Out came the notebooks, paper and pens, while groups began gathering all over Saskatchewan to start writing books about their communities. It was 1954, and there were provincial government grants to apply for and guide booklets telling you how to go about writing a book. Ordinary folks suddenly turned into serious scribes were going to write and publish a local history book. In the 1950s, there were still many pioneers around who could provide details of the settlement of the prairies. The people had been silent long enough! Women had had to fight to be able to vote in Saskatchewan in 1916. Canadian women had been forced to lobby to be recognized as “persons under the law” in 1929. Saskatchewan men and women were no longer going to hide or minimize the stories of the high winds, drifting soils and crop failures of the 1930s. They would even divulge some of the stories of the wild Prohibition bootlegging years of 1915 to 1924. They would gather stories of their families and the fun of dances, picnics and baseball games! The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan tells us that there were an estimated 2,000 local history books published in the past 50 plus years. These books are a great resource for researchers, writers, tourism, story-tellers, histories of buildings, etc and readers of history. Yorkton is grateful for the 1955 book Ox-Trails to Highways published by Dr. H.S. Swallow. Some of the stories from this book will appear in upcoming columns.
Contact Terri Lefebvre Prince,
Heritage Researcher,
City of Yorkton Archives,
Box 400, 37 Third Avenue North
Yorkton, Sask. S3N 2W3
306-786-1722
[email protected]
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