I’ve been reading a book called ‘West of the Blindman’, sent to me by my friend Bill Baergen of Stettler. It’s a sampling of 50-years of Rimbey Record newspaper columns by Rimbey-area farmer, historian and naturalist Fred Schutz.
I have the book on my desk and over the past couple of weeks have been dipping in several times a day to read a column or two.
Now I’ve never been in the Blindman valley unless it was by accident. Why the nostalgic ramblings of a farmer from those parts should interest me (or you) is not an unreasonable question. I asked it myself, picking up the book with no more than mild curiosity plus a certain a sense of obligation.
That was a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t take long before respect and admiration for this fellow Schutz began to take hold. He provides a wonderful record of rural life, ranging from the early homestead days right up into the 1990s. What does Schutz do? Nothing spectacular by any means. He notices, he appreciates, he records. He doesn’t take things for granted.
Schutz takes note of the woodpecker, the beaver, the clouds, the porcupine, the cow, the horse, the chicken, the cranberry, the pine tree, the erratic boulder, the snow, the wood stove, the arrival of rail and telephone, the growth of towns and the weather (of course). No subject is too mundane for his attention and appreciation. God is in the details, they say, and I’ve never come across anyone who pays as much attention to the details of rural life as Fred Schutz. Maybe he recognized the divinity in things, although he never says that. A profound respect for all the things of the earth permeates his writing. He doesn’t talk much about respect either, but it’s clearly there.
Schutz wrote at least three columns, for example, on the simple pleasure of hilltop sitting. This is the hobby of climbing a hill just for the heck of it and then sitting down for a while to enjoy the view, trying to identify the landmarks and watching the animals and the weather if there is any.
Many of Schutz’s columns are about wildlife. “I Like Spiders” was the title of one of them, written just a few years ago. No less than five columns discuss “The Unloved Porcupine.” He writes about whooping cranes, water beetles, drunken bumblebees, mosquitoes, wolves, coyotes and dozens of others.
Schutz doesn’t ignore human affairs. Columns’ entitled “The Axe”, “The Dirty Thirties”, “The Wood Buzzers”, “Mudholes” and “Chimney Fires” recall various aspects of pioneer life in the Blindman valley.
Few of the readers of this newspaper lived in the Blindman – either west or east of it. But most of the topics Schutz covers are common to anyone who ever lived down on the farm, or out in the bush for that matter. You’ll recognize them immediately as things you saw, heard, smelled, felt, experienced, but maybe never thought much about.
Or perhaps you did. Schutz’s tale of going through the ice on a beaver pond brought back an almost identical mishap I had as a kid down on the farm. Now why didn’t I think to write about it?
Schutz contributed over 2,000 of these columns to the Record. Only 220 appear in the book, as chosen by editors David Jones and William Baergen. Thanks to their efforts, the valuable observations of a very interesting man will not be lost.
West of the Blindman is published jointly by the Central Alberta Historical Society and the Central Alberta Regional Museums Network.

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