The Spirit of Scott Saskatchewan
- Miles Patrick Yohnke
- Apr 28, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
By Miles Patrick Yohnke
© 2026 All Rights Reserved.
On Saturday, May 2, 2026, I ventured out by bicycle from my home City of Saskatoon to Scott Saskatchewan. I bicycled that Saturday, as that Monday, May 4th would mark twenty years since my dear Aunt Phyllis Gerein went to be with our Heavenly Creator. I left that day, as my cousin Shirley Gerein could come from Macklin Saskatchewan and meet me. You see, I didn't just want to remember my Aunt Phyllis, but celebrate my cousin Shirley, as Thursday, May 7th, she turned sixty-four years young.
Aunt Phyllis was my late mother's older sister. I was diagnosed with 'Double Deficit Dyslexia.' My mother and I were told by paid professionals that I was a retard, and I wouldn't amount to much in life because of the severity of it. That - with the horrific, tragic death of my father when I was five turned me onto not only this life of no limits, but trying to foster that into each and every one I encounter.
Scott Saskatchewan was my safe haven as a child. I have two older brothers, Ken and Bob. There is an eleven- and nine-year difference in age. Both married young--which meant it was really just mother and me. And we went to Scott all of the time. For sure every three months--often another visit in-between. I begged my mother to go. And my beloved mother never let me down. There were times of February school break that I'd go for ten days over two weeks. With me tagging along with my grandparents the first weekend, and my mother coming out the next weekend to bring me back to Saskatoon. The summers were like that as well.
Back in Saskatoon, because of my 'Double Deficit Dyslexia' elementary school wasn't just a challenge, it was a living hell. Part of me wanted to die from a thousand paper cuts. In Scott, nobody knew I couldn't read and write. I was treated as an equal. I wasn't judged.
My cousins and I, and others from Scott went to the playground, the merry-go-round, the swings. We walked the gravel roads of Scott. We sat on the stairs at the back of Town Hall. As a child, the stairs seemed a mile high. Seating on the top felt like you were in heaven. I was transported from hell to heaven each and every time I visited Scott.
Scott Saskatchewan wasn't just another little town to me - hope resided there for me.
I just loved Scott so much. As a child, I would get so excited past Biggar - then onto Landis: "We're almost there," I'd say to myself, and those in the cab of the vehicle. I'd be looking for the Wilkie water tower. And when I spotted it -- I got extra excited -- for I just loved my family Gerein and Scott Saskatchewan. Those vortex of emotions that coursed through me - I felt each time visiting.
Back in the early 1970s, in the winter months, Scott had a time change to Saskatoon. That meant I got an extra hour of visiting. OH MY GOD IT WAS BEAUTIFUL!
I don't know what I would have become if it wasn't for those visits to Scott Saskatchewan throughout the 1970s - throughout my childhood.
It seemed everyone in Scott had nicknames. It wasn't that way in Saskatoon. Well... If I had a dollar for every time I was called a "retard," I'd be a millionaire today.
In 1976, Duane 'Heney' Gerein and I started learning guitar together. We played guitar so much together.
Looking back, it seems Scott Saskatchewan should have had its own song. It could have be titled: Imagine. Stairway to Heaven.
I bicycle; that's my only form of transportation. You see, my cousin Douglas, Cousin Shirley's oldest brother physically died at age six to cancer on February 19, 1966. He never got the chance to learn to ride a bicycle. I turn the crank over, ride a bicycle for him.
When my cousin Brenda, Cousin Shirley's younger sister physically died in a head-on car accident outside of North Battleford on Sunday night, February 24, 1985, I started really living. I was in-between jobs. I had to make something of myself for Cousin Brenda.
It broke my heart learning my cousin Rick's heart gave out on August 11, 2024. It was Cousin Rick that was my first storyteller. We slept together, as children do. And I'd ask Cousin Rick to tell me a story. And Cousin Rick never failed to tell me the most engaging beautiful story. He made them all up. But each one felt so real. If you enjoy this story, please thank Rick Gerein - for he is the one that started it all for me.
I bicycled Saturday, May 2 to Scott Saskatchewan and back, a round-trip of 358.5 kilometers door-to-door. From Biggar to Scott was an extreme wind from the west - right into my face. I endured much physical pain, but nothing like what Aunt Phyllis and Cousin Shirley endured losing two children, two siblings.
I bicycled not only for those two, the Gereins, but each and every one that ever lived in Scott Saskatchewan and area. I too bicycled for those that ever have been abused, for my dear mother, my beloved Aunt Phyllis were verbally abused each and every day by their alcoholic father.
I'm now sixty-two years of age. I'm Miles Patrick Yohnke. I'm now a globally recognized motivational author. I don't want this bicycle trip to be about me. Like I did some great feat bicycling to Scott Saskatchewan and back. Within each of us is great power and great purpose. I get up each day with the hope of creating World Peace. I know peace is possible for I felt it all those years I was in Scott Saskatchewan.
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