19 minute read
The Great Canadian Road Trip
from History of Polo
by MediaEdge
Tales from an unforgettable journey through Western Canada: Summer 2010
By Garrett Smith, Springfield Polo Club, with foundation by Dan and Sarah Brewin, Black Diamond Polo Club
When you Google the term “road trip”, you get a vague definition of “a journey made by a car or bus.” This clearly does not take into account the trials and tribulations of Western Canadian polo teams, otherwise it would include the word “chaos”.
Picture this: a three-and-a-half-week journey across the four western provinces with ten designated stops, several unplanned stops, two truck and trailer rigs, twelve people, two dogs and twenty-one horses. What could go wrong?
Our first stop after leaving Winnipeg was the Saskatoon Polo Club where things kicked off with a combined birthday celebration for fifteen-year-old Garrett and thirteenyear-old Sarah. After a very social stay, which included a friendly polo game against Chandler Howe and the Basaldua brothers of Mexico, we were fortunate to be joined by the Saskatoon Club for the next leg of our journey. Given that the Brewin family have connections and relatives scattered throughout the Canadian West, many of our stops and horse accommodations were graciously provided by Brewin family members wanting nothing more than a good visit in exchange for their hospitality. The Jones Hereford Ranch near Calgary hosted our horses at our second destination, while all the guests stayed and visited with the Brewin cousins.
Next up after Calgary was the Grande Prairie Invitational, a classic mid-July tournament with participants from Kelowna, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary, Black Diamond, and of course, Grande Prairie. GP’s annual tournament, founded by one of polo’s all-time most entertaining characters, Cledwyn Lewis, has drawn players from Springfield for decades and some of our members have attended this tournament all their lives. Topped off by a killer costume party, it is a tournament that embodies Canadian polo on the prairies as well as any
weekend could. The Springfield team of Spencer Smith, Garrett Smith, Dan Brewin and Isaias Palma Franco were fortunate enough to be victorious that year, a proud moment the club has experienced many times at GP Invitationals.
After the tournament, our SPC team arranged to swap trailers with Chad Howe from Saskatoon so we could haul more horses to our eventual destination of Kelowna. We endured our first major breakdown about an hour outside of Whitecourt when one of our trusty Fords (the 6.0, wouldn’t you know) decided it wasn’t so trusty with this new, larger trailer. If you happened to be driving on HWY 43 on July 20, 2010, you would have caught quite the show: an empty trailer at the side of the road, horses grazing in the ditch, a tow truck hooking up, two kids climbing trees, and some weary travellers in lawn chairs sipping ice-cold drinks. We were stuck there for about two hours as the other group continued to Whitecourt, unhitched and unloaded their luggage in the rain, then returned to collect the rest of us. With all the back-and-forth trips to the top of the hill, we hope the hitchhiker we repeatedly passed knew it wasn’t some kind of a prank.
Our journey through Alberta continued with a few planned stops, including a night at the Brewin family cabin on Sylvan Lake where we were thrilled to do some water skiing and tubing. Does anyone ever think water tubing is going to be as dangerous as it ends up being? Though recounts of the story vary, the consensus is that Garrett found himself able to fly for a short time when the wake bounced him some dozen feet in the air. Meanwhile, Grandma Marge showed the kids how to whip up some homemade ice cream to top off the fresh Alaskan salmon that an old friend had brought to the gathering for dinner. Proving quite a helpful friend, he also arranged for a place to keep the horses, enabling us to have a practice in the indoor arena. While polo was always on our minds, sleeping in those bunk beds at the tranquil lakeside cabin was a moment that stood out on our polo-centric journey.
After being lake people for a short time, we then went on to Jasper where we transitioned into tourists, in awe of the spellbinding beauty. We were headed to a family ranch near Lac La Hache, B.C., when we discovered that large rigs loaded with horses, tack, luggage, dogs, and travellers do not jive well with impressive mountain passes and deep valleys. The drive left us thinking that a flat prairie road might be exactly what we’d wish for if Aladdin appeared with his lamp. Mountain goats found space to perch on the mere feet that bordered the road and the gorges beneath, and on many of those long, slow climbs we had plenty of time to examine them in their unbothered peace. In a move that shows just how dire things became, during the ultrasteep climb at Little Fort in 30+ Celsius heat, we resorted to short advances up the slope while cool-down rests were provided to the truck by hopping out and wedging an angled block behind the truck tire.
Upon our late arrival in Lac La Hache— situated near Carey Price’s hometown of William’s Lake, which is well west and north of our tournament destination in Kelowna— the visiting continued with more cousins and another opportunity to relax and escape the vehicle. The duration of this layover was over a week as we kept busy until the Kelowna tournament weekend. We exercised the horses during the days and went on a few scenic trail rides through the mountainous pastures of the aptly named Springfield Ranch where the horses were kept. With Grandpa Tim Brewin managing the horses at that ranch, we stayed at the Buckskin Ranch alongside the famous Fraser River Ranch. Since we essentially had the run of the place, we decided to make use of the outdoor arena to remember how the sport of polo was played. Unfortunately, it was full of weeds so Dan Brewin fired up the haybine and cut everything down before we could play. Have you ever heard of someone mowing the arena before the game?
Aside from our horse-related activities, we spent several evenings in town swimming at the beach along Lac La Hache. One day, we headed out in search of ‘Till Lake’ and this adventure unexpectedly became one of the best experiences of the trip. While we had planned to simply play in the water and have a picnic, some local kids knew of a rope swing on the other side of the lake and were kind enough to boat us over. We spent hours swinging off that cliff, and true to the theme of our alpine lake surroundings, we even caught sight of a mama bear and
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1 1. WINNIPEG, MB 2. SASKATOON, SK 3. CALGARY, AB 4. GRAND PRAIRIE, AB 5. WHITECOURT, AB 6. SYLVAN LAKE, AB 7. LAC LA HACHE, BC 8. BARKERVILLE, BC 9. KAMLOOPS, BC 10. KELOWNA, BC 11. SWIFT CURRENT, SK
her two cubs. After pushing off from Lac La Hache, our next rest day was spent at Barkerville learning how to pan for gold and about the importance the gold rush played to the region’s history. Lastly, and perhaps most profoundly, we also learned what an overpopulation of tourist-fed gophers looks like.
It had been ten days since our last polo game, and we were now headed down to Kelowna for the club’s August long weekend tournament. If the challenging drive wasn’t nerve-racking enough, a moose crossing the highway certainly got everyone’s eyes popping. After stopping traffic in both directions then carrying on toward the high fence where it was blocked, we were all stunned when the moose turned and started galloping back toward the highway. Spencer was driving, his pleas of “No moose, no!” escalating to screams of “NO MOOSE NO!!!!” as it jumped the divider, landing in the lane next to us, then jumped onto the hood of our truck. Evidently the moose was as able as it was crazy since it then proceeded to clear the high fence intended to keep all wildlife away from the highway and disappeared back into the forest. In typical Spencer fashion, he promptly phoned the Brewin truck and told them: “We could all count the hairs on that thing’s a$$!”
Following the traumatic moose encounter, we continued on to Kamloops where we had our next major breakdown (the 6.0 again!). This time we were so close to our final destination, yet too far that it didn’t make sense for the other truck to drive to Kelowna, then come back and get us. As it pushed on and our truck got towed away, once again our trailer could be seen parked on the side of the road as the horses grazed in the ditch and the weary travellers sat in lawn chairs next to a cooler of cold drinks. But thanks to some of the Western Canadian polo family’s finest, Kelowna club members Marty and Alec Wales, we were rescued and brought to Kelowna some two hours later.
Kelowna consistently has some of the hottest weather in Canada and we were thrilled to be in such a paradise right at the height of summer. We were able to get to the beach a few times during our stay to enjoy the sandy freshwater shores and experience the vibe of this “Canadian California.” To start off the tournament, the kids played an enormous walking mallet game that must have lasted several hours and left everyone sore and exhausted. Following the fun-filled introductory night, three great days of polo and socializing followed, leaving a wonderful
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impression that more than made up for our time sitting on the side of the road. The polo tournament at the Okanagan Polo Club in Kelowna is always fun and competitive, and a great opportunity to catch up with lifelong friends.
Kelowna to Winnipeg is no short haul, but we had spent enough time together in the truck that the parents were determined to make it home in two days. On our final night, we had plans to stay at a ranch in a Cypress Hills valley outside of Swift Current, Saskatchewan where Smith family cousins, the Fiddlers live. Despite our best-laid plans to arrive in the late evening we pulled in after midnight and unloaded the horses while the sleepy kids filed into the house to find a full turkey dinner with the fixings still warm and waiting. We sure knew how to pick our hosts!
Having dealt with at least 10 flat tires throughout the 8,000-kilometre journey, with 94 hours of cab time pulling horses from destination to destination, we had tire changes down to a science—but even more importantly we had the support of friends and family to help us all along the way. With our extraordinary requirement for accommodations to suit 21 horses, including two Welsh ponies requiring a separate pen and two truck-loads of wild travellers, the hospitality, wonderful meals, memorable polo, and countless laughs were all the more meaningful and truly represent what Western Canadian polo is all about. Although we all travel at least once per summer for tournaments, and some of us four or five times at a minimum of nine hours each way, the commitment to a trip as outrageously ambitious as that 2010 venture could only be explained with one word: polo!
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1 Polo trailers line the field 2 The Okanagan summer polo tournament 3 Summer road trip 2008 with the Springfield team 4 Stephen Cobb beating up on Team Grande Prairie at Black Diamond 5 Nelsons and Brewins win the Loretta Thomson Cup at Grande Prairie 6 Field-side after the games in Kelowna
