Killarney Guide

Wonderful photographs of changing pioneer life featured in Dion Manastyrski’s prairie masterpiece 

BY KIM LANGEN

Tilted and abandoned, the old farmhouses and barns of our ancestors can still be seen in overgrown hedges, and at the sides of roads.

In the long grass, old cars sink slowly into the turf, and farm machinery rusts.

For photographer Dion Manastyrski, these things hold the beauty of diminishing dreams.

And this Saskatchewan native wanted to preserve that beauty in both photographs, and in words, by talking to the old people who lived those years, and are still here to tell their stories.

“I grew up on a small family farm, near Rose Valley, Saskatchewan,” said Manastyrski. “It was wonderful. That homestead was built by my grandparents, who came from Eastern Europe, and it is still there today. I wanted to tell their stories, and the stories of other pioneers, because they are all disappearing. ”

Manastyrski left the family farm after high school, he said, and it was later sold. He went on to achieve a biology degree at U Vic, in B.C., and currently lives in Victoria. 

He is also a long time professional photographer, with a talent for revealing a tale with his compelling pictures – and by using direct quotes, gathered from the old people of the prairies.

“Over a span of 10 years, from 2002 to 2014, I travelled back and forth across the Prairie Provinces eight times, with my camera, and I photographed old homesteads, schools, and churches, and interviewed retired rural people,” he said. “I interviewed over 70 people who had lived that past way of life, when the small family farm was at the heart of rural life on the prairies.” 

Manastyrski then put it all together in a fabulous hardcover coffee table book, ‘Prairie Sunset: A Story of Change’.

“I wanted to shine a spotlight on their history,” he said. “I travelled the backroads of the prairies to photograph what remains of this brief but fascinating era.”

And shine a light he did. The book is rather marvellous, with both Manastyrski’s own panoramic images, plus historical archival ones, often with handwritten notes made long ago by a family member.  

The book contains themes, beginning with the photos and words of the first settlers, many who arrived in the early 1900s with very little in their suitcases.

There are stories of building the first home, breaking land, and growing crops, and the improvement of implements, such as the thresher. Trips to town, babies being born in dire circumstances, and the incredible arrival of the telephone are described in vivid words.

The fear of fires, lack of soap, and laundry as an all-day job, baking in a clay oven, and how Christmas and weddings were celebrated with so little are all in this book.  

Isolation, the dust bowl years, the Depression, and hiding their money in buried containers; young men leaving home to ride the rails, and lodging the young schoolteacher are all here.

Then there is the arrival of electricity, of light, and refrigeration, the gradual changeover from horsepower to tractors, the broadening of farm acres, and eventually the gradual demise of the small town and the big families.

The span of the book is roughly 150 years, and reflects an important part of Canada’s history.

“I searched for understanding as I explored the homesteads of a vanishing era, and I talked to people about the prairies,” said Manastyrski. “They have a remarkable story to tell, and I would like to share this with you.”

The coffee-table sized tome can be seen and enjoyed at Carol Reimer’s ‘Sweet Pea and Willow’ on Broadway Avenue, and is available for purchase there.

The author, Dion Manastyrski, made a pit stop there last year during a book tour, and Reimer was entranced by his richly produced publication. 

“It’s a lovely book,” said Reimer. “It’s gorgeous. It has so much information from all over Manitoba. We have sold 17 copies so far, mostly to local people who buy them as gifts for a member of their family, especially an older member. “

‘Prairie Sunset: A Story of Change’, printed and bound in Manitoba, is now in its third printing. It is available across the Prairie Provinces, and is locally available at Sweet Pea and Willow, on Broadway Avenue in Killarney.

It is also available at: Boissevain – Hazlewood Drugs; Souris – Lagasse’s Studio of Fine Art; Pilot Mound – Guardian Pharmacy; Crystal City – Crystal City Health; Winkler – Parkside Home Hardware; Morden – Pembina Hills Art Council Gift Shop; Morris – Valley Super Thrifty Pharmacy; St. Pierre-Jolys – St. Pierre Pharmacy; Brandon – Lady of the Lake.

FLASHES OF THE PAST – Lightning flashes in the background of this abandoned old homestead in southwestern Manitoba. View more of Dion’s Prairie Sunset photos below.