Yorkton Stories

When Linda Cymbalisty married Joe Skomorowski, they set their sights on leaving Winnipeg and setting up their own plumbing shop in a rural town. And that included quitting university and becoming a plumber herself!As it turned out, that was easier said than done – much, much easier said than done. She was far ahead of her time, and ran into  major roadblocks with educators, and even with the plumbers union. But she was not a quitter. She knew what she wanted, and would not, did not give up. They attained their goal, set up shop in Norquay, Saskatchewan, and are now retired in Yorkton.Text us your comment

In 1997 Gene Krepekavich, the longtime Yorkton Terrier booster, volunteer and club president for six seasons published the history of the first 25 years of the junior Terriers hockey team. It starts with the 1972-73 season. But what few, if any, remembered then and now, and what is not recorded in recent official histories of junior hockey in Yorkton, is an earlier team, also known as the Yorkton Terriers, which also played in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. It played one season, 1955-56, and hosted that season's SJHL all-star game. It was managed and coached by Bill Hunter -- THE Bill Hunter of World Hockey Association and Edmonton Oiler fame which came a decade later.On it was one player who still lives in Yorkton, Merve Kuryluk. He was 18 at the time and on his way up the hockey ranks. It was covered for CJGX Radio by a rookie reporter, also 18 years of age, Linus Westberg.We talked with both of them 70 years later, and listen in on interviews Linus did with hockey and media luminaries who attended the game, and the preceding dinner at the Yorkton Hotel.Text us your comment

A local fundraiser that started in a snowy highway ditch has grown into an event that refuses to slow down, and now includes wheeled riders in the desert. We follow the history of Yorkton’s Snowarama from a 1977 ride sparked by the pro wrestler "Whipper" Billy Watson to a multi‑chapter effort that supports SaskAbilities programs including Camp Easter Seal, the summer fun program, and adaptive technology services that enhance the lives of clients with various challenges. A number of those who built and grew the event talk about why they did what they did, and still do! Founders, fundraisers, and next‑gen riders share how Yorkton's Snowarama kept growing while those in Regina and Saskatoon didn't make it into this century.Text us your comment

Duval Lang, known to many as Duve, has been immersed in Calgary live theatre for 46 years now. He ended up there for university, and has called it home ever since, other than when he travelled the world as an actor.But in Yorkton, in the 1960s, he was one of the players on a provincial high school championship football team, representing Yorkton Collegiate Institute; not a big guy to be playing on the line, but fast and pesky for the opposition to deal with. His dad, Elmer Lang, owned a plumbing business among various endeavours, and was involved in baseball, hockey and curling in the city; his mother Meta volunteered for many community organizations, including the Yorkton Arts Centre and its art gallery.We talked about his life in Yorkton as a youth, and his long and well-recognized, rewarded and rewarding career in live theatre.Text us your comment

To the many newer residents of Yorkton, the name Ruth Shaw likely isn’t recognizable. But to those who lived here in the latter half of the previous century, the name, and the woman who bore that name, was an unassuming but powerful force and voice in helping the province and beyond know about Yorkton through at least three major roles she played in the city.For 16 years she was the reporter and bureau manager of the Regina Leader-Post, a job she took over from her husband when Cliff died unexpectedly at an early age. She was then the manager of the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce for 22 years. During all that time, she was an active promoter of Yorkton events, and was involved in the formation of the Yorkton Arts Council and the Yorkton Film Society, which became the Yorkton Film Festival.In retirement when she was in her 80s, she learned to use a computer and wrote 113 historical vignettes, recalling Yorkton happenings and people.Text us your comment

They were typical teenage boys when they lived in Yorkton in the 1970s, 80s, and into the early 90s. They came from different backgrounds, attended school here, took part in a variety of activities, pursued different goals, and left when they completed high school, four ending up in Alberta and one in Saskatoon.A common factor for these five young men from Yorkton is that they ended up at higher levels of politics – three are now members of Parliament, one was an Alberta cabinet minister, one is an Alberta cabinet minister. All of them represent conservative parties, although they were definitely exposed to a wider range of political views back then, as is inevitable when we’re talking about Saskatchewan. They are Members of Parliament John Barlow, Brad Redekopp and Burton Bailey, as well as Alberta MLA and cabinet minister Searle Turton, and former Alberta MLA and cabinet minister Dave Rodney.We agreed, from the start, that this podcast would not be about partisan political issues. Instead, we talked about their youth in Yorkton, their influences in life, and their views of how politics happens today. Text us your comment

Dan Calef was, and sometimes still is, Dan the Storyman, known locally as the story-telling head of the Yorkton public library from 1983 to 1999. He looked after story time for kids, and told stories on local television in a show that ended up being shown nationally, and then also on American television.We turn the tables on him in this podcast by telling his story. Here in Yorkton, he was also regularly seen to be running on the streets of Yorkton, easily recognizable by his long-ish hair and beard and his steady gait. Dan wasn’t just jogging. Less well-known than the story telling and the local running was the fact he took part in marathons in Canada and the United States, as well as what is known as ultra running – 100 kilometre runs, and events to see how far one could make it in 24 hours of continuous running.We sat down with Dan and asked him to tell us the story of Dan the Storyman. But obviously his story is not complete without also taking a much closer look at the television show in which he appeared for five years, a local CICC/CTV production called Poetree and Friends.Taking it one step further, any story about Poetree would not be complete without others who were closely involved: the show's producer Greg Popowich, and writers and puppeteers Debbie Hayward and Joyce Bagley. We talked with Greg, and thanks to Saskatoon-based actor Kevin Power, we were able to use audio clips from episode 92 of his podcast, SaskScapes, which prominently featured Debbie and Joyce.Text us your comment

In the summer and fall of 2025, several factors came together, one of them out of the blue, to tackle and do more about hunger and food insecurity in Yorkton.The first was in early summer when the city of Yorkton hired a barriers to access co-ordinator, someone who was tasked with helping to set up local committees to address various barriers in the community. There was already a social housing committee dealing with homelessness and housing, but other needs and opportunities were identified, including food security.What was definitely not anticipated by the group as it was getting its feet wet, was an email received by the Yorkton Community Fridge on August 13, 2025 from Second Harvest, a national food rescue and redistribution organization. It asked if Yorkton would like to receive potatoes – 15 tons of unwashed, Burbank Russets. The committee agreed to take on the opportunity, and the associated challenge of distributing that many potatoes.Text us your comment

Those working in the field of psychiatry and mental health treatment across Canada and the United States came to Yorkton in 1964 and 1965 in large numbers to see for themselves how a new way of treating mental health patients was being implemented at the new Yorkton Psychiatric Centre.The new facility was a radical departure from what had been standard mental health treatment facilities in Saskatchewan: large impersonal buildings at Weyburn and North Battleford that, from the outside, could easily be mistaken for jails.The new Yorkton Psychiatric Centre came about in large part to a new way of thinking within the provincial government, and the work of an architect who went to some lengths to understand the mindset of patients with those issues.The Regina-based architect Kiyoshi Izumi had experimented with LSD in the late 1950s, long before it became part of the lore surrounding Timothy Leary and the 1960s "turn on, tune in, drop out" counterculture. He used his LSD experience to try to replicate the mindset of the mentally-ill so he could design a facility that was not a frightening place for psychiatric patients.His ideal design was not adopted by the provincial government for Yorkton -- it was felt too many practical obstacles stood in the way. But a version of it was built, and remains there west of the hospital on Bradbrooke Drive. It was cutting edge. In fact, this year (2025), more than 60 years after it was built, it was one of three recipients of the Prix du XXe Siecle award, an honour bestowed by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the National Trust for Canada to recognize "significant modern Canadian architecture from the 20th century".Text us your comment

Kristopher Grunert was born and raised on the family farm on Orkney Road, a short drive northwest of Yorkton. His parents, sister and he lived on land first established as the Grunert homestead in 1888. Farming, however, was not in Kris’ future. As a teenager he developed a keen interest in skateboarding, then a relatively new sport in Yorkton, and that led him to Vancouver to pursue that dream.As it turned out, the skateboarding dream clashed with reality, but it did lead to a career and wide recognition in the field of photography that now spans 25 years, in which time he has won numerous international photography awards, has worked for large corporations and architectural firms, and has shown his work around the globe. Kris is now back in Saskatchewan, with his wife, where they have expanded their business and struck out in several new directions. Text us your comment

Dr. Sigridur (Sigga) Christianson Houston and her husband Dr. Clarence Joseph (CJ) Houston operated a medical practice in Yorkton for nearly 50 years, after a year in Watfort City, North Dakota. Both were graduates of the University of Manitoba College of Medicine. In their practice in Yorkton, she had a well-known and well-deserved reputation to make babies thrive, which brought mothers and children from a hundred or more miles away. What most people at the time did not know was this: when she graduated medical school in 1925, she was only the fourth woman of Icelandic descent to become a doctor, and the first Icelandic-Canadian woman to achieve that. Although we haven’t been able to verify this, she was very likely also the first female doctor to practice in Yorkton.Not to forget about the secret she kept for most of her life. Or the Icelandic bean soup recipe. And on our website at www.yorktonstories.ca you will also find almost 90 minutes of 8mm film shot by CJ recording the life of three generations of the Houston family from 1936 to 1976, including scenes and events in Yorkton.Text us your comment

The hockey career of Yorkton’s Metro Prystai has been well documented. He had a storied career with the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings over a span of 12 years in the 1940s and 50s, scoring the Stanley Cup winning goal for the Red Wings in the 1952 finals, back when there were only six teams and only the very best made it to the top, let alone the Stanley Cup playoffs. He won two Stanley Cups with Detroit, and was named to the NHL All-Star team three times.He was not the first with a Yorkton connection to make it to the NHL; he was one of several dozen. But he was Yorkton’s own, born and raised in a house on Ontario Avenue close to St. Mary’s Church, the second-youngest of seven children born to Harold and Annie Prystai, Ukrainian immigrants.Metro and most of his contemporaries have passed on. But in 2003 he sat down with Terri Lefebvre Prince, then the city archivist, and they recorded two hours of conversation during which Metro reflected on his life. And Frank Block wrote and recorded an audio book, The Metro Prystai Story, in 2015. With the permission of both the City of Yorkton and Mr. Block, we have used that audio, as well as information gleaned from online sources, to produce this podcast remembering the life of Metro in and outside hockey, much of it in his own words, with insights from those who knew him well.Text us your comment

When it comes to Yorkton sports dynasties, the dominance of Yorkton volleyball teams and players in the 1980s stands out. Senior hockey had a good run with the Terriers winning three league titles and four provincial championships between 1967 and 1972. But nothing compares to the boys’ volleyball teams of the 1980s and the players, all 18 and under in age. Most were coached by Dennis Pomeroy, who became a legend in the sport. The Yorkton Regional High School Raiders boys teams won nine consecutive provincial championships in that decade, and the male club teams – the Macs -- had their share of successes. For many of the male players, volleyball stuck with them, and they stuck with volleyball. Of the 19 players who formed the 1982 juvenile (age 18 and under) and midget (age 16 and under) Macs, six are still very actively involved in the sport as coaches, referees and officials, as are others from later 1980s. The girls teams did not receive the same level of attention as their male counterparts -- they flew somewhat under the radar. But that same decade was the start of outstanding volleyball success for one player, the pinnacle of whose career was playing for Canada in the 1996 Olympics. We talked with four men and two women who were part of those successes, and who are still active in volleyball 40-plus years later.Text us your comment

We haven't asked Siri, the Apple virtual assistant, about forensic pathology. But we did ask Alexa -- no, not Siri's counterpart at Google, but Alexa Haider, who  graduates this spring after four years of studies at Trent University in Peterborough, ON.I know Alexa from her work at Deer Park Golf Course the past two summers, and when she told me what she was studying, I was, to say the least, very surprised. It's not a field of study and employment we hear a lot about. And not something I expected to hear from a bubbly outgoing young woman who never fails to provide a cheerful welcome to golfers at Deer Park, even early in the morning.Forensics is science-based detective work, not new to many of us familiar with such TV show titles as the CSI series, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, NYPD Blue, NCIS and going all the way back to shows I'm more familiar with -- Murder She Wrote, Columbo, Kojak and the original Hawaii Five 0.It was the "pathology" part that got me. It is the study of diseases and causes of death. It involves things like autopsies and the examination of bodies and organs. When combined with forensics, we are talking about doing this in relation to crime. Murders. That type of stuff.It piqued my curiosity about how high school graduates decide on careers, why she chose that after graduating from Sacred Heart High School in June of 2021,  where she goes from here, and what did she think about that first autopsy?Text us your comment

Almost sixty years ago, when I first came to Yorkton, it was a very "white" community where the names were predominantly Ukrainian, German or British, reflecting the founding and early settlement of this part of the prairies. Census data from the past 15 years clearly show how things have changed. In 2011, about four percent of the population of Yorkton consisted of immigrants who were born abroad and had emigrated to Canada. Five years later, that percentage was about 10, and in the latest census of 2021, it was close to 14 per cent. It is likely to be higher still when the next census takes place in 2026, given the recent influx of immigrants into Saskatchewan.Founded by people who mainly came from the British Isles, Yorkton is now a multi-cultural community which people from as many as 60 different countries call home. We talked to seven local immigrants about their experiences coming to Canada and Yorkton, about their likes and the challenges related to that. Not surprisingly, winter weather was a recurring topic!Text us your comment

Shawn Sanford Beck -- born, raised and educated in Yorkton and area -- is now a pastor with the United Church in Saskatoon with a special mission. He was an Anglican priest, a position he left due to some unresolved conflicts with that denomination.He subscribes to and has written about Christian animism, is a member of the Order or Bards, Ovates and Druids, teaches Green Priestcraft, and considers himself a Christo-pagan. He is an author, as is his wife Janice and one son, and the family lived off the grid north of North Battleford for almost nine years before returning to church duties in Saskatoon.He is not your conventional clergyman. His intent is not to convert you. But for those interested in looking at Christianity from a different and wider viewpoint, he offers ample food for thought.Text us your comment

The village of Hamton is like many Saskatchewan communities between Yorkton and Canora… still on the map, but not really there anymore. But to say there is nothing left of Hamton is a mis-statement. It looks that way from the intersection of the grid roads to the west and south, since the triangle that was the village, between those two roads and the old rail line, is overgrown with tall weeds, shrubbery, and a few trees. Until 2018, there were buildings still standing, but abandoned and unused. Then one weekend in early May of 2018, whatever was left of the village of Hamton burned to the ground. Gone. Was caused the fire? Mother nature? A grass fire? A controlled fire set by someone that got out of hand? Somebody must know. Yet it remains a mystery.Text us your comment

Lesotho, a landlocked country in southern Africa, is home to about two million people, including Ivan Yaholnitsky, whose family name is familiar in the Yorkton area. The Yaholnitsky family farmed south of Mikado. Ivan went to the University of Saskatchewan, and what he is doing in Lesotho is the topic of this podcast.Lesotho is a poor country. Nearly two-thirds of the country’s income comes from farming, and a quarter of the population is unemployed, according to the government of Lesotho website. That’s where Ivan arrived in 1987, to teach at the high school in the village of Bethel, in the eastern part of the country. And that is where he still is today. He and Antonia Nthabiseng from the village were married there in 1993, they raised a son and daughter, and that same year Ivan established the Bethel Business and Community Development Centre, or BBCDC, which teaches and practices sustainable development and learning by doing.Text us your comment

It's almost 50 years since the first computers started being used in Yorkton. We talked with Andy Balaberda, the first local computer teacher, and Rick Coleman; he and Warren Gamracy were very early entrants into the business of computer sales and support, with Rick also developing software. My own household also started using computers very early on. There you have it: three old guys – Andy, Rick and myself, all of us in our 70s and each with 40 to 50 years of computer use and experience behind us. We talk about when it all started in the 1970s, and share views about computers, the changes over the past 50 years, and the future. Text us your comment

Perry Ehrlich left Yorkton in the early 1970s to attend the University of Saskatchewan. He became a successful lawyer in Vancouver, and continued to indulge in his love of music and performing; 30 years ago he founded Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! He has been called an impresario for conducting two one-month music camps each summer which attracts kids from literally around the world, and for teaching and nurturing a performing troupe of teenagers called ShowStoppers. They appear year-round in concerts, on TV and radio, and at numerous conventions, awards dinners, galas, sporting events and corporate and charitable events throughout BC.At www.yorktonstories.ca you can see and read much more about Perry, his work with young performers and more.Text us your comment

This is the story of Alexander Ross – he had a middle name which started with the letter E, but in no sources, including when he was received an honourary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Regina, is his middle name mentioned. He was generally referred to as Brigadier-General Alexander Ross. Our story is drawn from many sources, including information compiled by Ruth Shaw and available on the Yorkton Legion website. Not all sources agree on all details, not surprising considering much of what we discuss is as much as 100 years old. But the basic facts about his early life, military career and life in Yorkton as a judge are not in dispute. Including his contributions to what is now York Lake Golf Club.Text us your comment

Jason Payne has taught at the Yorkton Regional High School since 2002, but his involvement with youth and sports has expanded greatly beyond the boundaries of the school. His dedication to high school sports and youth sports in Yorkton is unquestioned, yet in 2018 he nearly hung up his whistle. “I was burnt out by the demands of coaching. Instead of quitting I focused on the holistic development of my athletes and building environments based on high-performance. It has made all the difference.” He pursued a Masters of Science degree in Sport and Performance Psychology in 2021, and a newsletter he now publishes about coaching youth is read by more than 1,700 world-wide.We talked about motivating young athletes, and motivating young people in school. We talked about motivating young people to prepare for adult life.Text us your comment

In the 2010s, Dr. Brass elementary school in Yorkton was down to under 90 students, and consideration was being given to closing the school. It is one of the older schools in Yorkton and parents in the area preferred to send their kids to other newer schools in the city. Today it is bursting at the seams, primarily due to a program that started in 2020 to attract students not only from within the school’s immediate area, but from other areas of Yorkton, and from nearby communities, including Kamsack, Melville and Saltcoats.The reason for the turnaround? Six academies that provide all students in grades 5 through 8 with additional learning and activity opportunities.Text us your comment

Cambodia is a country of 17 million in southeast Asia, sandwiched between Vietnam to the east and Thailand to the west, with Laos bordering it to the north. Eighty percent of the population lives in rural areas, and 57 per cent of households in the country are involved in agricultural production, mainly rice. It is a poverty-stricken country.It's also a long way from Yorkton, but in 2010 and again in 2015 Warren Crossman, who farms in the Orcadia district and is a longtime activist in the co-operative movement in Saskatchewan, spent time there. In 2010 he was an advisor to a non-profit and non-political farmer organization representing a network of village-based farmer organizations. He went back in 2015 on a private visit, for reasons he explains in our podcast.Text us your comment

In Yorkton, where there are no homeless encampments, it would be tempting to think that it's one problem we don’t have to deal with. But that would be a mistake. Most of us may not see it every day, or at all, but homelessness happens in Yorkton just as it does in larger cities. The people who work with the homeless and deal with it on a daily basis are well aware of the issue, and have some very definite ideas about what could and should be done about it.We talked to Angela Chernoff, the co-ordinator of Bruno’s Place on Dominion Avenue, an emergency shelter for adults; and Martha Gares the manager of Housing Support at SIGN, the Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbours.Text us your comment

Ben and Tony's Barber Shop was an iconic institution in Yorkton from when the two shared a business starting in 1961 to Ben's retirement in 2008. Tony continued on his own until 2013. When he closed his shop, it provided the impetus, and inspiration, for Sean Craib-Petkau to get into barbering, and establish a men's barbershop that is reminiscent of earlier years. Two barbershops. Similar, but different.Speaking of different, yes, that is me doing the narrating. The voice is still in the process of recovering from a spring cold. I can accept that, but it would be good if it was actually starting to feel like spring in Yorkton as we go into the Easter weekend.Text us your comment

The history of newspapers in Yorkton now spans 132 years, starting with The Messenger, published in 1892, two years before Yorkton officially became a village. It was written by hand on notepaper, and reproduced by stencil. But we wonder, in 2024, if the writing is on the wall for newspapers printed on paper, as we explore the long history of this first, and for for several decades as Yorkton was established and grew, the only means of local mass communication.For me, this story is up close and personal, having been one of the founders and the editor of Yorkton This Week, an upstart weekly newspaper that  in 1975 took on the behemoth of media companies at the time, Thomson Newspapers, a Canadian company with massive holdings at home, as well as in the United States and Britain. Thomson owned The Enterprise, which by then had been the dominant newspaper in Yorkton for 80 years.Text us your comment

From early travelling shows that entertained settlers in the Yorkton area, to occasional local little theatre productions, Open Lit nights at the old Yorkton Collegiate Institute starting in the post WWII years, elaborate musicals performed by students at Sacred Heart and Yorkton Regional High Schools starting in the 1960s, the founding of Paper Bag Players in 1984, Broadway musicals by Yorkton Community Theatre in the first decade of the 2000s, and the establishment of Free My Muse drama school for children and teens in 2005, Yorkton has long had live theatre, and still does. Attendance may, at times, go up and down, but the passion and dedication of the actors and crews has never waned, and has led some to careers in theatre and film.Text us your comment

Clay Serby was first elected as the New Democrat member of the Saskatchewan Legislature for Yorkton in 1991.  While he and Premier Roy Romanow had their differences initially, they became close friends, and Clay subsequently served in cabinet in high-profile portfolios – Health, Education, Highways, Municipal Affairs and Agriculture. It was under Romanow’s successor, Lorne Calvert, that Clay reached the highest level of any Yorkton MLA, deputy premier. He also continued in the Agriculture portfolio, and dealt with economic development and rural development specifically.It’s now just over 16 years since Clay left provincial politics, and government, in November of 2007 in order to devote his time to dealing with health issues – cancer – for which he had been under treatment for the previous three years. We talked about life in politics, and in government, which he viewed from a side few of us get to see. Text us your comment

It is January in Yorkton, where a golf season of five months is considered a good year. We're still at least three months from teeing it up, but talk about the game seldom takes a break for golfers; it's a form of self-preservation to make it to the next season. We talked with four golfers at various stages of their game: one who played pro golf on the PGA and other tours in the 1990s, one who turned down a chance to play pro on the ladies tour, one who is now entering his third full year as a young pro, and one who is off to college in the US in the fall on a golf scholarship. All learned their golf at Deer Park in Yorkton.Apologies for the homonymous episode title. For one who loves to play with words, it was just too good to pass up.For those not familiar with "Fore!" it's what golfers shout when their ball stays from its intended path and is headed for spectators or other golfers. The word is most likely of Scottish origin, a shortened version of the word "before" or "afore". It essentially means "look out ahead," and may have originated with the military, where it was used by artillery men as a warning to troops in forward positions. At one time golf courses employed forecaddies, whose job it was to watch where balls went, and mark them so the players could find them. That is still done at professional tournaments, although they are now generally referred to as ball spotters.Text us your comment

The Balmoral Hotel on Livingstone Street was a Yorkton landmark for almost 90 years. It was owned in the early 1900s by Harry Bronfman, whose family later owned the vast Seagram empire founded on the production and sale of liquor. Their booze business started primarily at the Balmoral during prohibition from 1915 to 1924, leading to stories about tunnels, Studebaker Whisky Six cars, a blending and bottling operation housed next to the Balmoral, and much more, as we talked about in the previous podcast. In 1950, the Balmoral was sold to Emanuel and Marj Balacko and friends from Winnipeg, with the Balackos taking sole ownership a few years later. They owned and operated the hotel until their retirement in 1980, and lived in a suite in the north wing. Their son Ron, a toddler when they took over, grew up in the hotel. We talked to him about his parents, the hotel, and, of course, those tunnels.Text us your comment

From 1928 to the early 2000s, the Seagram corporation was one of the giants in Canadian industry. Its primary business was making and selling alcoholic beverages – it owned such distinguished product lines as Crown Royal, Chivas Regal Scotch, Captain Morgan rum and many more, including the distribution rights to Absolut vodka.But that wasn’t the whole story, or the full extent of Seagram’s business assets, which spanned the globe and included investments in oil, fruit juice, entertainment and more. Not bad for a company that had its roots in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, specifically in the Balmoral Hotel on Livingstone Street, where the Cornerstone Credit Union parking lot is now located. Not bad for a young man whose father bought the hotel in 1905 for Harry and his older brother Abe, who did not stay here.Text us your comment

A community fridge opened in Yorkton in mid September 2023. It's a place where someone who has no food to eat, and at the time doesn’t have the means to buy it, can go anytime day or night, every day of the year, and find food for themselves and their family. It's also a place where those who would like to help people who have little or no food can drop off donations of food, also anytime.It's a mutual aid project operated by a working group of volunteers who want to help solve problems -- in this case food insecurity in the community -- through collective action rather than waiting for someone else to come to the rescue. Text us your comment

Most Yorkton streets are named for people who were part of our story going back to the founding of York Colony in 1882. Mayors, council members (called aldermen until about the 1980s, then councillors), prominent business owners and others who were deemed worthy of the honour have all lent their names to local roads. But that doesn't account for all streets and avenues, and some have an interesting (and sometimes surprising) history, as we explore in this podcast.Text us your comment

We answer questions about podcasting for those who may be interested in contributing ideas, starting their own podcast, or who may just be curious about how this all works. After hosting a workshop for Yorkton Culture Days 2023, the idea of putting all that information out there for all to hear seemed like a good idea. And we conclude this podcast with another good idea -- a co-operative podcast umbrella or hub for Yorkton where we broaden our look at our community today, and places, people and events from the past.Text us your comment

To the people of Yorkton back in the late 1940s and 50s, a young man who was born and grew up here, Stan Obodiac, was a bit of a puzzle. He was a really good athlete, and a sometime-writer for the Yorkton Enterprise weekly newspaper. He played hockey, baseball, golf, softball, bowling and soccer. He wrote at least 10 books, several of them while living here as a young man, several of his later ones best sellers. But the local coffee row didn't quite know what to make of him -- did he have a real job? There is much about him worth telling. There are many sides to the man, and to his life. Text us your comment

Anna Gertrude Ingham of Yorkton was the subject of a cable television documentary called The Quiet Rebel in 1993, which told the story of why and how she developed a revolutionary program for teaching grade 1 kids to read. Why a rebel? Her methods did not always meet with the approval of education authorities, but she persisted because it worked, the kids liked it because it was fun, and the parent had high praise for it because many of their children in grade 1 were reading after only a few months of school. We talk with Shirley George, her daughter and collaborator. Shirley was involved in producing the book called The  Blended Sound-Sight Method of Learning which was published in 1967, and worked with her mother in conducting workshops for teachers in western Canada. We talk about her mother, about the Blended Sound-Sight program which which she herself taught in Edmonton for several decades, and about teaching it to other teachers.Text us your comment

Our years of reading about food from many cultures, collecting recipes from family, from our own time in the food business, and being graciously given recipes by other restauranteurs, allows us to explore some of them in this podcast, and tell you some of the stories behind our favourite foods. Questions or comments? Please get in touch. We'd love to hear from  you.Text us your comment

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In 1898, J.J. Smith built a flour mill at the new site of Yorkton, which had moved south a few miles from the original York Colony settlement to be alongside the new rail line. The mill, built of brick where most mills of the era were wooden structures, went from a bustling village hub to a dilapidated eyesore by 2000, suitable only for the wrecker's ball, many thought. Today, 125 years later, the grounds and building are again a busy place for community activities, with more to come, due to the work of a non-profit historical society and many volunteers. We trace the up and down and up of the flour mill as we hear from Carman Smith of Barriere, BC, the grandson of the original owner and builder, as well as those involved in saving and restoring the mill in recent years.   Text us your comment

Curt Keilback started in radio in Yorkton, following on the heels of his father Jim who moved to Regina to continue an illustrious career that started in Manitoba and continued in Yorkton. After leaving Yorkton, Curt was the broadcast voice on both radio and television for the first edition of the Winnipeg Jets, and the Coyotes of Phoenix, Arizona, calling the play-by-play for 2,400 NHL games.Now retired and back in Winnipeg, Curt wrote a book about his hockey experiences, short vignettes where he remembers the hockey people and happenings spanning a 17-year career. The book is called Two Minutes for Talking to Myself, and he talked to us about all of that, about his dad Jim, and more.Text us your comment

The Broadway Restaurant in Yorkton, also called the Broadway Café, was a longtime local institution serving Chinese and Canadian food. It was operated in the early days by Joe Mak, an immigrant from China who had come to Canada with his younger brother to work as cooks for the crews expanding the railroad westward. The younger brother had left his wife and three sons in China when he came to Canada. The middle son's name was Lai Foo.Lai Foo never really knew his father, who came home to China but died soon after. But he was a favourite nephew of Joe Mak – Uncle Joe – who would play a major role in his life.The story of Lai Foo’s early life is told in a book called Life of Lai, written by Carl Mark, the second-oldest son. It recalls his story from the time Lai was 13 years old and entered the military college in Bejing in the pre-communist years, and his rise to being selected for officer training, and becoming an officer in the military police.But it was wartime and his family, Uncle Joe in Canada in particular, didn’t want Lai involved in war. He arranged for his immigration to Canada, all described in great detail in the book, which ends when Lai arrived in Canada in 1950.The podcast continues the story from there, when he was no longer Lai Foo, but was known as Bob Mark who, for the next 43 years, operated restaurants in Yorkton and briefly in Hanna, Alberta.Text us your comment

Bill and Joyce Anaka spent part of the summer of 1996 creating an inventory of two dozen cemeteries in the RM of Good Lake, part of a project sponsored that year by the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society.It was familiar territory for both of them, having grown up near the south end of the lake. Joyce's grandfather first came there in the 1880s because of the good grazing land, and the Gunn family became well-known to the area, including Yorkton, for Gunn's Beach, and later Gunn's store, which provided goods not only for the local rural residents and nearby Indigenous people, but for the many visitors to the lake in summer.Now 97 years of age, Joyce recalls the summer of searching out cemeteries, some of them abandoned in bushes or plowed over, one of them in a rural road ditch, and creating an inventory of those buried there, at least where the names on headstones were recognizable or obtainable. She also talks about her family's history on the land that now forms part of Good Spirit Provincial Park. And we talk about the name of the lake. Back in those days, Good Spirit Lake was known locally -- and still is referred to today by many oldtimers -- as Devil's Lake.Text us your comment

Fifty years ago, Elwyn Vermette with help from a lot of friends built a geodesic dome house just south of Yorkton along Highway 9. About 20 years ago his daughter Tonia, with Elwyn's guidance and assistance, built a monolithic dome house close by. This is the story of those two projects which resulted in two one-of-a-kind houses that stand alongside a seed potato farm which Elwyn also started.You can hear this podcast and see photo galleries and links related to this topic at www.yorktonstories.ca.Text us your comment