns totally early on the prairie. Long before sunup it’s blue sky in all directions. The birdsong is glorious. I can recognize song sparrow duets, bobolink singalongs, killdeer pipings, and meadowlark trills. Nostalgic earcandy, makes me feel allover tingles. We decide to forego the morning breakfast routine at the chowhall. Ty has left the packing and detailing of our trek to Case.

When we emerge from the bunkhouse, earlybird Casey is waiting with our three saddlehorses and a pair of packhorses, ready to ramble.

Case is in his glory. He’s so happy he’s singing to himself. Some rodeo-cowboy song he likes. He’s wearing the queerest pair of jeans he owns, washedout bluewhite 501s. When he bends over to adjust the girth on one of the saddlehorses, Case catches me checking out his awesome powerbutt. Our wrangler flashes me a blinding grin and congratulates himself for being the blue ribbon winner he totally is. We mount up and hit the trail. Casey and Ty swagger like teamsport lockerroom jocks sharing a sexsecret.

Three’s A Charm, Lucky Pierre

On the trail, Tall-In-The-Saddle Casey in the lead. We ride northwest crosscountry chattering like magpies. A trio of magpies keeps us company part of the way chattering like queerboys. We breathe the air. We yawn and stretch. We bump our cowboyhats on the ceiling rafters of the prairie sky as we mosey along. The sun comes up on our righthand- side and we pull on our shades like prairie pros.

We pass a jumble of well-licked saltblocks and pause beside a boggy cattail pond to let the horses drink. We’re having such a good time we almost forget breaky. We stop for breakfast next to some totally tall poplar trees. Ty does the honors on the campstove. While we’re savoring our strong coffees, Case surprises the horses with treats of dried apples.

Standardsize ecopostcard. Fullcolor habitat portrait of three burrowing owls, alert, standing in front of a badgerhole. Description on reverse. Burrowing owls, Athene cunicularia. An endangered owl.

Casey our nature guide shows us where burrowing owls have taken over a badgerhole. As we watch, the homeboy owl skitters by on foot carrying a ground squirrel in his beak that’s bigger than he is. He dives into his basement suite bringing breakfast of warm squirrel guts to his couchpotato boyfriend who slept in.

Treated To Tasty Surprises, Natureboy

THE PAPERS OF THE PALLISER EXPEDITION, 1857-60

The Touchwood Hills or “Les Montagnes de Tondre” consist of easy undulating hills, in height under 400 feet, well-wooded, however, and containing lakes varying in size from about three quarters to an acre and a quarter in surface. Well adapted for cultivation and the rearing of cattle, the soil is good, but there is a great scarcity of timber either for fuel or building purposes.

Casey is steering our expedition toward a particular lake that lies lays ten or eleven miles beyond the northwestern edge of the ranch property. Our horses ascend single file up a gradually rising knoll of glacial drift that humps up seventy or eighty feet above the prairie plateauscape. Further west, the terrain starts to get even more corrugated. From our elevated vantagepoint we see Casey’s lake north of us glittering silvery in the morning sunlight.

The adjoining ranchland and lake belong to Rodeo Casey. He purchased them with the bullrider and barebackrider prizemoney he won during last year’s rodeo circuit. He’s taking a break from rodeoing this season. Ty and I are glad he is. The horses head off toward the lake automatically, equine mind readers that they are.

Our horsypals are all male gender. They can poop while walking. Our saddlehorses are named Ike, Sam, and Max. My steed Max is chestnut red. Ike and Sam are allover black. Our packponies are spotted grey-and- tans named Tony and Speck. The knob of Speck’s ponywanger juts out past the nozzle of its sheath. Since Speck always follows a little behind Tony, I reckon Tony must be Speck’s boyfriend.

I return my prone-to-wander attention back to the cowpoke trophy-butts that overflow and embellish their saddles directly in front of me. My tireless mirrorshade-shielded bugeyes flit back and forth from XL melons to lean tighty peaches. Being a longtime connoisseur of boybutt and epicure of fruits, I’m totally in my element anytime I’m stuck in the rear or following a little behind.

We set up camp at Casey’s Lake. Unsaddle and unpack the horses.

Stable them in a corral of willow poles readymade in the cottonwood grove on the lakeshore. Alongside the corral are bales of oatstraw and sacks of feed trucked in earlier and stowed under nylon tarps. Casey busts up one of the haybales and the horses chow down.

Two big camptents get set up side by side underneath an oldtimer black willow. Long straight willow poles leaned against the willow trunk teepeestyle enclose both tents. A canopy of mosquito netting gets draped over the poles, rocks weigh down the edges. Boulders scrounged for a fireplace, castiron firegrate lugged from storage, windfall for fire-wood fetched from the poplar thicket, cooking campfire, teakettle on the grate.

Doublesize cowboy postcard. Pastelcolored bigsky ranchscape. Three cowboy boyfriends standing around the campfire coffeepot with their tin cups. In the foreground, grazing horses, waiting. Towering cumulonimbus cloud darkening on the far horizon. No caption on flipside.

Hot sunny afternoon. Lakeshore campout at Casey’s Lake. We munch our veggie trek cuisine, then wash and stow our eating gear. We gayly shuck our boots and cowboy jeans and frolic naked in our prairie pond.

Frolicking barebutt on the lone prairie can be totally hard on queer horsyboys. Both Casey and I have definite problems in the woody department. Ty says we must be total fags. We tackle cheeky Ty and jump his bones and brown his gnarly little butt with mud. A dirty crack. The joke’s on Ty.

Starkers, The Skinnydipper

“Prairie Wildflowers.” THE SANDFORD FLEMING EXPEDITION, 1872. Manitoba to Fort Carlton.

The luxuriant prairie flowers in all their midsummer splendor stretched before us in all directions. The roses in full bloom, yellow marigolds and goldenrods, the spicy lilac bergamots, the white tansy, bluebells and harebells, and the hardy asters of many colors and sizes made the prairies gay.

Casey wants to hike around and sniff the poseys. So do I. Ty says, You guys can take a hike, I wanna take a nap. We take a nature hike in just our cowboyhats and cowboyboots. Case points his bone at me and I point mine at him. Case likes my cheeks as much as I like his. He’s read his Plato I can tell, but he prefers the pre-Socratics same as me. Nietzsche’s his main man, Spinoza too. He likes The Beats a lot. He’s queer for owls. I know the herbs and wildflowers, so does Case. His rapidfire botanical questions keep me on my toes. We gather beebalm and wild mint. We’ve got so much in common we can barely breathe.

“Near The Touchwood Hills.” THE SANDFORD FLEMING EXPEDITION, 1872. Manitoba to Fort Carlton.

Aspens grouped on the slopes of the gentle hills, lakelets and pools fringed with willows glisten in the sun. Camp set up alongside a pond in the midst of a flat away from the bush, so as to avoid mosquitoes. The previous night having been chill and the dew abundant, we broke out more blankets, and dispensed with one tent, sleeping three together in one, instead of two and one in each. Cool nights after hot days is an agreeable surprise. It is one of the causes (we imagine) of the healthy appearance of the settlers, even in the summer months. Back at camp The Cook is flipping flapjacks. We feast on buckwheat roll-ups stuffed with apricot preserves. Ty has rearranged the campsite. He took down Casey’s bachelor tent and moved his gear and bedding into ours. It’s way better this way, Ty says. Anyway it’s The Cook’s tour, so Ty’s the boss. Case and I agree, The Cook is Boss. For sure, it is better his way–threeway.

Extralargesize rodeo postcard. Colorful action shot of a bullrider hanging tough, Stetson in orbit. The bull is stretched out longways, his back hooves kicked up higher than his horns. Caption on flipside. Firestorm. Touchwood Hills Ranch, Saskatchewan.

Casey The Bullrider on board his champion studbull Firestorm at Swift Current last summer. Camping it up with the horsyboys on the Touchwood Plateau. Totally wooden, listening to the hootowls.

For Luck Touch Wood, The Wood Toucher

In a deep cavity inside the hollow willow trunk above our camptent, a prairie boreal owl mantles over three fuzzy owlets during the sunny hours. At dusk, northcountry owls ululate in the willow thicket and Case gets all horned up. He really is queer for owls. He collects a bowlful of puked-up owlpellets he discovers in among the willow roots back of our tent. He’s saving them for later.

Ty and Case both want to be boss. The allnighter threeway turns into a two-on-one. Two bosses make it hard for The Greenhorn. First, Ty works up a sweat, then Case flexes his muscle. The broncobuster has stayingpower. He can’t be bucked off. Casey The Workingstiff puts in an extralong shift, gets major overtime. I sure do like working under boss Case. Ty says he knew I would.

Tuesday sunrise. A tumble in the hay for a wake up call. Case comes on strong in the morning too. The Wrangler never quits. At coffeetime over second cups, Ty catches us unawares one more time and springs another bisexual surprise. He’s riding Ike back to the ranch to his beater Volvo. He plans to be in Saskatoon by early afternoon. Hankers to hook up front to front with a bigchested female gender truckstop waitperson he likes. Intends to spend a couple days and nights of his remaining R&R time in country-western heterotown.

Ty says that since we two righteous queerbuddys are hitting it off totally (like he always knew we would) he’s switchhitting the home-ward trail and turning his studhorsy top position over to Big Case. The Top Chef rides off into the rising sun leaving us fellow travelers hard up and blinking in the sunlight like hootowls. We pull on our stylish mirrorshades and lead the horses down to the lake for a drink and a morning bath. Our rowdy goodmorning woodys stay wooden all day long. Touch wood . . .

Standardsize birdwatcher’s ecopostcard. Color closeup portrait of a hawkowl, his feathers ruffled, his yellow eyes flashing, his orange beak gaping wide. It’s for sure he’s hissing. Caption on address side. Northern Hawkowl, Surnia ulula.

At our lakeside nature camp skinnydipping accompanied by owls. My Man Casey spots a hawkowl perched in the top of a cottonwood near the horse corral. My bunkbuddy gets totally excited and starts hooting. He’s queer for owls. Me too.

Hooting With The Owlhooter In the Touchwood Hills, You Know Who

Afterdark camp tent illuminated by lantern light, ongoing buddy buddy masculine pursuits under the mosquitonets in the billowing incense-cloud, reclining face to face bareskin on the oat-straw campbed, sipping bergamot bee balm and wild mint tea, eavesdropping on the recapitulating owl duet, unravelling the furry bony owl pellets sorting out mouse snouts gopher teeth shrew skulls, watching the meteorites careen across the starspeckled skydome, anatomizing Nietzsche’s Overman, our respective outstanding male members gesticulating hyperbolically, free-associating dreamily about what Neech may have meant by Eternal Return. . .