Paddockwood Red Cross Outpost Hospital

One of the first pictures of the Red Cross Outpost Hospital at Paddockwood, Saskatchewan. From the Saskatchewan Red Cross.

With the push for nurse practitioners to serve as first point of contact for Saskatchewan residents, particularly in rural areas, it seems a great time to remind Saskatchewan that we were leaders in a unique venture: the Red Cross Outpost Hospital movement.

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My Dad, Sargent McGowan. was driving down the Paddockwood highway from Northside east, heading for Candle Lake and points north. It was somewhere in the later 1990s. Beside him in the truck was a prospector colleague, and they were chatting.

As the truck crested the last hill before the Paddockwood cemetery, they passed a local ‘point of interest’ sign. The colleague looked across at the stone cairn on the side of the road. The cairn is protected by a roof, once painted with the iconic red cross on a white background, the international symbol of the Red Cross.

‘What is that marker for?’ he asked as Dad sped past.

Dad looked at him. ‘It marks the place where I was born.’

The prospector let out a scornful guffaw. ‘Ah, shit, Sarge, it does not. What’s it for?’

Dad slammed on the brakes. ‘It marks where I was born.” He put the truck in reverse. “I’ll prove it to you.’

Image from A. Sutherland photography, as shared on Facebook. Growing up, the roof overhang was painted with the distinctive Red Cross.

Of course, the cairn doesn’t specifically mention that it’s the birthplace of Sargent McGowan. The stone cairn marks the original site of the Paddockwood Red Cross Outpost Hospital.

And that is indeed where Sargent McGowan was born.

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The hospital, according to the Paddockwood history book published in 1982, was the first such outpost hospital erected throughout the entire British Empire. It was built in 1920 and served the community for close to thirty years.

The story of how it came to be at Paddockwood is rooted in the way the British Empire came together in patriotism to fight WWI, and support the Red Cross. The burgeoning district of Paddockwood was chosen as a major soldier settlement area in post WWI Saskatchewan — for soldiers already from Canada, and those from Britain searching for a fresh start.

The Soldier Settlement Board of Canada had learned hard lessons from the homesteading settlement phase in western Canada. Those lessons were rooted in three truths: one, farming is a skill that must be learned; two, farm success requires good land and good capital; and three, homesteading is incredibly hard on women and families.

Soldiers choosing to take land in the Paddockwood area would qualify for both their soldier settlement quarters of 160 acres, plus their homestead quarter of 160 acres. The larger half section land base, it was thought, would help soldiers establish their farms more quickly. The Board checked the soil, set up intensive training and classes, screened the applicants, and set up loans.

The land was also covered in trees, which quickly became a major cash crop. Settlers would cut the trees and sell it as cordwood fuel for city residents to heat their homes and cook their food.

It’s that third lesson — that homesteading is incredibly hard on women and families — that pushed the federal government to add the Home Services Branch of the Soldier Settlement Board. The Home Branch was tasked with addressing all things related to the ‘home,’ specifically providing training, classes, and other support for wives and mothers of the returning soldiers settling onto remote farms.

The Home Branch quickly identified medical care as a major need. The devastating lessons of the homesteading era showed how much accessible medical care mattered. The idea was also rooted in a time when medical care, particularly maternity care, was the realm of women. Women knew how many lives were saved when homesteads could access a nurse or a midwife.

The Home Services branch of the Prince Albert soldier settlement board worked with the Victorian Order of Nurses, the provincial Red Cross, and representatives from the Paddockwood soldier settlement area to devise the Red Cross Outpost Hospital scheme.

Prince Albert Daily Herald January 15 1920

Prince Albert Daily Herald January 15 1920

The Red Cross committed to equipping the outposts, and the Victorian Order of Nurses set about finding staff. The community accepted the challenge of finding a site and erecting the building.

Plans progressed. It was important that the settlement showed need, as in, enough people to justify the investment, and enough distance from the nearest medical centre. In a newspaper article January 28th, 1920, Miss Margaret McKillop, home branch director at Prince Albert, reported that a hospital means added security for the 700-800 people already in the area that it would support. “At present, all serious cases, maternity and injuries, have to be moved many miles over poor roads and taken to the hospital in Prince Albert at great expense. It need not be pointed out that money is very scarce among the pioneers….I’m safe to saying between 40 and 50 expected [maternity] cases between now and next May.”

The Paddockwood settlers, all for the idea, wanted to ensure that the hospital would be in a central location. There was a small townsite, but the promised rail line was neither announced nor surveyed. So, they waited.

In the meantime, Paddockwood residents found a suitable house where the intended nurse could go and stay, while waiting for the hospital to be built, to get started on providing medical care. Miss Reeve (another article said Reed), a Saskatchewan woman and graduate of Saskatoon nursing hospital, came north and started working in the settlement.

Then, fundraising. The community needed to raise funds to buy needed building supplies — most of which had to be shipped out from Prince Albert by wagon, thirty miles over rough trails and rivers. The community, led by a committee of Mrs. L. McLean, Lorne Merrell, Pat O’Hea and J. Telfer, came up with their commitment of $1000, but that still fell short of what was needed.

With the war in the immediate rear view mirror, the settlement knew it had a large, potentially excellent audience — with pocketbooks — right on their doorstep. As a soldier settlement, they could pull the heartstrings of patriotism. They planned a door-to-door campaign in Prince Albert.

A door to door campaign in Prince Albert to donate to the Red Cross Outpost Hospital at Paddockwood. Advertisement, Prince Albert Daily Herald, May 3rd 1920.

The editor of the Prince Albert Daily Herald on May 3rd worked hard to whip up excitement and get people to open their hearts and wallets. “The new hospital will be an advance post in the attack by modern humanity on the kingdom of pain.” He went on: “In Prince Albert there are many veterans of the homesteads, men and women who wrested a livelihood, then a patrimony from the soil in the old days. None knew better than they what homesteading means when loved ones are sick and medical aid too far away.”

Between the patriotism and the excitement of creating a new way to support local medical care, the canvassers were successful, raising the needed funds and more. As the community started building the hospital, nursing duties passed to Miss Beckett of Shell Lake, who soon found herself immersed in calls.

The hospital was planned with two wards, plus living quarters for the charge nurse. Measuring a generous 28 by 32 feet, with a second story and a basement, the community took all summer to complete and finish the structure.

Then, the Red Cross swooped in. It’s one thing to furnish a homestead. It’s quite something else to completely furnish and outfit a working hospital. From linens to beds, desks and medicine, medical instruments and supplies, all the way through stoves, a fully outfitted kitchen and all the other furniture, lights, and decorations, there was a lot to do. Some of the hospital’s supplies came from surplus war supplies; the rest were purchased and moved out.

The Red Cross sent in Miss C.I. Stewart of the provincial Red Cross Society to oversee the final preparations and take over as charge nurse. She took her job seriously, even to varnishing and scrubbing the floors. Stewart had served overseas as a war nurse in Salonika and France, which afforded her a determination to continue to find ways to support service men.

The outpost generated considerable interest. E. Cora Hind, the famous agricultural journalist at the Manitoba Free Press, toured through Prince Albert region in late summer 1920 and made a point of stopping in to view the outpost hospital. Lt. Col. J. Wilson stopped by and was visiting with Miss Stewart and admiring the almost-finished hospital when a knock on the door sent Stewart off to help a settler with a sudden illness.

The hospital was officially opened on Friday, October 1st with a come-and-go tea and open house in the afternoon. Visitors found that the hospital had already been christened by its first birth: baby Hambleton made his appearance two nights before. Citizens followed the opening festivities by a dance at the local Paddockwood hall.

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The Paddockwood Red Cross Outpost Hospital shines like sunshine on the waters of local memory. In its nearly thirty years of operation, its charge nurses mended and repaired outpatients, acted as midwives for numerous local births, triaged more serious illness and injury to Prince Albert, and acted as a centre for the community. From tonsil removal to mushroom poisoning to buzz saw wounds in the back, the hospital saw nearly everyone.

In the depths of the 1930s, when Paddockwood’s star shone bright as a haven for dust-weary prairie denizens searching for rain, the hospital saw its busiest years. As a community-owned hospital, payment for services adapted to the local cordwood and barter economy. Many paid their hospital bills with chickens, beef, vegetables, and cordwood.

Both of my parents, several aunts and uncles, and numerous other relatives were born in the hospital. Later, another uncle purchased the building and moved it to his farm east of Paddockwood. He and my aunt renovated and it became their family home. My brother remembers going to the farm to help reshingle the roof — and seeing the distinctive Red Cross painted on the original shingles. My cousins tell stories of ghosts, particularly a nurse who would check in on them at night.

In about 2003, I received a call from Mrs. Ruth Dulmage Shewchuk. Ruth had been the last nurse at the hospital, tasked with closing it down. She worked with Paddockwood local resident Betty Elliott, who had nursed at the Red Cross Outpost Hospital in Buffalo Narrows. The two coordinated a reunion, held at the Paddockwood hospital-turned-house. They created a scrapbook with pictures and memories. Ruth then asked if I would write about her experiences. I did, and they were published in Saskatchewan History. When she passed away in 2004, Ruth Shewchuk’s files were passed to the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan.

From the Ruth Shewchuk collection. Top: Ruth in front of the Paddockwood Red Cross Outpost Hospital. Bottom: Ruth with the Red Cross Hospital Women’s Auxiliary. C. 1948

When I worked as a contract writer for the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, published in 2005, I requested — and received — permission to craft a short article on the Red Cross Outpost Hospital program in Saskatchewan. I ended that article with a list of all the outpost hospitals that had been built and operated across Saskatchewan:

“RED CROSS OUTPOST HOSPITALS
In 1920, the first Red Cross Outpost Hospital in the British Empire was built at Paddockwood, Saskatchewan. This post-WORLD WAR I Red Cross program served small, remote communities (often soldier-settlement areas) unable to afford municipal hospitals. Built and maintained by the communities, these hospitals were staffed and supplied by the Red Cross. This successful partnership led to a total of twenty-four outposts in Saskatchewan, over 200 across Canada, and more around the world. A “Nurse-in-Charge,” not a resident doctor, managed each hospital and lived in the community full-time. With the nearest doctor typically thirty or more miles away, Charge Nurses delivered babies, stitched wounds, administered medicine, set bones, treated fevers, gave vaccinations, and offered practical medical advice. Often forced by circumstance to make diagnoses and prescribe treatment in a doctor’s stead, these nurses worked admirably outside the bounds of accepted nursing practice. The Red Cross name and flag gave instant recognition, and promoted trust for people of all nationalities. By 1946, over 37,000 inpatients and 27,000 outpatients had been treated in Saskatchewan outposts, with 8,800 births recorded. Over the years, as communities matured and transportation improved, each hospital was turned over to community management or closed. Saskatchewan’s Red Cross Outpost Hospitals included, in order of establishment: Paddockwood, Carragana, Bengough, Eastend, Cutknife, Meadow Lake, Willow Bunch, Kelvington, Big River, Lucky Lake, Broderick, Wood Mountain, Bracken, Nipawin, Tuberose, Rabbit Lake, Rockglen, Loon Lake, Endeavour, Pierceland, Leoville, Hudson Bay Junction, Arborfield, and Buffalo Narrows.”

When I started my PhD research in 2006, I went home to visit and interview older neighbors and friends. One, Iona Locke, quietly pushed across the table a softcover large black ledger. I opened it, then stopped in shock. It was the original ledger for the hospital, from 1920 right through to the end of the 1940s.

As I flipped through, I could see that the ledger, precious as it was, was only partial. Charge nurses only recorded those patients who required overnight care in the hospital. Outpatients — stitches, wound cleaning, advice, setting a broken arm, stopping a nosebleed — were not recorded.

Nonetheless, it contains the birth record of so many people that I knew, growing up. Iona said, it’s time for this to go to a safe place. I made a photocopy of the whole book for research purposes, then donated the precious item to the University of Saskatchewan archives.

And my Dad? Well, he passed away from cancer in 2005. He is buried in the Paddockwood Cemetery — just a few hundred yards from the very place where he was born.

Stone head found near D’Arcy, Saskatchewan

This is an ongoing investigation, almost 90 years old… UPDATED November 25 2023.

I can’t remember exactly when I first read about the carved stone head found at D’Arcy, Saskatchewan, but I think it might have been Facebook. Before the pandemic, sometime in the twenty teens…

And the remembered image has haunted me. It would pop up now and then in my imagination: where did that stone come from, and where is it now?

This fall, I began to dig. Why? Great question. I’m so glad you asked. I don’t really know, except: as I said, it haunted me. It would pop up randomly in my mind. I always thought, someday, I’d love to see it.

This summer, I’ve been actively chasing buffalo rubbing stones, which has led to tipi rings and cairns and effigies, then to stone effigies and every kind of archaeology. So now my imagination circles here again. Whenever I heard a story of someone finding an arrowhead or spearpoint or hammer head or something even cooler, like a petroglyph stone, I would think: Remember that cool, weird stone head? I wonder where it came from? And… where is it?

Here’s where the whole thing started, and I’m pretty sure this is what was shared on Facebook, and triggered my imagination.

A Carved Stone from D’Arcy Saskatchewan –
published in American Antiquity, 1940

The three finished faces of the stone, plus the bowl at the top. I’ve never seen the back side of the stone, though it’s said there are clear plans for eyes.

When I was out with the archaeologists at the Hoppe farm in October, I asked if they remembered the stone. One said, yes, I think it’s in the museum in Kindersley.

Kindersley? Well that’s not that far. About an hour and a half drive. My practical brain said, You should check first. So I did. I sent an email: do you have that stone found at D’Arcy? The reply was swift. Yes we do! Call ahead and drop by!

So I did. Friday, November 10th.

And I’m telling you, it’s absolutely fabulous.

The museum can be found on the eastern outskirts of Kindersley, in a building that you’d mistake for an agricultural machinery dealership. But the caretaker is friendly and knowledgeable, and it’s well worth your time to stop.

The stone is not in the main part of the museum, which is a classic rural museum, chock a block with everything from Eaton’s catalogues to sad irons to roller skates.

To the left of the front door is the ‘archaeology room.’ Inside, you’ll find glass display cases filled with treasures.

Treasures in the archaeology room at Kindersley Museum

An arrowhead and spearhead collection, Kindersley Museum.

Hammerhead collection, Kindersley Museum

On the wall right when you walk in the door, pride of place, there is a half-moon case with plexiglass. Bolted to the wall, in farmer-worthy sturdiness, is the case with the D’Arcy stone head.

Front face of the D’Arcy stone head. See the tongue sticking out sideways, and the face carved in relief into the stone. The stone weighs about 18 pounds and is about the size of a real human head.

Found in a gravel pit south of the village of D’Arcy, Saskatchewan in 1934 by farmer Wesley St. John, the stone has has quite the history in Saskatchewan — and I’m just starting to uncover that story.

The stone was about five feet down , on the edge of the gravel pit. The entire region is known for its quality gravel. Even now, in 2023, the area is full of pits and piles. The gravel pit was on the edge of a coulee leading down to Bad Lake, in the Bad Hills region of the province.

North of D’Arcy lies the little village of Herschel, Saskatchewan. At Herschel are ancient petroglyphs, a turtle effigy, a bison jump site, and other even more ancient finds: plesiosaur bones.

The Bad Hills were a meeting place for the Cree and the Blackfoot. The site at Herschel contains both Cree and Blackfoot cultural artifacts, indications that the site served as somewhat neutral ground — a cultural space to which both would congregate.

It’s not beyond the realm of imagination that Herschel, and other places within the Bad Hills such as Cabri Lake south of Kindersley, and Bad Lake south of D’Arcy, were sites where many cultures could met.

Wesley St. John took his find home. It was an unusual find, but perhaps not entirely so. Saskatchewan archaeology spiked during the 1930s with the drought desiccating the land, exposing hundreds of finds across the province.

There were also numerous local civil engineering projects on the go, including roads, culverts, and bridges. Municipalities found that local farmers would offer to work as a way to pay off taxes owing, an arrangement which suited many. Improving roads became more and more important as horse and wagon gave way to cars.

There was not an archaeology department at the university at the time, and the museum at Regina didn’t seem to be involved at that point in the stone’s Saskatchewan adventure. There were few to turn to for expert advice or knowledge.

The local station agent at Eston, one Fred James, took it home to study, but the studies didn’t seem to provide any answers. He had it in his basement alongside the rest of his archaeological collection until Wes St. John took it back home.

Right size face on the D’Arcy stone head, Kindersley Museum. Not the hole where a pipe or something similar may have been inserted in the mouth.

St. John primarily kept the stone head where he would see it every day: it was the doorstop for his back door.

[Addition Nov 25: from Facebook after the story was originally posted and shared:]

Left face of the D’arcy stone head. This face is the least finished. I’ve never seen the back — though it’s said that two more eyes have been roughly started and planned.

A young teacher by the name of Ruth Smith came to teach at McCarthy school. She boarded with Haydee and Wes St. John in January, 1935.

She saw the stone and was, of course, intrigued.

Her beau, Phil Puxley, was studying Chemistry at the University of Saskatchewan. One of his professors, Valdimar Vigfusson, was a specialist in petrology (studying the chemistry of stones).

Valdimar Vigfusson was a USask professor who has been almost lost to history. I found no mention of him in any of the published histories of the universities, though he [should] have his name on one of the Great War scrolls in Peter McKinnon building.

Vigfusson was born at Tantallon, Saskatchewan (near Yorkton) in April 1895. He graduated with a chemistry degree from USask in 1917 and joined the war effort, first in the army, then in 1918 switched to the air force.

After the war, he worked for both the Salt and Chemical Society of Saskatchewan, and as a chemical analyst with the Government of Saskatchewan. He defended his Masters in 1925, and achieved his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1930. He joined the Department of Chemistry at USask in 1931. In his short 10 year career, he became a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada, and a member of the Canadian Chemical Society.

But it’s Vigfusson’s side interest in Saskatchewan Indigenous artifacts and archaeology that would raise his profile across Saskatchewan. The chemistry professor would travel the province, seeking out stories and artifacts found in farmer’s fields or held by First Nations. He would also collect dinosaur bones and is rumoured to even have had a dinosaur egg in his large collection.

He shared interest in the past with well-known Saskatchewan historian A.S. Morton. Morton traveled the length and breadth of the province searching for early western Canadiana history and hunting down fur trade fort sites. Vigfusson was a regular partner in these escapades.

When workmen near Bradwell were digging in a gravel pit for road construction material in 1936, they uncovered and disturbed an ancient grave site. They called the police, who called Dr. Vigfusson. That was the power of his reputation — even though archaeology was just his vocation and not his training.

What he brought, though, was a scientist’s precision to the study of the physical past. He believed in systematically documenting finds, and became known for his methods. He enthusiastically worked to create the Saskatoon Archaeological Society, and even had an archaeological dig at Beaver Creek named after him.

When Ruth told Phil Puxley about the strange stone holding back the door in the St. John home, Phil told his chemistry professor, Dr. Vigfusson. The two made a trip in Vigfusson’s car — a rarity in the depths of the Great Depression — out to the D’Arcy area.

Vigfusson was enthralled. Everything about his research work, both petrology and avocational archaeology, was combined in this one stone. Wes St. Denis took them out to the gravel pit to have a good look around in case other artifacts were visible or there were any indications that could be useful. They were disappointed.

Nonetheless, the chemist took detailed notes of the land location, terrain, presence of alkali and drinking water nearby, and noted stones that were clearly used in tipi rings. It was, in his view, clearly a find directly related to the region, and its Indigenous past.

The carved hole in the top of the D’Arcy stone heads. It’s unknown what it was used for, but ideas have included ceremonial paint, or burning offerings (though there is no residue or discolouration). It could also have been used for water for ceremony. The stone is somewhat unfinished, so it may be that it was never used.

Undaunted, the professor knew one thing: he wanted the stone. He wanted to take it back to Saskatoon for his collection, and possibly even to run some tests in his lab. He offered Wes St. John $10 for the stone head, and the farmer thought it was a fair exchange.

So the stone went with Puxley and Vigfusson to Saskatoon.

Vigfusson documented the find and the stone in 2 pages of keen detail for the ‘Facts and Comments’ section of the leading research journal American Antiquity in April, 1940.

It’s not known if Vigfusson did chemical analysis on the stone, except to determine the kind of stone used. The stone is sandstone, striated pink and grey, ‘visible when wet,’ which showed that he wasn’t afraid to handle the artifact and put it through some analysis. It’s not similar to any known glacial drift from the nearby prairies or plains. Clearly, it is thought to have been carried here from somewhere else, and most likely, was carved elsewhere before coming to rest on the hills above Bad Lake.

Page three of Vigfusson’s published notes on the carved stone head.

It’s clear that the stone is carved, and though Vigfusson thought that a flint or quartzite chisel was used, later archaeologists believe that the stone was carved with steel tools. He measured and calculated and reported on the size and shape of the artifact and the carving techniques of grooving and cutting to create relief, then rubbing and polishing.

The carver, he said, showed both ingenuity and artistry, and reminded him of artwork from the Pacific Coast or down into Mexico or Mesoamerica, including potentially Mayan in origin, with some similarities.

To solicit opinions, Vigfusson took beautiful clear photos of the stone which were included in the article as the middle page. “The opinion of archaeologists familiar with the art of these areas would be welcomed.” It is not known if Vigfusson received any learned opinions via letters.

Nonetheless, the stone being found in Saskatchewan was a clear indication of movement and migration, for trade and commerce or to pursue climate and geographical opportunities. At the time, archaeology was pursuing the Bering Land Bridge theory, and Vigfusson wondered if this stone might be a clue.

Left face, close up.

Vigfusson remained close with Phil Puxley and Ruth Smith, even serving as a last-minute stand-in best man at their wedding. He continued his chemistry research with Dr. Thorberger Thorvaldson of the university, investigating the properties of Portland cement, and spent evenings and weekends immersed in history and archaeology.

Then tragedy struck. Coming home from a hockey game in Saskatoon in December 1942, in a car driven by his friend Lyle Johnson of Outlook, the car skidded on the ice of the 25th Street Bridge. They weren’t going fast. It wasn’t even a bad skid. But the car struck a pole on the passenger side and Vigfusson hit his head.

The accident was just forceful enough, and the way the pole hit the car, and the angle, meant that his skull cracked on impact. He died later that evening in hospital.

When a university professor dies today, there are processes in place for the department, college, and university to follow. In 1942, those processes were not well established. Vigfusson was unmarried, with no children. His father and brother still lived in Tantallon, and that’s where he was buried.

But his collection, built over many years through the depths of the 1930s and the start of the Saskatoon Archaeological Society, left his chemistry colleagues scratching their heads. What were they to do with all the stuff?

And the carving… where was it? It was thought to have been on display in a downtown Saskatoon store at the time of Vig’s death.

Mouth on the right face. Hole could have held a pipe.

Displays were a common practice. Stores would often offer their display area for local ‘oddities and interest’. In Rosetown, Valley Centre farmer Albert Kessel did a fall display of all the fruits and vegetables grown on his farm, as exotic as apricots and Manchurian walnuts. Curler and later Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Fedoruk had a huge collection of curling pins, which were put on display for a time in a downtown Saskatoon store.

After Vig’s death, the store returned the D’Arcy stone to the university, and another professor — no one is quite sure whom — kept it, either in their office or took it home. At some point, it was in a private home which was sold. The new owners didn’t like the stone and so threw it away — into a back alley somewhere in Saskatoon.

That’s when a University of Saskatchewan student, possibly taking archaeology classes, found it while out on a walk. They returned it to the university, this time to the archaeology department which was formed in the early 1960s with Zenon Pohorecky as head.

From there, the stone bounced around. It’s thought to have gone to the provincial museum in Regina during the 1960s and 1970s, when a copy of the stone was made. [Note: the above tracking of what happened to the stone is what the letters and reports held in the Kindersley Museum explained. However, read below for new and slightly different information.]

[ADDITION: Thanks to records kept at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, which they kindly scanned and shared with me, we know a bit more about what happened. In 1972, the bowl resurfaced, and a series of letters explain what happened.]

Valdimar Vigfusson’s extensive collection had been catalogued after his death by Joyce Crooks of the Saskatoon Archaeological Society. “During the cataloguing process she and others noted the absence of a particularly interesting stone bowl which Vigfusson had purchased sometime back in the thirties.” They scoured the university, checking everywhere for it, but it was to no avail.

But in 1972, the bowl had been found in a private collection in Moose Jaw. Margaret Hanna of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Manitoba would go out scouting through private collections, and saw what she thought would likely be the stone. At about the same time, Gil Watson of the Archaeology Division of the Museum of Natural History in Regina explained: “When I was in Saskatoon for the Rock Art Conference, I spoke with Mrs. Cauldwell and Ernie Hedger.” Apparently, they also knew about the stone bowl and gave Watson the address in Moose Jaw.

The private collection, which included the D’Arcy stone head, belonged to Leonard and Francis Bruvold. The Bruvolds had married in Choiceland in 1928. They left the forest fringe and resided for many years in Saskatoon before relocating to Moose Jaw. Francis Bruvold told Margaret Hanna that a friend had given Leonard the stone head, likely during their time in Saskatoon.

Joyce Crooks heard that the stone head has possibly been located, and quickly sent a letter to James F. V. Miller, head of Archaeology at USask. She suggested to Jim Miller, “possibly you could get a look at it.” She added, “I’m wondering if it’s the real one or the replica Vig’s students made up as a joke. Had you heard about that? Well Dr. Miller, I do hope we have unearthed the real thing at long last.”

Miller immediately wrote to Mr. Gil Watson in Regina. Joyce Crooks had heard that Watson had the bowl in Regina, to make a cast copy. Miller asked Watson to hold onto the bowl, and to contact the Bruvolds, to let them know that the bowl had been possibly stolen or at the very least, misplaced. The underlying suggestion in the tone was that the stone bowl didn’t necessarily belong to them.

Gil Watson wrote back immediately with news. Watson went to visit the Bruvolds and told them as much of its history as he knew. “She then loaned it to me for casting.”

Watson had suggested to Mrs. Bruvold that the university would appreciate the return of the bowl. She was more than willing, but Mr. Bruvold wished to keep it. Watson added to his letter to J.V. Miller, “I think when they bring it to the university you could explain again the scientific value and perhaps he will be more cooperative.”

At the bottom of the letter, he added: “P.S. The bowl is the one in question and is not as far as I can tell a duplicate or a fake.”

Possibly the most interesting note in the files from the Royal Saskatchewan Museum is the hand-written note from Mrs. Bruvold to Gil Watson. “Would you let me know by letter when you have finished copying the Indian lamp. We will call for it ourselves as I have to come to Regina soon.” A note from Gil Watson on the bottom of that letter reads: “Stone face returned in person March 28/72.”

Then, another coincidence. Lester Smith (brother to Ruth Smith, the teacher) ran a photography shop in Saskatoon. He’d also wondered what happened to the stone. One day, a USask archaeology student came in with glass negatives that the department wanted processed. To Les’ surprise, the pictures were Dr. Vigfusson’s originals of the D’Arcy stone. [Note: these photographic glass negatives had been found and prints made by the Archaeology department just prior to 1972. Copies were included in the letter sent to Gil Watson from J.V. Miller.]

The stone itself was returned, not to the archaeology department, but to the home of Dr. Miller, who was head of the department in the 1970s. [Yes. The Bruvolds were clearly persuaded to return the bowl, and it went not to the University but to Dr. Miller.] Lester Smith saw the stone when he was there on a different errand.

By this time, archaeological interest and investigation of the stone had waned. Those who studied the stone decided that it had been made by steel carving tools – though they admitted that does not account for it being still quite old, and why it was found at D’Arcy.

E.A. Johnson of Kindersley thought that the stone had been planed before carving, a rather modern technique, though there have been stonemasons using tremendous techniques for stone building for thousands of years. He also thought that there might have been at least four different steel carving chisels used on the stone, which again, does not preclude the stone being much older than western Canadian farming settlement.

Close up of one of the carved eyes, D’Arcy stone head.

Ian Brace, curator of archaeology in Regina, thought that the stone couldn’t be particularly old, as its edges were not abraded, but rather sharp. It’s not been exposed much to weather, either — but then again, it was found in a gravel pit and has been kept inside and dry for its life in Saskatchewan, with the exception of being thrown into an alley.

Nonetheless, the stone continued to arouse interest and thought. Ruth’s daughter, in the foreign service, saw carvings in a northern city in Siberia that reminded her of the stone head. Likewise, Beatrice Medicine, an anthropologist from South Dakota, is also recorded as suggesting that there could be some Russian influence in the carving. These observations would certainly have been welcomed by Dr. Vigfusson, who was of the opinion that the stone could prove to be a link to the Bering Land Bridge idea — or at least, of travel from far away.

In the late 1980s, Dr. Miller turned the stone head over to the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society, who retains ownership of the odd artifact. It was granted on extended loan to the Kindersley and District Plains Museum — and that’s where you can go see it.

For me, the finding of the stone and ‘what happened after’ is as much to my interest as a historian as the stone itself, though the stone head still looms large in my thoughts and imagination. I’m working with the USask archive to see what we can turn up about Vigfusson. Cheryl Avery has records that indicate that the entire collection may have been subsumed into the University’s museum collection, but that’s the next avenue of investigation. I’ll also be reaching out to the provincial museum, and to the USask Archaeology department, to see what their files might reveal. [See above for the additions from the files of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. The Archaeology Department had nothing more to add, but I’m hoping for more news from the Saskatoon Archaeological Society.]

As Ruth Puxley said, I don’t believe it’s a fake. Wes St. John, despite being a prankster, never gave any indication that this find was anything but a uniquely interesting artifact found in a gravel pit on a hillside south of D’Arcy, near the west shore of Bad Lake. And if it was a prank then, who was the prank for?

The mystery of the D’Arcy stone head remains.

Bison Rubbing Stones – icons of the prairies

Note: This post was updated November 15th to include the link to the Western Producer story about this project. See the link at the very bottom of this post.

Note: This post was updated October 29th 2023 to include notes from my visit with several Saskatchewan archaeologists.

When I take harvest supper to our work crew ‘over west’ where my brother in law farms near Sunny Lake, west of Springwater, Saskatchewan, I always take the time to have a walk behind his bins out to the valley.

There, I have a visit with Grandfather Stone, the bison rubbing stone that can be found on the crest of one of the hills.

Grandfather Stone above Sunny Lake, Saskatchewan

While you can’t see it clearly in this picture, there is a distinctive wallow area around the stone. That’s the feature created when bison — and later, cattle — would rub their moulting winter hide on the stone. Rolling and rubbing and scratching and wallowing, a bison would push and scrape away the earth around the rubbing stone, pushing their body closer, hoofs planted firmly while their body would be scratching back and forth.

Those wallows, and the distinctive patina of generations of bison rubbing on the stone, especially on the bottom, are very clear.

I always thought this land had just the one bison rubbing stone. But when I took a walk a few days later (sadly, without my camera) across the hills you see behind this stone in the picture above, I found THREE MORE bison rubbing stones. Two were smaller, the fourth a similar size to the first.

Talk about an excess of riches.

But readers, I can do better.

I live in the town of Biggar, Saskatchewan. In the Biggar Rec Valley, just to the north of town, there are numerous walking paths. I’ve been a loyal walker there with my dog for the past seven or so years.

There are in fact two recreational sides to the valley: the campground side, and the rodeo side.

The campground side is where I can usually be found, particularly in winter, when my husband and I make cross country ski trails, to go swishing along.

Cinder loves x-country skiing too, even through she wrecks the trails…

But in summer, I roam all over. And years ago, I was astonished to see the most enormous glacial errata, sitting right on the edge of the valley on the rodeo side, not far off number 14 highway.

Glacial errata above the aspens. You can see how it sits deep in its wallow. View from valley floor, looking south.

It’s enormous. So of course, up I went to check it out. In fact, it’s pretty easy to get to. There is a well-worn and regularly mown walking trail along the south edge of the valley — and if you go far enough, you’ll see the stone peeking up above the scrub brush, perched right on the edge of the valley.

Stone looking northeast. Garth Massie and lab Cinder on the stone, to give an indication of its size.

The stone has, to my non-specialist but fairly robust historical research eyes, what I would be looking for in a bison rubbing stone. All around the stone, it’s clear that it has been cleared away in a wallow by thousands of bison, hollowed out like a bowl with the stone in the middle. Note: since the original writing of this blog post, I have since learned that this wallow may have been made by workers of the Town of Biggar, who attempted to move the massive rock to town when they were making Sandra Schmirler Park.

Bison rubbing stone with Cinder (a lab) standing up on the edge of the wallow, for scale. View looking west.

Along the bottom around the stone, you can see where thousands of bison rubbed and rubbed, creating smooth sections that you can feel with your hands, distinct from above where bison couldn’t reach. Note: the smoothness around the base of this stone may have been made by the movement of being pushed across the ground by glaciers.

Smoothed out areas under the stone

It’s been there a long time — and that means, there is some graffiti. Someone carved out what looks like a heart with initials, with a few other initials elsewhere. Kind of like what you’d do with a tree, but onto the stone.

Even with that, though, it’s an astonishing stone. About 8 feet tall at its apex, and likely 25 feet all the way around.

Bison stone with the new Viterra elevator in the background. View looking northwest.

Bison rubbing stone with Cinder sitting in front. You can feel the smoothness of the stone on the underside, where bison would rub their winter coats off. View looking south.

I’ve reached out to the USask archaeology department to see if anyone has done a survey or any kind of investigation of the stone — or if they know that it’s there. I’ve also reached out to the director of Ancient Echoes in Herschel, who will come by for an adventure and check it out with me.

Note: October 29th 2023: I’ve visited the stone with both the director of Ancient Echoes and with several eminent Saskatchewan archaeologists. While it remains highly probable that it served as a bison rubbing stone, it seems clear that the stone was dug out further by humans, in an attempt to move it. Nonetheless, it’s an impressive, huge stone.

There are several publicly celebrated bison rubbing stones which are not far away. One at Ancient Echoes in the Bad Hills just outside Herschel, which I visited in August during the Full Moon Hike.

Bison rubbing stone at Herschel. Taken during the Full Moon Hike at Ancient Echoes August 2023.

There is a Buffalo Rubbing Stone Historic Site west of Kindersley, Saskatchewan. Buffalo Rubbing Stone Historic Site where you can see the distinctive wallow very clearly.

Note added October 29th 2023. I was invited by my neighbour to go out with her and a group of eminent Saskatchewan archaeologists (including Dr. David Meyer) to visit her family’s pasture. This pasture sits north and west of Biggar, towards Cando, and sits in a magnificent valley with a freshwater stream running through it.

The pasture has been previously walked and recorded by the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society, and Dr. Meyer had the original mapping from 20+ years ago.

There are numerous First Nations tipi rings, which were thought to be winter rings by their double round of stones — one for the inside of the tipi, one for the outside, to hold the shelter against the prevailing winter storms.

At the Hoppe Farm, October 2023, viewing ancient First Nations archaeological sites. Cairns often can be found by their distinctive bushes. These cairns are lined up in a row.

There were also many stone cairns, some aligned in a straight row, that are suggestive but of unknown meaning.

Dr. David Meyer checking out a stone cairn shaped like a long thin eye, oriented north/south. Hoppe Farm, near Biggar, SK.

My favourite finds of the day were all the bison rubbing stones. Bison stones are not considered archaeological, as they are created by bison/cows and so are natural, not human-made. Nonetheless, this piece of land is, in the words of the archaeologists, a ‘bison spa’ with numerous distinctive stones to be found.

Small bison stone on the high plateau. Distinctive wallow around the stone.

Dr. David Meyer and Robert Clipperton, checking out another bison stone. Hoppe Farm, northwest of Biggar, October 2023.

Another bison rubbing stone, on the crest of the hill overlooking the valley. Hoppe Farm, October 2023.

Well then I became really enamoured of bison stones. My other brother in law said, ‘have you looked at the one in my coulee?’ So off I went again, adventuring across land I’d been on before but looking again with fresh eyes. There are, in fact, two bison stones for sure on his coulee piece.

First bison stone, with distinctive wallow filled with brush and weeds, near Valley Centre, Saskatchewan.

Second bison stone, overlooking dam reservoir, near Valley Centre, Saskatchewan. Distinctive wallow is filled in with brush and weeds, but sits about 18-24 inches deep.

Distinctive straight edged rockpile, near Valley Centre, Saskatchewan. These rock piles are found all through the Bear Hills, built by First Nations hired to pick stones for local farms in mid-20th century. Stones were piled strategically because First Nations were paid by the cord, a unit of physical measurement. This stone pile would have been measured for payment. See Merle Massie blog post Rockpiles.

I’ve even gotten other neighbours and friends invested in my little obsession, sending me pictures of their big rocks. ‘Is this a bison rubbing stone? How about this one? Come out and look at it sometime!’

Stone with distinctive brush and weeds growing in the wallow. Heather farm, Argo Bush, west of Biggar.

Even if the massive rock in the valley by Biggar isn’t a classic bison rubbing stone, it’s a massive rock and well worth your time to stop and visit. See the instructions below to take a stroll to the stone.

But in the meantime, if you’re going down highway 14 or highway 4 through Biggar and you have some time, it’s a great walk.

Park just off highway 4 at the top of the rodeo entrance and walk the south trail behind Western Sales (it’s got some steep parts, so wear good shoes and be a bit robust). It’s a good long walk — when you reach the last building by the highway, you’re close. Look left. Or, park down in the rodeo grounds and hike up, then head east. If you walk the valley floor first until you see it, it’s past the old racetrack, above the aspens. You can even park on the access road just off Highway 14 and walk down to the valley. In fact, the eagle-eyed can see it from the highway.

Then drop by Biggar’s main street, and check out the recent revitalization project. We have the most lovely downtown. If you’re coming from Saskatoon, it will give you a fabulous afternoon outing.

And I’m hoping that it is, indeed, a bison rubbing stone. Because what a treasure that would be. It probably is, but because of the digging, we’ll never know for sure. Nonetheless, it’s spectacular.

Garth Massie on the stone, with Cinder below, ready to climb.

Leave no trace. Take pictures, enjoy the view.

Link to the story about this project from The Western Producer: https://www.producer.com/news/sask-farmer-tracks-down-bison-rubbing-stones/

TEDx talk: Who Can Be a Researcher?

OK. TED talks are one of my favourite things on the internet, and frankly, one of the best ways to spend a little time, learn something new, and think in a different way.

If you’ve never heard of TED, it stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, but the non-profit company has grown and changed enormously since it first came to be in 1984. The company is now known for its TED tagline, Ideas Worth Spreading. It hosts conferences every year, where some of the world-leading thinkers are invited to give a short (20 minutes or less) speech on a topic.

The idea for TEDx came a bit later. A TEDx follows the same format as a TED talk, but a TEDx is sublicensed to share the TED branding, while focused on a local geographical area. The goal is to spark conversation, create connection, and build community, reaching beyond the local to global audiences.

In fall 2023, I was invited to become one of the University of Saskatchewan 2023 TEDx speakers. I had applied for the honour, pitched my idea, and waited alongside nearly 100 others. The email invitation to join came as a bolt of welcome and light. And terror. And a wild dose of imposter syndrome.

What happened next was a journey of discovery, for myself as a writer and author.

The nine speakers (chosen from leading faculty and students, plus me) worked closely with University of Saskatchewan coach Wenona Partridge, who guided us through a fascinating process to develop, shape, and practice our talks.

First: a TED Masterclass. TED has developed a fantastic masterclass designed for TED and TEDx speakers, and when you get a TEDx sublicense, that masterclass is available to the chosen speakers. All online, the modules are easy to follow but incredibly challenging, pushing each TED speaker in new ways. What is your big idea? How can you craft it into a compelling idea that changes how people think? What is your throughline? What techniques will help you connect with the audience? How can you simplify complex ideas? And finally, how will you pull the whole talk together?

As I worked through each module, I found that I had not one, but several possible TED talks that I’d be happy to give. That’s normal, apparently. We always have more ideas to spread, things that we’re passionate about, than we realize.

Crafting a TED talk is an iterative process, which means, you might think you’ve written your talk up and to your eyes and ears it looks excellent. You’ve finalized things, you’re ready. But as you give the talk orally, you find the sticking points. What you’re trying to say isn’t as clear as you thought. Things can and must change, move around, have more explanation, be cut completely. So you go back and forth, changing and honing and pruning and developing.

That’s when I really understood the difference between WRITING my TEDx talk, and GIVING my TEDx talk.

If you’re a shy extrovert, like me, it is entirely out of my comfort zone to practice a public talk with total strangers in the room, KNOWING that their job is to give productive feedback. It’s one thing to write or even give a talk; it’s another to give practice versions of that talk to hear important and valuable, but difficult feedback about where your talk got muddy, problematic, or simply too hard to understand.

And it’s even harder, to be honest, to self-record giving these talks, as they evolved — even though I was in my office, with no one else in the room. But, TED Masterclass assured us, our talks will get better and evolve in important ways if we do them out loud. So, with reluctance, I set up my phone, squared my shoulders, set my timer, and hit record. Again. And again. And again. I would note my stumbling points, the places where it just didn’t flow, where I needed to stop and say something that I’d forgotten to write down. I could feel the talk changing, smoothing out, gaining power.

I wasn’t just hiding in my office. I also took the evolving talk to small groups, including my fellow TEDx speakers, our coach Wenona, and to small classrooms full of strangers. Their comments were also invaluable, and helped me shape it as it went along.

TED was 100% right. There was a huge difference between writing what I thought my talk was about, and how it evolved orally to become a TEDx-worthy talk. I kept the various iterations, permutations, and notes as I went along — keepsakes to remind me of the journey.

What is my talk about? It’s about a word we use all the time: research. In the talk, I argue that we’ve put ‘research’ onto such a high pedestal, we’ve limited our idea of who can conduct research, who can be a researcher. These elite limitations mean that ordinary people — such as students, community-based researchers, Indigenous knowledge holders, and so many more — don’t think of themselves as researchers, or their work as research. And that’s a shame.

So I call for a return of the original meaning of the word ‘research.’ It means, in Old French, ‘Go Seek.’ It’s about the energy and drive and will and fire to seek out new information, seek out new things.

In many ways, it’s the same Go Seek energy that propels all of us to watch TED or TEDx talks — we want to learn, to share.

So please, feel free to Go Seek, and watch mine, below. You can find the other amazing USask TEDx speakers here.

Sylvia and The Queen

Sylvia Fedoruk spent her life moving toward royalty.

In fact, she came far closer, far more often, to the British Royal Family than many other Saskatchewan citizens. And in this time of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, it’s fitting to recount the many times that Sylvia Fedoruk connected with royalty.

It started, as many stories do, with her parents. Sylvia’s mother, Annie Romaniuk Fedoruk, was an ardent royalist. She cut images from newspapers and magazines, built a scrapbook, lovingly followed the royal family, and when Elizabeth II came to the throne and gave her Christmas broadcast, Annie Fedoruk was in the living room, radio or television on, family hushed to hear the Queen’s speech. That reverence was part of the fabric of the household where Sylvia was raised.

The first royal encounter came when Sylvia was twelve. It was 1939, and the new king, George VI and his wife Elizabeth (later known as the Queen Mother) were on a royal tour of Canada. Western Canada, especially the towns near the stations where the royal train was due to stop, were on fire with royal fever. Sylvia’s parents, Annie and Ted Fedoruk, arranged for a farm truck and scooped up the local schoolchildren — Ted was Sylvia’s one-room schoolteacher — and took them on a trip to the nearby town of Melville, where the King and Queen were to stop.

For one brief moment, Melville became the largest town in Saskatchewan as people poured out of wagons, buggies, cars, and trucks to fill the streets. Sylvia darted away from her schoolmates and parents and, sneaking and swirling, made her way through the crowd towards the rear of the train, where the royal couple — stunned at the size of the pulsing, wildly cheering crowd — were waving. She snuck as close as she dared and waved madly, shivering in excitement as the sky filled with fireworks. For a kid who managed to survive the Great Depression, it was a moment caught in Sylvia’s memory: I saw the king and queen.

Sylvia Fedoruk in 1939, thought to be dressed for the royal visit at Melville

By 1951, there was a new royal superstar in the making: Princess Elizabeth and her dashing naval officer husband, Prince Phillip. With Elizabeth’s father suffering in secret in declining ill health, Elizabeth and Phillip were starting to take on a more active role in the colonies. Their Canadian tour in 1951 brought the royals to Saskatoon, right to the University of Saskatchewan where Sylvia had just finished her stunning masters work on calibrating the depth dose for the cobalt-60 unit, for cancer treatment. Again, Sylvia, as ardent a royalist as her mother, would have been in The Bowl on campus, probably perching in the bleachers, waving and cheering as Elizabeth — not yet queen — swept past with Phillip.

Sylvia’s royal watching cooled for a time, as she threw herself into work and built an impressive science career as a medical physicist. Yes, she remained faithful and, alongside Annie, listened to the new Queen’s Christmas broadcasts and kept abreast of royal comings and goings.

In 1971, Sylvia went with a group of Canadian ladies to Scotland, to participate in a moving, multi-venue bonspiel of epic proportions. Before returning home, Sylvia crafted and sent a warm thank you note to Queen Elizabeth, to tell her about the trip and thank the Queen for the impressive British and Scottish hospitality. Sylvia was delighted when her simple note drew a warm official response from Buckingham Palace.

In 1977, the Queen was once again in Canada and this time, there was going to be a party in Ottawa: a Tribute to Young Canadians Who Have Achieved Excellence in the Arts and Sciences — and Sylvia, as the first first woman member of the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada, was invited. Apparently, no one looked at Sylvia’s birth certificate because if they had, they would have realized that ‘young’ was a bit of a misnomer: she was, in fact, just one year younger than the Queen, and both women were on the far side of fifty. Nonetheless, with Ottawa covering the costs, Sylvia flew to the capital to attend the glitzy gala and — in the Queen’s quiet, intelligent style — Elizabeth II circulated through the room and to Sylvia’s lasting honour, stopped Sylvia for a private chat about nuclear physics, cancer treatment, and nuclear power.

Just a year later, the Queen was visiting Yorkton as part of her cross-Canadian tour. Sylvia made a strategic visit home to the small city to see her aunt (Sylvia’s mom had died in 1968 and her father in 1977). Sylvia and her auntie, along with Sylvia’s dog Tinker, stood along the roadway, waving madly at the motorcade, then hopped into their own car and scooted across town to stand alongside another part of the route and wave enthusiastically when the Queen swept by again. Sylvia’s extended family lore relates that the Queen — a dog lover — took a second look when she recognized the dog! [Note: I mistakenly remembered this incident from 1967 and my original post set it there and then, but a subsequent dig through my files put the story into the right year… sorry!]

Ten years later, in 1987, Sylvia Fedoruk was the first female Chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan and invited to attend a luncheon at the Centennial Auditorium — with a mere thousand other guests — in honour of the Queen’s visit. Sylvia also filled out the crowds at the royal ribbon-cutting for the new canoeing and rowing facilities on the edge of the south Saskatchewan. Yet all of these encounters were just a foretaste: the real connection to royalty was still to come.

Sylvia Fedoruk became Saskatchewan’s first female lieutenant governor, in 1988. It was a wildly exciting time for Sylvia, not least of which because, as per custom, each new lieutenant governor was granted one trip to Britain to meet the Queen, sometime during their tenure. Sylvia was eager to go. However, that trip would have to wait. In the meantime, one of Sylvia’s first, and joyous, announcements as Lieutenant Governor was to let the public know that a slightly different royal trip was in the works: Prince Andrew and his then wife Sarah Ferguson (affectionately known as Fergie) were coming to Saskatchewan. Their Saskatchewan trip gave Sylvia multiple times to connect and act as the province’s official royal hostess, including presenting Sarah with several homemade teddy bears, one dressed like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer.

Andrew, Sarah, and Sylvia, 1989

In 1993, quietly but with great excitement, Sylvia was finally able to board a plane to London, UK, to meet the woman she had been representing as Lieutenant Governor in government and in communities across Saskatchewan. Her day timer notation said it all:

Meet with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Sylvia’s handwriting in Sylvia’s day timer.

Sylvia thought, perhaps, that visit to London, to Buckingham Palace and her private meeting with the Queen would be the end. But, in line with Sylvia’s astonishing royal luck, there was one more meeting. In 2005, for the province’s 100th birthday celebrations, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip returned to the province. And Sylvia, as a past lieutenant governor and past member of the University of Saskatchewan Board of Governors, was invited to some of the Queen’s smaller events. It’s from this last visit that Sylvia’s treasure trove of photograph albums reveals its prize: a picture of Queen Elizabeth II, walking outside at USask and greeting people. Finally, after all these meetings, far and near, personal and amongst the cheering crowds, Sylvia had a photograph of the Queen to keep, for her very own, to remind her of their long long history of connecting. Sylvia was content.

Queen Elizabeth II in Saskatoon. Photograph by Sylvia Fedoruk, 2005.

[As an aside: that 2005 trip garnered one of my favourite stories about someone I know meeting the Queen. Dr. Bill Waiser presented Queen Elizabeth II with a copy of his Saskatchewan provincial history, called “Saskatchewan: A New History.” Prince Phillip, ever the curmudgeon, asked “What’s wrong with the old history?”]

Sylvia Fedoruk would have been 95 this year, just a year younger than Elizabeth II. They saw the world change from Depression through war through scientific advancement and cancer treatment to rockets and a trip to the moon, to the internet and a world that became both larger and smaller. Through it all, Sylvia remained an ardent royalist and a woman as dedicated to service and supporting others as the Queen herself. If we can’t characterize their connection as friendship, it was certainly one of mutual admiration and respect. And Sylvia cherished each and every one of those connections, from driving wildly across Yorkton to wave twice at Her Majesty’s motorcade, to riding in style through the gates of Buckingham Palace for a private audience with Elizabeth II.

God Save our Gracious Queen. Long live the King.

Signatures – a salute to Don Toporowski

This is a post about signatures. You know, the one you use to sign legal documents, at the bottom of old-fashioned letters (does anyone write those anymore?), the one authors use to sign their books.

A signature. It becomes one of the key defining items to showcase who you are. Like the Greatest Showman song, a signature states ‘This is Me.’

I have a pretty good memory of the first time I starting thinking about, and practicing, my signature. I grew up on a stump ranch farm north of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, halfway or so between Christopher Lake and Paddockwood. We were pupils at Paddockwood School, a K-8 feeder school for the high schools in Prince Albert.

Our principal in my later years at Paddockwood (between about grades 6-8) was Mr. Don Toporowski. He taught Grade 8 but like all teachers, would rove a bit between grades as needed. One of his sons, Kerry, was in my grade.

Now, like all school kids in the 70s and 80s, we learned to print, first, them learned cursive handwriting (‘joined up writing’ I’ve heard it called…😆). We were past the practice stage of handwriting by the time we hit Mr. Toporowski’s class ( Mrs. McCalmon and Mrs. Spoonheim had whipped my class into as good a shape as they could) and were writing our English and History essays and exams in handwriting.

[Aside: I had my first practicing in forensic handwriting interpretation, which is a key skill for a historian, at this time. We often swapped each other’s papers to mark in class. Our two class lefties, left-handers whose writing was a bit more challenging, usually came to me. Looking at you, Kerry and Lee! 😘]

But one afternoon — and I can’t remember if it was winter or spring, but it was most likely a Friday, and we were done for the week and waiting for the buses — Mr. Toporowski decided we should develop and practice our signatures.

And he put his on the board. With good heavy chalk and a swirl of dust, he put his signature up as an example. Signatures, he said, are more than just your name.

We probably looked fairly blank at this point. It said his name, Don Toporowski. We’d all seen it on our report cards, in our school newspaper The Paddockwood Pow-Wow [yeah, I know], and on anything from the town, since Don moonlighted as the town mayor, too.

So to prove his point, he got a classmate up to try to copy his signature underneath. Don Toporowski. Oh. Yeah, there’s a difference.

So we got out notebooks and started practicing, figuring out how we wanted our own signatures to look.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, he said, but it can’t just be a scribble. It has to be recognizable, more or less. And strong. A strong, confident signature is important.

Well, confidence was absolutely not my strong point, when I was in grade school. So that felt weird. And kind of faked. I wasn’t confident. I was tentative and driven to achieve excellence, when possible. Imperfection and confidence? Ha. You can imagine what my first few tries looked like. Trying NOT to strive for perfection was my first challenge.

Then there was the M problem. I have a lot of Ms in my name. All Ms, in fact. Not one, but TWO middle names, b beginning with M, as was my first and (at the time) maiden name.

[Aside 2: yes, I did think I should find a husband whose last name started with M. It would have broken my rhythm otherwise. The passport office thinks I may be the only Canadian with all Ms).

And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but when you only have ONE main letter to use, you need to get creative with it. But how many ways can you change up an M? First arch big, second arch small? First arch small, second arch big? So, I played with different ways to write the letter M. And looked with pure envy at everyone else, happily using MORE THAN ONE main letter. Humph.

By the time I’d covered a couple of pages with practice Ms and my whole name, I had something that I didn’t have before: my own way to write an M, and with that, the beginning of my signature.

‘You should be able to sign your signature with your eyes closed,” Mr. Toporowski said. New challenge. Merle the Obedient: ok then.

Well, less pretty, but I think that was the point. To learn to feel it, not just see it, to let it flow. With eyes closed you snipped off the awkward sharp bits and found rhythm and cadence. And, confidence.

‘Buses are here.’ Time to tuck away pens and notebooks, gather and go, flexing writing hands to ease the cramps. Take a final look at my pages. Oh. A signature. MY signature. I see.

It wasn’t quite finished — my style continued to grow and change — but the lesson that day resonated with me. Your signature is yours. No one else writes the way you do. And you’ll need it often — to get your first bank account, to sign cheques, to sign your taxes, your mortgage. And, in my case, to sign books. It’s me, distilled, so you can see at a glance.

Mr. Toporowski’s lesson was this: your signature is important. It’s important enough to require development, concerted practice, personal intention. And confidence.

So every time I sign my name — whether on a document or at a book signing — there is a little invisible dotted line that leads from me back to Don Toporowski and his signature lesson. Because your signature is who you are. And only you can decide what that should look like.

Thanks, Don. RIP our schoolteacher and principal. And thank you for pushing me to find my signature. https://grays.ca/tribute/details/2563/Donald-Toporowski/obituary.html

Sired by a Hurricane, Dam’d by an Earthquake

This is a long post. I was invited to give a talk today at the 2022 Spark Your Pride event in Saskatoon at the Western Development Museum. My remarks as written ( I could riff a little here and there in person) are below.

Good afternoon, gentlepersons, and welcome. Thank you to Coral for the introduction, and to Cheryl Loadman for inviting me to speak today. The theme of today’s conference is Sharing our Stories: Queering Our Proud Prairie Past and Cheryl explained to me that the theme is to “create a positive, reaffirming conference which places our stories in a way that thinks about how we are part of the prairie past, and these stories matter.”
That is a wonderful, affirming goal. But I’m here to warn you: I will likely fall short, as the story that I’m here to share with you is complex and difficult, and may have unexpected outcomes. Please take a big, deep breath. Here we go.

I’ve called my talk “Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake” a direct quote from the Usask student newspaper, The Sheaf, when it published on the story I’m about to describe. My talk today is drawn from my Saskatchewan Book Award-winning biography of Sylvia Fedoruk, specifically the chapter I called Hurricane. It’s about the storm that erupted in Saskatchewan when Sylvia Fedoruk came under the radar of Usask student artist Christopher Lefler.

I first had an inkling that there were hidden stories in Sylvia’s life when I met with Stuart Houston, Saskatchewan ornithologist, radiologist and medical historian, and my past co-author on other works. Stuart originally asked me to co-author this biography with him. Drinking tea at his dining table, discussing the book and planning interviews with Sylvia’s friends, Stuart started issuing commands. ‘You are NOT to talk to [a certain woman]. She is crazy. She is unreliable. She is wrong in the head.’ But he wouldn’t elaborate, so I left with more questions than answers, to dive into an archival trove at the University of Saskatchewan. I met a deeply interesting woman in that archive, and stumbled straight into the story I’m here to tell today.

First: Who was Sylvia Fedoruk? Sylvia was born near Yorkton, SK in 1927 of Ukrainian heritage. Only child, Educated in one room schools then a stint in Ontario, Sylvia came to the University of Saskatchewan in 1946 to pursue a degree in physics. She was an excellent student, winning numerous scholastic accolades while excelling as an elite athlete on no fewer than twelve intervarsity teams. She was a graduate student on the cobalt-60 project — yes, the exact machine you’ll find here at the WDM. She joined the Sask Cancer Commission in 1951 as a physicist cross-appointed to the university, a dual position she held for her whole career. While Sylvia was a trailblazing woman in science, she also blazed trails in sports, including being 3rd on the Joyce McKee Saskatchewan rink which won the first Canadian ladies curling championship in 1961. She leveraged her skills into volunteering in science, sport, and community, renowned for effective leadership on numerous boards at the local, provincial, federal, and international level. She was appointed in 1973 as the first woman on the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada. In 1986 on her retirement, she was elected as the first female Chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan, and in 1988 was appointed as the first female Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan. She was, by every measure, an astonishing, accomplished woman.

But as I researched and built the chapters of her life, I uncovered a massive story that, I soon learned, was why Stuart had been issuing silencing commands. The story was huge, mapped across Sylvia’s diaries and telephone conversations and newspaper clippings and W5 segments and even The Hansard, official government records of the Legislature. It has spawned PhD theses, documentaries, and showed up in law text books. I actually had to stop writing and simply research and process what I was learning, and decide how I would approach it, how I would include it. If I would include it. It was that huge, that explosive. I’ll give you the gist.

Cover, A Radiant Life.

In the fall of 1992, when Sylvia was well-established in her tenure as Lt. Governor and a crowd and media favourite, the University of Saskatchewan accepted a brilliant and gifted student by the name of Christopher Lefler into a Masters program in art, on full scholarship. Christopher’s work studied sexual politics and power dynamics, and in particular, the practices of knowledge keeping and secrets, and who can and cannot share knowledge and secrets, related to the controversial practice of outing, or the process of making the invisible visible. Christopher was an openly gay man, an outsider to Saskatchewan, a swimmer, great cook, but also awash with pain as he helplessly buried so many friends in the height of the AIDS crisis.

Early that winter, he was one of several students who were part of the planning for Usask to commemorate the international Day Without Art on December 1st to recognize the impact of AIDS on the artistic community. When Sylvia Fedoruk was announced as the special guest and speaker, someone at the university told Christopher that Sylvia Fedoruk was thought to be a lesbian. A secret, in the closet lesbian — but in a small city like Saskatoon, this assumption was shared, an open secret, touted as truth. Never married, no children, with a severe and iconic blunt haircut, a penchant for alcohol and a crisp personality, Sylvia certainly looked and sounded the part.

Christopher became incensed. How could Sylvia, if she was indeed a lesbian, tolerate working with openly homophobic government members, or not use her considerable social and media power to push for scientific research into AIDS?

What followed was a series of performance art pieces over the next year and a half. The first, Masquerade, was a silent protest at Day Without Art December 1st 1992. Christopher and a group of friends wore black t-shirts with ‘We are all HIV positive’ and ‘She Kills Us’ on the back. They carried bouquets of death dolls, each with hair cut like Sylvia’s. It was called “Masquerade’ because Sylvia was invited because of it was assumed she was a lesbian, but everyone would pretend it was because she was the LtGov. Sylvia was a no-show at the event but the local media gave extensive coverage.

An image of the art installation Masquerade from Day Without Art, USask, 1992. Screenshot from Tainted by Maureen Bradley.

Two months later, on Feb 14th1993, Christopher wrote and mailed a letter to Sylvia at Government House. The letter is full of rage and pain, a war cry from a younger homosexual generation to an older generation whose fear of living truthfully cast a cone of deadly silence, contributing to homophobia and oppression. Christopher asserted that Sylvia’s impressive accomplishments were built on hiding her orientation, but that in the ‘discreet whispers’, everyone knew she was a lesbian. And he was angry that she hadn’t used her scientific and media power to advocate for change: for AIDS research or queer issues. Six weeks later, on Government House stationery, the Attorney General’s office crafted a reply which sidestepped the question of sexual orientation.

There the correspondence rested until late November of that year 1993, when Christopher participated in an adjudicated student art show at Usask called Staging Identities I, which investigated the connection between individual identity and artistic practice. The Art installation was simple: chair, desk, wall hanging of Day Without Art, and a binder. Inside the binder, if you opened it, were the two letters — from Christopher to Sylvia, asserting that she was a lesbian, and Sylvia’s reply. Nothing more.

Staging Identites I. Gordon Snelgrove Gallery November 1992. Image provenance unknown, possibly Tainted by Maureen Bradley.

The university acted with astonishing speed. It removed the binder, then the whole installation, then shut the art show down. Over the next few weeks, Christopher was barred from campus, his funding and teaching responsibilities cut, supervisor and committee resigned. The Sheaf editor was forcibly commanded by the university to not run its story on the affair. Local media caught wind and pursued it, but with severe limits: none of them, print TV or radio, published Sylvia’s name in connection to the story, which focused on Christopher and outing and deliberately fanned feelings of disgust, hatred, and repugnance.
On welfare, waiting for his disciplinary hearing, Christopher applied for a Saskatchewan Arts Board grant while launching a Saskatchewan Human Rights Board claim against Usask for violating his freedom of expression.

In May, he created another performance art piece for his hearing, called The Wedding: Closet. In that hearing, Christopher was expelled in a 2-1 decision. But immediately after, he won $9500 from the Saskatchewan Arts Board in an adjudicated competition against 200 applicants, to display the power imbalance held in the correspondence between he and the university, centred around the original two letters and the censorship of the art exhibit. The arts community recognized his exceptional brilliance.

The Wedding: Closet. May 1994, Agriculture Building, USask campus. Image screenshot from Maureen Bradley’s Tainted.

The government erupted, and disbelief rolled across the floor of the Legislature. The government forced the ministry to ask the Sask Arts Board to review the grant. Under intense public pressure — still with no one going on record to publicly link the story to Sylvia citing potential libel or breach of privacy — the Sask Arts Board, for the first and only time in its history, rescinded the grant.

The story was so much more than outing. There were implications in every direction.
It showcased terrifying power imbalance between a student and a university administration. Not once did the university ever remember, let alone defend, Christopher’s right to freedom of expression. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Board did. They found against Usask, that it infringed on Christopher’s freedom of expression when it removed his art installation. The university has never issued an apology.

The story showcased art censorship on a chilling scale and sparked a lot of media coverage about what is art, who gets to decide, what is edgy and what goes too far, if art can be political protest or does that make it no longer art, and how does all of that conversation change when the funding comes from government. It led to a documentary by Maureen Bradley called Tainted, which investigated queer censorship with Christopher’s story as the starting point. The story has led to other art projects since that time, though Christopher has never again won an arts grant. He was not only censored; has been entirely shunned.

The case sparked huge discussions within the Canadian legal community and remains a staple in law classes and textbooks. Where does privacy begin for a public figure? Why was it libellous to say someone is a homosexual if it’s not libellous to say someone is heterosexual? Where was the harm to Sylvia? None of that was ever tried and tested let alone proven in court.

The story showcases media decision making and participation in choosing when and when not, to properly investigate and tell all sides of a story. The Sheaf was actively originally muzzled by the university, and the media at large muzzled Christopher Lefler by refusing to allow him a live interview or a live open disciplinary hearing, as they knew he would connect Sylvia by name. Their edited, cut stories fanned the flames of repugnance for his actions.

The story showcases government power, in two ways. One, the lengths the government was willing to go to to ‘protect’ Sylvia’s ‘reputation’ showcased her power and influence, and the reach of the government on both sides of the house. They worked pretty much in concert on this issue. Two, the story showcased government power even over what should have been an arms-length process for a standalone arts agency. Other Sask arts groups did protest this overreach and many resigned in protest. It was a huge breach of established protocol to rescind Christopher’s adjudicated grant.

And the story showcased how completely the Saskatchewan queer community turned on Christopher. He went from a loved and respected community member to a pariah. Many called him a terrorist, categorically placing outing as an act of violence. Some were terrified of losing what ground they had started to gain within a distinctly homophobic province where in the early 1990s it was only ok to be queer if you never discussed it in public. Labeled an outsider and attention-seeking prankster to Sylvia as the darling insider, rude in contrast to Sylvia’s decorum and decency, terrorist tactics against an innocent older lady (masculine power over feminine helplessness). With so much emotion and the entire province engulfed and enflamed in anger, it was easier for both Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan’s queer community to shun Christopher, cast him out, as if he was the issue and all would be well after his exclusion.

The generational politics Christopher exposed, of an older queer community in hiding and how that pulled back a younger community wanting to be fully themselves and embraced For, not in spite of, sexual orientation, was lost. [Side note: there is clearly a generational divide in those who read my book. Stuart Houston wasn’t the only one who didn’t want me to investigate or publish this story].

But some quietly saw Christopher’s point. A few were public, but generally for legal or political points. The Queer community support was muted and mostly personal, not public, for fear of backlash. One later said, “because you touched the very core of our community’s internalized homophobia, you were silenced.”

A screenshot of Christopher Lefler from the documentary Tainted by Maureen Bradley.

One of the things I regularly see on social media is a movement to embrace and claim Sylvia Fedoruk as a lesbian, as a figure to be celebrated in Saskatchewan’s queer history. People dress up as Sylvia for Pride Day or Halloween. I’m here today as part of a drive to bring her story forth. But I’m uncomfortable with that, for three reasons. One, Sylvia’s archive does not definitively provide an ‘a-ha’ moment to reveal her as a gay woman. She discussed sexual orientation nowhere. There is circumstantial evidence which could be suggestive if understood in a particular way. But nothing substantive. Two, she clearly did not wish to be known or remembered as lesbian, since she did not embrace this obvious opportunity to do so. As her biographer, that carries weight with me. Three, I ask this question: why is it ok to now embrace and celebrate the assumption that Sylvia Fedoruk was a gay woman when Saskatchewan vilified and pilloried Christopher Lefler for doing exactly that? Her death in 2012 did not open this door.

I’ve not seen a similar movement to reclaim or embrace Christopher Lefler. And I really pause to sit with that, and reflect on it. I’m uncomfortable with dismissing or reviling or forgetting or downplaying what Christopher was trying so hard to say, in so many different ways. He was ahead of us, leading us and breaking trail down a hard road to engage with power, call it out, shine a light. None of it was easy, and there was pain. But the majority of that pain rained down on Christopher, not Sylvia — and that’s the opposite of what outing does. It wasn’t that it backfired. There was an earthquake by Saskatchewan residents including the queer community which swallowed Christopher Lefler until he disappeared right out of Saskatchewan history.

I agonized over the Christopher Lefler/Sylvia Fedoruk story. I lost sleep. My cousin told me I’d be fired (I work for the university, in administration). I worried that this chapter would overshadow the rest, and the book was a biography of her whole, very amazing life, not just this one chapter. I told Christopher’s story to my Mom as she lay dying of cancer in 2018. Her response was unequivocal. Christopher is part of Sylvia’s story, just as Sylvia is clearly part of Christopher’s. It is about light and darkness, pain and loss, hiding and being seen, being broken and still being amazing. She knew it had to be there, it had to be included. And I agreed. And included it.

I’ve been gifted with forgiveness by Sylvia’s friends and relatives in the telling of this story and in choosing to include it in my book. I suggest that each of you consider gifting a similar forgiveness for Christopher Lefler. If you claim Sylvia, you must ALSO reclaim Christopher, celebrate him, embrace him, as part of our queer prairie history. He gifted us one hell of a story, and much to think about. Let’s gift him by return with welcome and inclusion in Saskatchewan prairie history.

Thank you.

A Challenge for Saskatchewan’s Chief Firearms Officer

Note: this blog post was first written in the fall of 2020 for the site Women for Saskatchewan, as part of a cross-Saskatchewan team of women commenting on that fall’s election and the issues that it raised. That site is not longer online. I’m reposting my blogs from that site on here. This blog is reposted in honour of the school shooting at Ulvade, Texas.

In 2020, the Saskatchewan government hired, on behalf of the province, the next Chief Firearms Officer. It’s not a new position.

Up to this point, our Chief Firearms Officer has been a federally-appointed role (with a federally-flush budget of around a million dollars per year). The office, no matter who pays the salary, is responsible for administering the federal Firearms Act within the province, oversees the jurisdiction around licensing, transporting and carrying of firearms, and licenses provincial instructors for the many firearms safety courses.

Naming a provincial appointee to the position sets the Saskatchewan provincial government squarely against the most recent spate of federal gun restrictions. As we transition from the old federal to new provincial Chief Firearms Officer, it offers a perfect opportunity to write a new mandate letter for this office. 

I have a suggestion for that mandate letter. And it isn’t an easy one to make.

First: a little background. I grew up in a family that hunted, trapped and owned many guns. We graduated from the pellet gun to the .22 to the shotgun to the rifle, took hunters’ safety, and learned how to clean, look after, sight, store, practice, and use guns responsibly. Guns were then, and remain now, a dangerous but useful and necessary tool. We owned and used them with respect. My family took gun ownership seriously.

When gun registration came in, my family thought it was a completely unnecessary liberal intervention. Grumpy and vocal – and only at the very last minute – did they comply. But, they did comply.

With my bona fides established, let’s switch gears. I’m here to remind you that the concept of ‘law-abiding gun ownership’ is valid right up until it no longer applis. There is an aura that law-abiding gun owners don’t do anything bad with their guns.

Yes, they do. They kill themselves. My brother David killed himself with a legally owned, registered, and stored gun. It was a homicide — he killed a human. It’s just, since he killed himself, there was no one left to charge.

Do you know the statistics around guns and suicide? Here’s a cold, hard fact: 80% of gun deaths in Canada are gun suicides. I’ll say that again: 80% of all the deaths in Canada from a gunshot are suicides. They turned that gun on themselves. And killed a human life.

More cold, hard, facts. Men are 13X more likely than women to use a gun in their suicide. The fatality rate for a gun suicide is 83%. In other words, it’s not a ‘cry for help.’ It’s not an ‘attempt.’ It’s not an option that allows for any efforts at intervention, support, therapy or treatment or getting them to a hospital in time. Gun suicide is overwhelmingly lethal. There is no second chance.

There are also proximal factors. Households that are rural or Indigenous, with a culture that uses guns as tools (hunting, trapping, or on farm for varmints or other needed uses) are somewhat more susceptible and have higher rates of gun suicide.

At the household and individual level, there are additional factors. These include poverty, lack of access to good mental health care, loss, or adversity. Combine these with proximity and impulse, and you arrive at horrifying statistics: 80% of gun deaths are suicides, and one quarter of suicides use guns.

What we do know is that a gun suicide is often a choice made in an acute crisis, not a chronic illness. In other words, it’s not necessarily the choice of someone who has been in therapy for years, battling depression and anxiety, an illness that won’t release. It’s the choice of those in acute, sudden distress, those who haven’t had time or know how to reach out for help.

And by the way, I’m not going where you think I’m going. The solution to this is NOT, in fact, more gun restrictions. Research has indicated no direct correlation in Canada between gun restrictions and registrations, with fewer gun suicides. Increased gun restriction or registration is not the answer.

I want to see a formal request in our provincial mandate letter for our new Chief Firearms Officer: open this tough conversation, make it part of the office, make it visible and audible and everywhere and NOT hidden. Add it to the training and recertification, have posters and a campaign, look people in the eye and show them the statistics. Don’t hide. Meet our gun owners where they are: at the gun ranges, in the gun clubs, in the pages of magazines, in blogs, grumpily filling out their registration and transportation papers and in their firearms training sessions.

I challenge — no, I DEMAND — that our Chief Firearms Officer find a way to make gun suicide, a significant part of the reality of gun ownership, visible and visceral and open, no longer hidden in the shadows.

By doing so, we might just save a life. And if we save even one person in Saskatchewan, it’s worth it.

A Radiant Life is Radiant at Sask Book Awards

I’m so honoured and proud to announce that my most recent book, A Radiant Life: The Honourable Sylvia Fedoruk Scientist, Sports Icon and Stateswoman (University of Regina Press) was both nominated for, and won, the 2021 Saskatchewan Book Award USask President’s Award for Non-Fiction. My biggest thanks to the Saskatchewan Book Awards and to the three judges in my awards category: Anne Budgell, Annahid Dashtgard, and Ariel Gordon.

The other nominees are luminous, with critically important and/or really fun books:

Genocidal Love: A Life After Residential School (University of Regina Press) by Bevann Fox.
Flat Out Delicious: Your Definitive Guide to Saskatchewan’s Food Artisans (Touchwood Editions), by Jenn
Sharp (photography by Richard Marjan).
Loss of Indigenous Eden: and the Fall of Spirituality (University of Regina Press) by Blair Stonechild.
In Search of Almighty Voice: Resistance and Reconciliation (Fifth House Publishers) by Bill Waiser.

If you’re so inclined, and didn’t get a chance, I recommend that you take the time to watch the two videos created by the Saskatchewan Book Awards for the event. The first is the video for the shortlist, so you can stock up the next time you’re in a bookstore:

Saskatchewan Book Awards: Shortlist 2021

The second is the video with this year’s chosen award winners and gala:

I’m absolutely gratified by the nomination, and then by the win, in part because I had such an unexpected hiccup while writing the biography. I came to the biography by way of friendship with C. Stuart Houston, a Canadian radiologist, medical historian and ornithologist. He had the idea that Sylvia’s biography should be written, and that he thought I should take the lead on that and he would help. Our partnership was not in writing (my job) but in background research, as Stuart spent a bit of time searching out some of Sylvia’s published journal articles, and spoke with several of her colleagues. It soon became clear, though, that we had quite different visions for the book. I was deeply interested in Sylvia’s sports and volunteer history, as well as her medical research after her groundbreaking cobalt-60 work and her role as the first female USask Chancellor and first female Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor. She had a huge life, well-lived, that deserved time and energy. Stuart’s focus tended to the firsts, lists of her many accolades, and would often veer into side biographies of men and women that Sylvia hadn’t necessarily worked with or even met. I pulled him back, and off he’d go again. Even so, those differences were navigable, more or less, until we hit a rather large snag.

That large snag was the story of USask student, Christopher Lefler. Lefler came to Saskatoon to pursue a masters in art, and he was a cutting edge student doing avant garde artistic installations which regularly pushed audiences to places that they hadn’t expected to be. As I went through Sylvia’s files in the archive, then pored through newspaper articles and W5 CTV segments and documentaries and spoke with people, the connection between Lefler and Fedoruk was impossible to ignore, and impossible to leave out of the biography.

In essence, the story is simple: Christopher Lefler created artistic installations that worked to ‘out’ Sylvia Fedoruk as a gay woman, while she was the head of government as the Lt Governor of Saskatchewan. The result was a university, a provincial media, and a provincial government who moved entirely in lock-step to protect her: removing and censoring the art installation, retracting Lefler’s funding and supervisor, eventually expelling him from the university; media refusal to publish her name in connection with the story and censorship of the student newspaper (The Sheaf) when they aimed to publish the story; and the provincial government rescinding a jury-awarded Saskatchewan Arts Board grant to Christopher Lefler, the only time in Saskatchewan history that an awarded grant has been rescinded.

It was a huge, huge story and Stuart did not want the book to include it. A sentence or two, a paragraph at most, he declared. It didn’t deserve more. Stuart and I were at an impasse. I knew something was a bit wrong when he tried, on a regular basis, to steer me away from speaking with certain people, people that I knew had been close with Syl. It’s only in hindsight that I managed to put it all together: Stuart thought that even including this story would give readers the indication that Syl was, indeed, a gay woman. I, on the other hand, didn’t care at all about trying to ‘prove’ one way or the other Sylvia Fedoruk’s private life and sexual identity. I saw the story instead as one of power, of how it moves and can be focused, how it is actioned and how it protects and ostracizes. It also was a story that, in the end, showcased just how much Sylvia Fedoruk meant to the province: its government, university, media and the general public. Stuart said, vehemently, that he did not want to be part of a book that included that story. So we broke the planned co-authorship and I continued writing. It was a sad time, yet I knew I couldn’t make any other choice, and neither could he.

Even so, with the chapter fully written, I worried: should I include it? Would it overpower Sylvia’s story and her many contributions? So I asked my Mom, who in 2018 was dying from metastatic lung cancer. Mom, this is the story. Should I include it? Yes, she said, with fervor. Yes. You must include it. It’s when we see the dark parts of Sylvia’s life, Mom argued, that we also see how bright she shone. The book was dedicated to my Mom, Mary Kirychuk McGowan.

When I submitted the too-large manuscript to the press and asked for some help and direction in cutting the thing down to manageable size, I started to wonder: are they reading it? Had they got to the Lefler chapter yet? I had politely enthusiastic responses and some vague directions. Then BANG: my phone started to hop with texts and emails. A ha, I laughed. They got to that chapter. My editor was retired newspaper journalist Sean Prpick, and we meshed as a team over that chapter, in long phone calls and discussions, some cajoling, and some recalcitrant stubbornness to polish that chapter and make it as smooth as we could.

When I submitted the draft manuscript to the publisher in January of 2019, I also took a copy to Stuart and Mary Houston, for their review and editing. I gave them two different coloured pens, and instructions that I wanted both of their comments, but in different pens. It’s clear that Stuart read it first, with copious comments in red in the margins, especially about the medical history contained in the book. Mary’s pen was green, and hers made me laugh uproariously. If Stuart made a comment with which she disagreed, the green pen would gently stroke out his red exhortation and calmly say, ‘no’. It was a masterclass in editing, and in marriage.

There were no pens, of either colour, on the Lefler chapter. I wasn’t expecting them.

When the book finally went to press in 2020 and the author copies came in July, I drove to Saskatoon to take one to Stuart. Mary had, to everyone’s sadness, passed away in 2019 but Stuart and I toasted the book with a drink. Then I left and he read it, again and again and again over the course of the fall of 2020 and winter of 2021. Every few weeks, there would be another phone call and either a long chat or a message on my answering machine: I’ve read the book again, and underlined so much, and I only underline what you got right, and now the whole book is full of underlines. His praise meant so much.

On one of those calls, he quietly admitted that he saw why I included the Lefler chapter, and recognized that it belonged, even if he didn’t like it. It was, for both of us, a warm ending.

When A Radiant Life was awarded the Saskatchewan Book Award for non-fiction in late June of 2021, I tried calling Stuart. No answer, and a full voice mail so I was unable to leave a message. I kept trying, for weeks, covid still keeping restrictions on visitation. I never got through. At the end of July, I learned that Stuart had suffered a stroke and seemed to be recovering, but on July 22nd, he slipped away to join Mary. We never got that chance to connect and celebrate the win — but, I think, he knew.

I am intensely proud of this book, and I hope each and every one of you takes a chance on it, and reads it. Sylvia Fedoruk was a life force; her energy still radiates. I welcome you to come and meet her — you won’t regret it.

The University of Saskatchewan hosted the online book launch for A Radiant Life in September 2020 — with Merle Massie and Dr. Vera Pezer

Principal’s message from 1969

So, something quite odd happened on social media in early January.

My dad, Sargent McGowan (born in 1938) had a somewhat viral social media post.

There are two reasons why that was odd. One, the post was written by Dad back in 1969.

Two, Dad passed away from cancer in 2005.

Welcome to social media, where time is a loop and somewhat irrelevant. After all, we can see hand-written pages of Shakespeare’s plays and Egyptian papyrus on the internet alongside posts from mere seconds ago around the world.

Nonetheless, it’s not the time loop that sent his post shooting through social media, but its content.

In 1969, Dad was the principal of Gronlid School outside of Melfort. As per usual, he wrote the annual Principal’s Message for the school yearbook.

One of the people who had a copy of that yearbook – Val Rilkoff – was sorting through pictures and books. When she reread the Principal’s Message, she said, she found it very moving, especially after the events in the US.

So she snapped a picture and posted it to the Facebook group, Old Saskatchewan.

Old Saskatchewan is a great place to share old photos and time capsule pieces and stories. Anyone from the Gronlid area might enjoy the walk down memory lane.

Soon, my phone was hopping with texts and messages: you have to read this post on Old Saskatchewan. It’s by your Dad.

Sure enough, I opened my phone and there is Dad’s voice coming through the typewritten pages from over 50 years ago, with words to share that sound incredibly prescient.

They are worth reporting in full.

He opens with a quote: “Paper will put up with anything written on it.”

He then continues: “This quotation is credited to one Josif Vissarionovich Djugashvili, better known to the world as Joe Stalin.”

“While his claim to fame is certainly not based on his literary accomplishments, he did not hesitate to make use of papers and the press to distort the truth and glorify himself.”

“Alas, Joe Stalin is dead; but if God in his Wisdom and Man in his Ignorance could combine to produce such a one as him, they are certainly capable of creating another.”

“Indeed, unless people become more adept at disseminating substance from style, fact from fiction, wisdom from irrelevancies; then the future of mankind is bleak indeed and the opportunities for tyrants are vastly improved.”

“I must feel depressed today to think such dark thoughts and draw them to the attention of my favourite people – but the challenges of the future are not all connected with outer space, racial relations or population explosions.”

“I foresee where the greatest difficulty which will confront mankind will be in the selection of its leaders.”

“It is to this difficult problem I would alert the students and graduates of this year.”

He then signed it: Sargent E. McGowan.

Over a thousand people on that Facebook site have liked the post, and hundreds more have commented: “Wise words.” “Great message so relevant for today.” “Powerful.”

I decided to cross-post it to Twitter, as a bit of a counterpoint to the news coming out of the US.

My dad was principal of Gronlid School, Saskatchewan in 1969. His principal's message in the yearbook that year is being read and shared on Facebook. I thought I'd share it here. pic.twitter.com/j73En9Iok5

— Merle Massie, PhD 📚✒️🚜🇨🇦 (@merlemassie) January 10, 2021

Again, hundreds have liked and shared Dad’s words. “A timeless message.” “So honest to young people, zero cliches, beautifully written.” “Wow! Amazingly prophetic!”

My favourite responder said, “Inspiring words, written with care and elegance. That is wisdom! You must be so proud of your father. Thanks for sharing this with the rest of the world.”

I am quite proud of Dad (even though I’m pretty sure he should have said discerning instead of disseminating – that’s the kind of argument we could have had – word nerds). He was a talented teacher, a farmer, a reeve, a reader and a deep thinker.

But it really is a uniquely modern accomplishment to deliver a post from fifty years ago, and have it resonate so strongly today.

Never underestimate the power of words. Or try to imagine or predict when they might come around again.