WELCOME TO THE CITY OF BRIDGES

This is a young city. The first settlers came here in the mid-1800s. There'd been many of the Native folk living here and about, but their populations pretty much died out when the French and the English decided this was their own land. The original colonists settled in a small area they named "Nutana." They were Temperance folk; religious and righteous and they had the Fear of God. Quite a few of them died right then in the beginning. I guess the Fear of God didn't help them much in the New World... it sure didn't teach them how to survive a Saskatchewan winter.

Well after they settled in, some more folks set up stakes in a town they called "Saskatoon." It was across the river, there, by where that big parkade is now. Eventually the two towns built a bridge to join them and they both called the new town "Saskatoon." Well, you know that when a lot of rabbits live in a field, it doesn't take long for the foxes to come. Those early people were just like sitting ducks, just waiting for someone to come and hunt them down. Call me old fashioned, but isn't that what they're for?

Now over here, this is where you have your intellectuals. The University. Ha! When I first came here, the place was open fields, nothing but two buildings out in the middle of the open prairie.So much has changed. Folks watched while this place was built from the ground up, putting a lot of folks to work, and for a few years, it was one of the best in the country. Not anymore, though. Times are changing, and everything is a little run down, a little neglected.

Over there, behind Howe park, that big one, that's where the old Sanatarium used to be. All kinds of sick folk used to live there. Tuberculosis, mostly, but I suspect some of them had syphilis. Anyhow, most people think that place is haunted. There was a couple people wanted to build on the site about twenty years ago, but it got shut down... something about building codes. Then some company was going to build a hotel or something there last year, but I don't know what happened. Never even got the foundations poured. Vampires must have bought the company and shut down the work, I guess. I'm not kidding!

Vampires are just like cockroaches, if you ask me. You live in the city, you got vampires. Can't kill 'em, they just keep coming back. People have tried poisoning them, tried shooting them, hell, people have even tried drowning them. Didn't work. Sometimes those religious folk might get them nervous, maybe send them to ground. There's that Fear of God again, I guess, for all the good it'll do them; their type never last for long. 

But if you think vampires are the weirdest things we got here, you've got another thought coming. The strangest critters get inbetween the cracks of a city like Saskatoon. Shapechangers and skin thieves. Spirits and those claimed by them. More ghosts than you can shake a stick at. A thousand things with ten thousand names, most of 'em pretending to be human while preying on the same. Most of them find their prey passed out in dumpsters and vomiting in gutters. Most of those folks don't deserve to live anyway, I tell you. Just clogging up the streets with stink and noise, that's all. Then again, most of the nightlife around here aren't much better.

Wizards? You mean like that Harry Potter malarky? Oh, I imagine we've still got a few. Used to have one holed up in the top floor of the Bessborough Hotel, thought he was king of the world. Well, that ended awhile back, killed by a vampire of all things. That's the problem with wizards, or the "Awakened" as they prefer - they start acting all high and mighty, but in the end it doesn't count for much. You know what pride goeth before, right? In the end, no matter how enlightened they are they're still human, just like you.

What? Yeah, sure, like me too, of course. Say, why don't you stay a while? There's lots of beer in the fridge, there's a spare bedroom upstairs... I sleep in the basement myself. I can take you out tomorrow night and show you the rest of the town; there's some nice graveyards around here, and the slums are a great place to pick up women, if you know what I mean. We could go to a bar, if you wanted to. I know this nice little place, quiet and not too busy. I work days, so I won't be around when you get up, but there's cable on T.V. and sandwiches in the cupboard. Help yourself. I'll be home in the evening and we'll have a night out.

What d'ya say?