Today is the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation. I will confess to having few maudlin or particularly patriotic feelings for the country I left behind. I went as far as I could there and I know my future is brighter outside of its borders.

But I am infinitely grateful to have visited ten provinces; two territories; eleven capital cities; and hundreds of cities, towns, villages, and hamlets from Charlottetown to Tofino, Chatham to Tuktoyaktuk.

I feel blessed to have experienced so many of its climates, from scorching summers in Dawson City to frigid winters on the border of Quebec and Labrador, although perhaps not the unrelenting gloom of the Wet Coast, but most certainly the glorious Prairie summers.

I have seen tall peaks; flat plains; rolling hills; desert; expanses of granite; great black pine forests; and more ocean coastline than one can imagine as I have swam or waded in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans.

I’ve called four provinces and one territory home, consider myself a québécoise in happy exile, love and miss my piece of Saskatchewan more than anyone can imagine, still have the Klondike in my bones, and I remember every sunset I saw driving up the 105 from the junction of the 366 in La Pêche on my evening commute.

I hope I can be away long enough this time to forget the infuriating things that made me leave and be left with only memories of landscapes that made me weep with awe.

Like the Saskatchewan badlands.

View of the Big Muddy Badlands from the top of Castle Butte