It's a Saskatchewan trend that's been spreading like prairie fire — older folks in a variety of tiny towns are doffing their duds to appear as calendar pinups.

It started last year in Eston, on the west side of the province, when a group of mature men put out a calendar to raise funds for the local health centre. That was a big hit, with more than 550 calendars being sold by November 2005.

One of the pictures in the Pangman calendar is titled 'An intergenerational bare-hunt.'
(Courtesy Gene Kessler)

After that, a dozen, mostly 50-something women in the village of Tantallon, in the southeast corner of the province, launched their charity calendar. This time the cause was the Kinsmen Telemiracle Fund.

"I'm in an old fashioned big, clawed bathtub and I'm sitting there with a glass of wine. With just bubbles up, just barely covering me," said Janet Ryan, AKA Miss February, a wife and mother in her mid-50s who enjoys making crafts.

It's all borrowed from Calendar Girls, the 2003 movie with Helen Mirren about a group of older women who achieve unexpected success from their nude calendar. Since then, real-life communities around the world have embraced the concept.

Next up were the grandmas and grandpas of Pangman, south of Regina. To raise money for the local personal care home, they exposed themselves in tastefully arranged scenes of skiing, golfing, billiards, knitting and swimming.

Meanwhile, some more people on the west side of the province are turning to nude calendars as a form of political protest.

In the town of Leader, on the west side of the province, 12 people posed nearly nude in their calendar to express their frustration with the government over the pothole-ridden state of Highway 32.

One man is seen filling a pothole with his potatoes. Another is rowing a canoe in a water-filled pothole.

"I'm wearing a smile and a cap," said Gord Stueck, a local pharmacist who's Mr. January.

People in other provinces have jumped on the nude calendar bandwagon, too. However, at least on a per capita basis, Saskatchewan appears to the Canadian champ.