From the traveling desk of Alain Pineau — January 23, 2012

SASKATOON — Already time to head back to the air­port. My only week in the office between Jan­u­ary 9 and Feb­ru­ary 21 has gone by like a flash of light­ning: so many things to do before return­ing to the on-the-road vir­tual office, hostage to tech­no­log­i­cal haz­ards and human frailty!

So, back to the national tour: after Vic­to­ria and Van­cou­ver, BC, on to Saskatchewan and Man­i­toba. I knew my first stop, Saska­toon, was referred to as the City of Bridges. Last Fri­day, I learned on CBC’s National that it is “the most tune­fully sug­ges­tive city in the coun­try”, or so thinks U.S. Travel Edi­tor Robert Reid. I neglected to con­firm this opin­ion with CCA Board mem­ber and musi­cian Skip Kutz, and with Marnie Glad­well, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance, with whom I shared a good glass of wine last night. We were busy review­ing the packed agenda for the next two days: back-to-back meet­ings from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with short breaks in between.

Wednes­day night, I should arrive in Win­nipeg where CCA Board mem­ber Nicole Mati­a­tion and Thom Spar­ling, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Cul­tural Indus­tries of Man­i­toba, have gen­er­ously man­aged to orga­nize my short visit as effi­ciently as possible.

I must admit I am impa­tient to renew the dia­logue with you. I received excel­lent feed­back and advice in British Colum­bia and I believe future meet­ings can only ben­e­fit from the same. Since we started the con­ver­sa­tions in Mon­tréal and Toronto in late Novem­ber, I have wit­nessed a real inter­est in what the CCA is and in what it offers. There is as well a healthy dose of scep­ti­cism as to its future prospects. No doubt that the chal­lenge is sig­nif­i­cant; it is only by try­ing our best that we can find out whether it is insurmountable.

I’ll be back later on in the week to tell you all about Saska­toon and Regina. In the mean­time, fol­low me via Twit­ter.

–Alain