You’ve been hired by Tourism Saskatchewan to plant signs along the highway. They’ve given you a truck, a shovel, a stack of sharpened sticks. On the ends of the sticks are metal plates with messages on them. These, you’ve been told, are radio frequency notices for various FM tourism stations across the province. There are fifty-nine stations in the area of Saskatchewan you’ve been chosen to handle. Fifty nine times two notices at either end of the air-space equals one hundred and eighteen signs for which you’ll be paid a reasonable sum of money with which you’ll purchase a kayak for your still-being-planned Northern rivers trip later in August. You’ve already traced a yellow high-lighter path onto your map of Saskatchewan, which is at this very moment sitting on the dashboard of the green and white pickup you’ve been lent to complete your task as sign-installer. The path starts in Sandy Bay and it ends at the southernmost tip of Reindeer Lake. It will take approximately eight days and you can hardly wait.

The kayak trip is what you’re thinking about as you’re listening to the radio, as you’re driving, as you’re braking, as you’re pulling over to the side of the highway, as you’re pulling a sign out of the back. The kayak trip is your motivation. The soft splash of an oar breaking the river’s surface is what you hear as you drag a heavy metal sign to where it will be planted. There are already signs announcing the local tourist-frequencies to passing motorists, but it’s been decided that these signs are too out of date, too old-fashioned, to serve their purpose. This was decided in a very tall building overlooking the South Saskatchewan river in downtown Saskatoon by five men and two women dressed in business suits. The people who make these kinds of decisions are among the kindest, warmest people you’ll ever meet. These people truly love Saskatchewan. They take their work home with them; the landscapes of their dreams reflect their province: flat, open, alive. They were also the ones who decided how much money you'll be making for planting the new signs. It’s a fair amount - possibly it’s a perfect amount - as you feel you’re earning every penny. Plus, you get to be outdoors.

You begin to plant. But before you can slip the new signs into the ground, you have to take the old ones out. Some of them take a bit of tugging, and end up slightly bent. When you finally pull them loose they go into the back of the truck, right beside the new ones. Seeing them that close together, the old and the new, the living and the dead, does something to your heart. You’re not sure what it is, but you suddenly feel very honoured to be the person performing this task. You find yourself becoming the type of person you’ve always wanted to be: a healer.

You hold the shovel tightly with both your hands, shove it into the soil, dig the hole larger. In your mind you’re not holding a shovel, but an oar. In your mind it’s the same landscape but the motion is different as you softly float away. This is how you feel as you toss the excess dirt to the side. The new poles are slightly thicker, and require a slight modification of the holes. You dig deep, you push, you begin to sweat. You stand back, you ask yourself if you’re satisfied. Yes. The new sign goes into the hole, the dirt is pushed back. You tamp the ground. You test the sign and find it to be secure. You place the old sign in the truck bed. You stand back and admire your handiwork against the backdrop of your province. That is precisely what you’re doing: blending the foreground in with the background. The signs have been designed to be unobtrusive yet noticeable; simple and neat against a grand canvas of blues and greens.

The sun is starting to set as you drive away. You take off your work gloves, turn up the radio, look down at the map on the seat, the beginning of the yellow line. Sandy Bay.

Soon you’ll be there.

You made it to Sandy Bay. You started out in your kayak and ended up paddling into Reindeer Lake eight days later. It was the time of your life: the river at night, campfires, the Northern Lights. After the trip you came home, got a job as a landscape engineer and bought a nice house. Met the woman of your dreams, got married, had three beautiful children.

You took your family kayaking every summer, planned out your trips on the exact same map you used the very first time, so many summers ago. You loved deeply and were loved in return. Seasons passed, your children had children, your childrens’ children had children. Before you passed away, you saw your great-grandson’s face.

The signs you planted have since been replaced. The new ones are wider, taller, brighter - and there are more of them. They dot the countryside like milestones, showing passing tourists the way. 91.2 FM. 103.3 FM. They are torches by night, pillars by day, leading travelers to where they are going.

Surely, this is the way all things flow:

The foreground changes, but the background remains the same.

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Jason Young has been writing for nearly four years - fiction, poetry, plays, scripts. Currently attending film school in Vancouver, Canada, his interests include playing tennis, watching good movies,hiking mountaineous terrain, and taking pictures. He likes e-mail too! His address is mrmoob@hotmail.com - drop him a note!