Canada: SASKATCHEWAN: Off to the City

Citizens of Saskatchewan's prosperous little Simmie (pop. 100) were bored. Ever since Christmas they had been snowbound. Twelve-foot drifts blocked their roads to the outer world. Once a week a train (one coach plus cattle cars and boxcars) chuffed in & out, and then silence lay upon the grain elevators along the C.P.R. tracks, the general store, blacksmith shop, barbershop and garage.

For a while church suppers, CCF dances, an occasional four-year-old movie broke the monotony. But the routine palled, and Simmians, their pockets bulging with grain checks, were in a spending mood. The bright lights of bustling Swift Current (pop....