The Aug. 25 event along Highway 39 dubbed Heaven's Flowered Highway gave some perspective on the number of lives lost along the 200-kilometre stretch of road between Estevan and Regina.
With families and friends placing various items and mementos at the collision sites of loved ones, Heaven's Flowered Highway provided a jarring and sobering experience for Jackie Fitzsimmons, who spearheaded the event.
When she drove to Regina and back on Sunday, she counted close to 80 spots along the highway where individuals left personal tributes of items of significance with notes and flowers. Fitzsimmons stopped at each memorial to document each location with a photo.
"It was a very long, emotional day," she said on Monday. "When you see the crosses with somebody who was 14 years old and killed in a car accident, when you see the moms and the dads and the aunts and uncles, it just touches home. Everybody's got a family somewhere."
Fitzsimmons said she was overcome with emotion a number of times as she witnessed the horror stories that line Highway 39.
"I don't know how many times I walked out to a cross and there was some note or something written on the cross. I just turned around and shook my head to my daughter, and the tears were flowing. It's just very emotional to see it."
As of Tuesday morning, 5,362 people "attended" the event on Facebook. As Fitzsimmons made clear, nobody was expected to attend any particular event. The attendees are simply people who support the twinning of Highway 39 in an effort to make the highway a safer place for travelers.
"I think it's amazing that it has triggered off this much (support)."
Fitzsimmons said many people left crosses and flowers at the sites, but others left personal items. One in particular was a leather jacket, a note left by a niece explaining that the victim wore the jacket all the time.
"There were so many things. There were pictures. There were ornaments hanging from some of the crosses. Teddy bears, you would see stuffed animals for the young ones. It was pretty tough."
She noted there was another display set off from the highway more than the others. When she approached it, she realized the grass had been cut into the shape a heart.
Though the tributes were varied, those memorialized share one thing in common. The loss of life along the highway is what Fitzsimmons wants everyone to remember and be aware of.
Like many others in the area who have organized to promote the twinning of Highway 39, Fitzsimmons wants the main thoroughfare from southeastern Saskatchewan to Regina to be safer.
"We are not going to stop. This has definitely gotten the attention of the politicians," said Fitzsimmons, who is working with the Time-to-Twin committee, a local group that is lobbying for the twinning of Highway 39 and Highway 6 south. "It's too much. It's time to twin it. It's expensive, we know that, but we can't put a price on lives anymore."
She noted a concern of the province is how expensive an expansion like twinning the highway would be, but she said because of drivers finding alternative routes to bypass the highway, particularly Highway 47 and 33, there will need to be greater expenditures to maintain some of the secondary roads.
Fitzsimmons wants the event to become an annual one, and she hopes it continues next year even if it takes on a different format. She wants to keep it up as a way to ensure it is something the province can't ignore, but she also hopes it touched a chord with the regular Highway 39 commuters.
"It makes everybody a little more aware. Maybe people will slow down. Maybe they'll be a little more cautious of their driving habits. It's not just bad driving causing these accidents. Weather plays a role and the amount of traffic. It's just time. We're not stopping until we get this highway twinned."
While Fitzsimmons asked people not to drive on the highway the day of the event, so people weren't flooding the already busy highway, everyone can experience the memorials on the event's Facebook page. A video of each of the photos Fitzsimmons and her daughter, who travelled with her on Sunday, took of the displays along the highway is now posted on the page.
