Blackfoot Stories of Old by Lena Heavy Shields Russell and Inge Genee Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $24.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-318-9 Blackfoot Stories of Old is the third in the series of books produced by the University of Regina Press, written in Aboriginal languages with English translations. The book was written, translated, and edited by Lena Heavy Shields Russell and Inge Genee, with illustrations by William Singer III. His etchings, in many ways, look like silhouettes. Fluent in her native tongue, Lena Russell, whose Blackfoot name is “Gentle Singer,” has published 13 resource books – the first Blackfoot resource books ever published and approved by Alberta Education – and helped develop the Blackfoot language curriculum. Blackfoot Stories of Old is a collection of eight very short stories, each about the size of a postcard. Each story is told in Blackfoot on one side of the page, with English on the other. The stories are short, simple, and powerful, with an almost poetic quality. They may well cause a reader to pause and reflect. These are true stories based on Lena’s childhood. Some of the stories, like “A finger bone and a rag doll” and “A Spirit”…

Tracks: The Art and Times of Switchman Joe by Joe Varro Published by Hagios Press Review by Keith Foster $25.95 ISBN 978-1-926710-31-0 Don’t be surprised if you hear Joe Varro humming “I’ve been Working on the Railroad.” He knows the tune by heart. In a series of vignettes from his memoirs, he relates some grand stories of his experiences as a switchman in the last glory days of steam engines in Saskatchewan. He started as a labourer in the Regina rail yards at age seventeen, but due to the manpower shortage of World War II, was promoted to switchman the next year. On his first assignment, as a nineteen-year-old greenhorn in 1945, he was in charge of two inexperienced switchmen. The assistant superintendent cautioned him that damaged stock could easily be replaced, but not arms or legs. Varro describes the dangers of his job, and the tragedies that can befall the careless or the unwary. After two fatal accidents in a space of eight weeks, he went home and prayed, realizing he could have been one of them. In 1949, Varro had a near-death experience himself. While crossing a set of tracks in the dark, he tripped, fell forward, and…

Pulpits of the Past: A Record of Closed Lutheran Churches in Saskatchewan – up to 2003 by Lois Knudson Munholland Published by Three West Two South Books Review by Keith Foster $30.00 ISBN 0-9735234-0-9 In Pulpits of the Past, Lois Knudson Munholland shares the joys, sorrows, and hardships of everyday church life in rural Saskatchewan. She covers the full spectrum of births, baptisms, weddings, social events, and deaths as told through the histories of the province’s Lutheran churches that no longer exist. Compiling and documenting the material for this book was a massive undertaking for Knudson Munholland, one that almost became a lifelong project. She notes that, for most of their young lives, her children couldn’t even remember a time when she wasn’t working on this book. All the former churches cited in Pulpits of the Past are located in what is now the province of Saskatchewan. Not only have these churches closed, some of the communities are now ghost towns. Garden Valley Lutheran Church at Instow is just one of many examples. Sometimes services were held in homes until a church could be constructed. Services at Attica were conducted in the school, but only about twice a month. Two…

Thugs, Thieves & Outlaws: Alberta Crime Stories by Ryan Cormier Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $19.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-300-4 In the decades before Canada abolished capital punishment, hanging was a popular mode of execution. It was not an efficient method. An executioner mistakenly cut down one man while he was still alive, with his neck grotesquely dislocated. As the young man struggled for breath in front of witnesses for another 12 minutes, prison officials discussed hanging him a second time. In the 40 chapters of Thugs, Thieves & Outlaws: Alberta Crime Stories, author Ryan Cormier describes many grisly crimes and their punishments. He explains that “good people can be fascinated by gruesome things.” A reporter for the Edmonton Journal, Cormier relies heavily on court transcripts, newspaper accounts, and his own notes. While acknowledging that “every crime has at least two sides,” he uses only the official version, the one sanctioned by the courts. Cormier’s book covers crimes in Alberta from 1870 to 2008. Many of the stories are ripped straight from the headlines, such as the murder of four RCMP officers at Mayerthorpe in 2005. Some stories seem beyond belief, like the banker who embezzled millions…

Herstory 2015: The Canadian Women’s Calendar by The Saskatoon Women’s Calendar Collective Published by Coteau Books Review by Keith Foster $15.95 ISBN 13:9781550505863 Herstory 2015 serves a dual purpose – combining a brief history of dozens of Canadian women with a daily calendar for 2015. The book follows a basic format – a photo and thumbnail sketch of a woman or activity on one page, and on the facing page, a seven-day calendar with an inspirational quote at the bottom. It is a book is chock full of stories of remarkable women and their accomplishments. Look at race car driver Kelly Williams, who “competed professionally for 15 years – 10 of these at the top level of Canadian motorsports.” Negativity didn’t daunt her. She simply turned it into a positive force and used it to fuel a win. Or look at the lumberjills, women who, like lumberjacks, rolled logs downriver. The Second World War required Canada to enlist women into jobs that were formerly primarily, if not exclusively, the domain of men. A 1943 National Film Board documentary lauded the lumberjills as handling timber like experienced lumberjacks. What about the Canadian Ninety-Nines? An association of female aviators with such notable…

Potash: An Inside Account of Saskatchewan’s Pink Gold by John Burton Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $34.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-314-1 When Rita MacNeil sang “Working Man” about “Men of the Deep,” she wasn’t referring to Saskatchewan’s potash miners, but she might just as well have been. Some of these mines are more than 3,000 feet underground, and at that depth, danger lurks. Rather than dealing with the dangers below, John Burton focuses on the threat above ground. He fears that Saskatchewan may lose this precious resource to privatization. The value of potash is reflected in his tantalizing subtitle, Pink Gold. Burton explores the history of potash production in Saskatchewan from its beginning in 1942 to the present. He knows what he’s talking about. As a close associate of NDP Premier Allan Blakeney and a former board member of the Crown-owned Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, he’s in a position to provide the inside scoop. Burton claims that the aggressive potash development policy of Ross Thatcher’s Liberal government brought about a “crisis that almost brought the industry to its knees.” He notes, “There were even suggestions that some ministers and officials would be arrested if they entered the…

One Family’s War: The Wartime Letters of Clarence Bourassa, 1940-1944 (Second Edition) Edited by Rollie Bourassa Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $34.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-320-2 One Family’s War: The Wartime Letters of Clarence Bourassa is a book that had to be written, a story that had to be told – and a story important enough to be retold. That’s why the University of Regina Press printed this second edition. The first edition sold out, and no one should be deprived of reading this fascinating first-hand account of a Saskatchewan hero in World War II. The story is told through the wartime letters of Clarence Bourassa, a lad from Lafleche, SK, who enlisted in the South Saskatchewan Regiment, leaving his wife Hazel and two young sons at home. He kept in touch by writing, almost daily, letters home. Clarence recounts both the drudgery and routine of army life, and the horror of combat. He also expresses the loneliness he felt being separated from his family. This 603-page book is supplemented with two dozen black and white photos of Clarence’s family and army life. A highlight of the book is Clarence’s firsthand account of his participation in the…

The Vaults: Art from the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the University of Regina Collections edited by Timothy Long and Dr. Stephen King Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $39.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-289-2 Opening The Vaults is like cracking open a safe, revealing the cultural treasures stored in the collections of the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the University of Regina. This visually inspiring coffee table book explores only a fraction of the more than 4,500 works of art. The core of this collection originated when prominent Regina lawyer Norman MacKenzie started amassing art by European and Asian masters, along with emerging Canadian artists such as Inglis Sheldon-Williams. When MacKenzie began building his collection, art was not greatly appreciated in Regina. People thought he was foolish to spend his money this way. He lamented that it would be easier to sell 200 automobiles than to give away oil paintings. MacKenzie had to rebuild his collection after a tornado in 1912 virtually wiped out the pieces he had accumulated. One painting, ironically titled Storm at Sea, survived the storm and is reproduced in this lavishly illustrated book. When he died in 1936, MacKenzie bequeathed his collection of artwork and antiquities…

Beyond the Farm Gate: The Story of a Farm Boy Who Helped Make the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool a World-Class Business by E.K. (Ted) Turner Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $29.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-334-9 You can see a lot from the farm gate. Ted Turner does just that, peering into the past of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. More importantly perhaps, the reader can also peer into the past of the farm boy who helped transform the Pool into the world-class business that it became. Beyond the Farm Gate serves a dual purpose – it’s both Turner’s autobiography and a history of that prairie icon, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. The two are so entwined that it’s hard to think of one without the other. The son of one of the original Barr Colonists, Turner was born in a farmhouse near Maymont, SK, and raised in the Dust Bowl of the Dirty Thirties. He tells how he “rescued” his wife from her 9 to 3 job as a bank teller so she could work on the farm, “where she had the privilege to work from dawn to dusk.” The book explores Turner’s own learning process, how he developed an…

Settling Saskatchewan by Alan B. Anderson Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $39.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-284-7 Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover? The evocative cover of Settling Saskatchewan – a photo of newly arrived immigrants crowding together on a railway siding – effectively conveys the theme of this book. Author Alan Anderson covers the full gamut of ethnic settlement – starting with First Nations people and Métis, to English, French, German, Scandinavian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Asian – from early days to the present. Some immigrant communities are well known, such as the English settlers of Cannington Manor and the Barr Colonists. Others, like the Patagonian Welsh from Argentina, are either unknown or forgotten. Pity. Their stories are worth telling. Many ethnic minorities, such as the Scottish crofters at Saltcoats, Oklahoma Blacks near Maidstone, and Old Colony Mennonites, settled in blocs for security or ethnic cohesiveness. These pockets formed a patchwork pattern throughout the province. Drawing on his research spanning four decades, Anderson packs a lot of very detailed data into his 485-page book. In addition to a list of sources at the end of each chapter, Settling Saskatchewan has endnotes, a bibliography, and…