Written by Dan Archer
I drove to Big Beaver on May 12 with the air conditioner turned the highest, steering my Fusion along emaciated roads through the dust, heat, alkaline-tinged air, along the prairies, travelling 106.5 kilometres from Assiniboia to Big Beaver to photograph a south Saskatchewan institution — Aust’s General Store.
Big Beaver, a hamlet near the Big Muddy Badlands, survives on tourist money during the summers. The rinks are gone, but a popular rodeo by the Saskatchewan High School Rodeo Association still happens every August with the promise of more grant money to support the event.
Still, Big Beaver is shrinking. A general census in 2006 listed the hamlet’s population as 15. Undeniably, many of Saskatchewan’s rural communities have been lost as farms corporatize and expand, but Aust’s General Store, built and rebuilt since 1928 and run by the Aust family since 1959, remains a destination for many travelling from the Badlands or crossing the border.
General Stores, once customary in rural Canada were replaced by Walmart, Canadian Tire and other box stores, many built on the edge of suburbs and meant to attract rural customers since the latter 1970s. Now, big box stores struggle with internet shopping.
Excuse this superfluous observation but driving into Big Beaver then walking inside Aust’s General Store is a walk-through time. I remember biking to the Neapolis General Store in Mountain View County, Alberta in the 1970s with my pal Brian, where I might have … stolen … a pack of Vicks Lemon Cough Drops as he tucked an Oh Henry and a pack of Hostess Dill Pickle chips underneath his Levis jacket. With some guilt, as we rolled back on gravel to his farm. Walton memories.
Like the Neapolis, Aust’s sells an assortment of goods, including soft drinks, fruit, vegetables, sausages, fireworks, candy, boots and clothing. Aust’s also carries Big Beaver Apparel, a line including T-shirts and bunnyhugs. A former co-worker from Saskatchewan, named Carla, once told me the people in her province called hoodies “bunnyhugs”. I honestly didn’t believe her.
“If We Don’t Have It, You Don’t Need It,” goes the store’s slogan, one of Canada’s last general stores featured throughout the media, including Macleans, Western Producer and CBC. Drive to Big Beaver and see for yourself.
