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.

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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

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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

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Women For Saskatchewan: Viewpoint Forward

One of the most interesting projects to ever land in my lap is the new Women For Saskatchewan site.

Back in August, I was contacted by the one and only Winter Fedyk . She said, I have this idea. I want to build a website and invite Saskatchewan women to write posts. The posts can be about anything they want, but with a view to giving policy suggestions for Saskatchewan. What do you think?

Well, when an opportunity like that drops into your lap, you say yes, and fast!

I was smack dab in the middle of the release and online launch of my most recent book A Radiant Life (I have a blog post or two about that story…) so I was a bit busy to start with. Then, things really got rolling and the site launched on October 1st.

What a whirlwind! I had a post on the site right off the bat, from the launch. It’s my challenge for Saskatchewan’s new Chief Firearms Officer, and it’s not what you might think. People see the word ‘firearms’ and they think ‘gun control.’ But that’s not what I call for. It’s a really personal story. I talk about my family’s walk through gun suicide, and what I think we, as a gun community, can do to help address that issue. The post started as a Twitter thread; the blog version is tighter, tougher, and direct.

So we have a new incoming Chief Firearms officer in Saskatchewan. It seems the right time to discuss policy advocacy that this office *must* include: the relationship between firearms and suicide. A thread, and a tough one. https://t.co/LT9QxgLyP6

— Merle Massie, PhD 📚✒️🚜🇨🇦 (@merlemassie) September 19, 2020

The blog post led to a call from CBC Saskatchewan — would you please talk about this idea on the radio? So there I was with Stefani Langenegger, chatting on CBC Morning.

A week or so after the first post, I had another post drop into the site. This one also has a story, and argues that Saskatchewan has a map problem. It’s a piece that I had in my mind from the minute that Winter contacted me: Merle, what policy issues would you bring up? I thought: Saskatchewan has a map problem. And that became the title, and the argument.

Then, things somehow started to snowball. First, Loleen Berdahl, the new Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, asked me to join a lunchtime political panel hosted by the Department of Political Studies at USask. I stepped in at the last minute as one of the panelists came down with an illness, but it was nonetheless an illuminating and really fun event.

My task was to bring in a farm and rural perspective to the debate, so I did — pointing out that a few things look quite different from the farmgate versus the city. The points caused a lot of head-nodding, and a few ‘I never thought of that’ comments. The “I never thought of those points” responses were reiterated a couple of days later during a Women for Saskatchewan editorial meeting. I thought … hmmm… I seem to be onto something. So another tweet string erupted!

This was a week of interesting conversations, both public and private. In two cases, I was asked to clarify *why* rural folks think in particular ways around climate change, especially pipelines and the 'just' transition to green energy. A thread:

— Merle Massie, PhD 📚✒️🚜🇨🇦 (@merlemassie) October 10, 2020

The tweet string brought lots of comments, retweets and likes, which always indicates when I’ve hit a bit of touchstone. So the Women For Saskatchewan Editorial committee decided, hey, let’s make this into a podcast!

So we did…

https://womenforsaskatchewan.ca/podcast-episode-3-rural-urban-divide/

It’s been an absolute joy to be a part of this amazing initiative — and I’m excited to see where it’s going to go. Please, please, take your time and go through the Women for Saskatchewan site. There are so many excellent, visceral, deeply intriguing or painful or sharp or insightful articles. I promise, they are well worth your time.

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A Radiant Life: The Honourable Sylvia Fedoruk Scientist, Sports Icon and Stateswoman

It’s here! It’s here! It’s here!

The University of Regina Press has released my new book, A Radiant Life: The Honourable Sylvia Fedoruk Scientist, Sports Icon and Stateswoman. 

Isn’t that the most spectacular cover you’re ever seen? At first I was, hey, it should be green! She was Saskatchewan’s best and loudest cheerleader and that’s our provincial colour. But my son said, Mom, she was the lieutenant governor. The Queen’s colour is purple. And I thought — that’s right.

It’s been such a journey. I began thinking about the book along with Dr. Stuart Houston in about 2013, and began writing in 2015, off the side of my desk in the bits and drabs of time I could give. In 2018, I was awarded a Saskatchewan Arts Board Independent Artist grant, which gave me four months of concerted time. A full manuscript in January 2019 (much too long) got edited (40,000 words cut) at a writers’ retreat at St. Peter’s Abbey in Muenster in early May 2019. A lot of polishing, editing and copyediting, choosing photographs, typesetting and printing and ta-dah — it’s here!

The team at University of Regina Press has been absolutely stellar. From Karen Clark who gave me encouragement to keep going, to Kelly Laycock the managing editor, Sean Prpick who was my original editor (I could tell when he got to certain chapters — he got really excited!), Duncan Campbell the artistic director, and ZG Stories who has taken on the marketing and publicity for the book, I just couldn’t be better served by a Saskatchewan-based publisher — and I know that’s what Sylvia Fedoruk would have wanted.

I have an invitation for you: The University of Saskatchewan (which is both my and Sylvia’s alma mater) is hosting an online book launch on September 15th at 7pm. You can register for the event here, and an email link to the online launch will be sent to you in about a week. Please join us!

Timeline of Sylvia Olga Fedoruk: 

Born: May 5, 1927 at Canora, Saskatchewan

Annie Fedoruk and Syl, 1927

Schooling: Chaucer and Scotland Schools, near Wroxton Saskatchewan. Then move to Walkerville, Ontario during WWII.

Syl Fedoruk, Walkerville Ontario 1945

Sylvia Fedoruk returned to Saskatchewan with her family in 1946 and entered the University of Saskatchewan. She took medals on 12 intervarsity sports teams, and won the Spirit of Youth Award at Convocation.

Sylvia playing basketball 1947

Syl with Spirit of Youth Award 1948

In 1951, Syl would make a Canadian scientific splash as the female Saskatoon team member of the cobalt-60 therapy breakthrough for cancer treatment. Dubbed the ‘cobalt bomb,’ it would become Syl’s best-known scientific accomplishment.

By 1960, Syl was making waves in the Canadian curling scene, playing third for Joyce McKee. Their team won the first Canadian ladies curling championship.

Joyce McKee, Syl Fedoruk and Muriel Coben in 1960

Syl Fedoruk, Joyce McKee, Rosa McFee and Barbara McNevin

Once her sports career finished, Syl turned her attention to building the game and was instrumental in bringing Canadian ladies’ curling on par with men’s curling in the 1970s. By then, she was both a professor at the University of Saskatchewan in the college of medicine, and Director of Physics Services for the Saskatchewan Cancer Association. Elected as the first woman to the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada, she retired from all of her positions in 1986 — but didn’t stay retired. She was elected as the first woman chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan in 1986, followed by her appointment, in 1988, as the first woman Lieutenant Governor for Saskatchewan.

Syl as Chancellor

Syl as Lt. Gov, official portrait

Syl was also awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, the Order of Canada, and became a Dame of the Order of St. John. She served twice on the board of Governors for the University of Saskatchewan, and was awarded five honorary degrees — the last, in 2006, from her own University of Saskatchewan.

In her spare time and for fun, Syl could be found with her dog (in her lifetime, she owned three: Tinker, Charli, and MaxC), gardening and canning, playing poker, fishing up north, collecting curling pins, cheering at Huskie games while screaming at the refs, taking photographs and videos, or cooking — though she would send all the leftovers home with you.

Everyone in Saskatchewan who had the honour and joy to meet her, found an impressive mind, a warm spirit, an earthy humour, a no-nonsense viewpoint, and a new friend.

Tinker

Charli as the LG Consort

MaxC

Syl Fedoruk passed away at age 85 in 2012, and was given a state funeral in Saskatoon.

It has been both an honour and a pleasure to be the first to delve into Sylvia Fedoruk’s files in the archives of the University of Saskatchewan, and to bring you this amazing story of a truly unique, truly Saskatchewan woman.

Listen to Merle Massie discuss A Radiant Life via these media stories: 

With Peter Mills on CBC August 29th 2020

With John Gormley: John Gormley – Merle Massie August 28th 2020

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When Hollywood comes calling: First Man, Universal Studios, Ryan Gosling and the cobalt bomb.

In August of 2017, I was contacted via email by a researcher from the United States, Hilary Ament. She was on contract with the producers and production crew of the movie First Man, a biopic of Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. Based on a biography written by James R. Hansen, the movie focuses less on the moon landing and more on Armstrong’s life and relationships and family. Armstrong is portrayed by Hollywood megastar Ryan Gosling, and his wife Janet by the cool beautiful Claire Foy.

One of the storylines, a moment which created a particular sad trajectory in the Armstrong family, was learning that their young daughter Karen had brain cancer. Ever the scientist, Armstrong worked feverishly to find a cure. The movie was set to include a scene where Karen would undergo treatment using the cobalt-60 machine, known as the cobalt ‘bomb.’ Originally developed and designed in Canada, the cobalt machine was the first deep-seated cancer radiation technology designed specifically for clinical application.

Hilary Ament’s email said: “the set designers are building a machine similar to this model, but are having a little bit of trouble understanding the order of the procedure itself, showing what should be on the control panel and dials, and maybe any notes doctors would take.”

Hilary found me via the University of Saskatchewan and the Western Development Museum, where the original Saskatchewan-built cobalt-60 machine is on display. Searching desperately for technical insight, she came to me.

I had been working intermittently on a biography of Saskatchewan physicist Sylvia Fedoruk (of ball, curling, and Lieutenant Governor fame) who had been a graduate student working on the original cobalt bomb project. Syl’s files, along with those of Harold Johns at the University of Saskatchewan Archives and Special Collections, were a treasure trove of information.

I sent a short description, taken from my in-progress manuscript on Sylvia Fedoruk, about cobalt-60 and how radiation works to fight cancer. I also sent along a description of the treatment room constructed at the University of Saskatchewan which housed the original cobalt-60 unit, along with schematics. The original room featured a ten inch thick glass window, where technicians would monitor the patient during radiation.

As well, I passed along descriptions of the way treatment technicians would design special padding or apparatus to hold a patient in place. For a young child like Karen, holding still was paramount, and the technicians would have worked with both Karen and her parents to make the little girl comfortable and at ease.

Of course, Karen would have been given multiple radiation doses, not just one, but a major Hollywood movie has time constraints. All of this work would go into just one scene.

Hilary Ament replied, “This is beyond what we had hoped for. The set designers are very happy with the research that we’ve collected, and are on a solid track now. Between reading the articles you sent, diagrams, and video we’ve been able to get a pretty good idea of how these operated! The scene is fairly short, so they’re thinking they have enough to go on…”

I was thrilled to help, even in this small way for a tiny scene. So of course when First Man hit our little Majestic Theatre in Biggar in the fall of 2018, I was in the audience, bright eyed and ready to see what it all looked like.

There’s nothing like watching a movie in a small, community-owned theatre in rural Saskatchewan. The Majestic is our local site for all things arts. Built in 1909 and rescued from oblivion, it hosts music festivals, live concerts, plays, dance festivals, and musicals, as well as movies on Friday and Saturday night, along with the popular Sunday afternoon matinee. Run by volunteers, it’s one of the focal points and gathering spaces for our community.

In the audience, scattered alongside and all around me, munching popcorn and slurping drinks, were friends, neighbors, and relatives. In the city, a movie experience is rather impersonal. Sure, the audience laughs together in all the right places, but we don’t necessarily know our neighbors or the ones who sold us the ticket or handed us the popcorn or took a quick bathroom break in the stall beside me before the opening credits.

In a small community theatre, the vibe is completely different. We don’t need a lot of previews or games on the screen. We’re busy chatting: do you have enough stuff for the raffle table at the hockey game? Are you hauling wheat this week? Can you curl for me next Wednesday night? Once a movie starts, you recognize the different audience laughs — brother in law Ryan, good friend Tina. We count how many people are there and celebrate a movie that’s going to make a profit. And lots of us have learned to clean up behind ourselves, taking garbage out on our way back through the lobby.

The night I went to see First Man, there were plenty of friends and relatives in the audience, many of whom knew about my encounter with Hollywood, and had almost as much anticipation shivering through them as I did. We could experience it together.

The cobalt-60 scene comes early in the movie, and I sat forward to watch every detail as it shimmered on screen. With Karen’s neck supported, her head exposed and her body gently strapped in place, she looked just as I had imagined. The Eldorado-style machine looked like a miniature version of the space-age rockets Armstrong was working on. The treatment room had no windows, with thick concrete walls lined with lead. Neil and his wife Janet watch from behind the thick glass window helplessly, overcome with hope that the treatment would succeed.

It was an amazing moment as a researcher. I had helped to shape the way a movie looked, the way the actors moved, the set design, and the whole feel of the scene. I was jubilant.

But Hollywood has a way of surprising you. My work, offered to Hilary Ament and to Universal Studios, had not just shaped the visuals. It had actually changed the script in the movie. My mouth dropped in shock at the next scene. In it, Neil Armstrong is on the telephone to the doctors at the hospital. He asks [and this is my memory, not a direct quote], Did you call Dr. Johns? Dr. Harold Johns? The doctor in Saskatchewan who invented the treatment? 

I couldn’t help it. Even though this is a scene of great pathos and sadness, learning that the much-hoped-for treatment didn’t work on his daughter, I was lifted right out of my seat, cheering. My poor husband was hushing and pulling me down, but others were just as jubilant: hey, they said Saskatchewan! Tears leaked out, both for the memory of a little girl full of sunshine whose life was cut short by cancer, and by my own personal victory: I had had an influence on a Hollywood movie script. A whole scene, then another, shaped by my research and insight. And Saskatchewan got a mention.

First Man is up for four Oscars at the 2019 Academy Awards, one of which is production design. I’ll be watching with delight, hoping for a win. After all, I do have a little bit of skin in this game.

I wish I could say that I found my name in the credits. Several of my friends and neighbors, and my brother and sister-in-law, went close to the screen (none of us are youthful) to try and find my name. Nothing. Nonetheless, I have the paper trail and the emails, and the movie scenes themselves to back up my story. Hollywood, if you’re listening, come again. Saskatchewan has a few more hidden stories for you. But next time, I’d like to be in the credits, please.

And yes, I’ll be watching it at The Majestic.

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