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Saskatchewan Book Award for Non-Fiction nominee, 2005

Saskatchewan Book Award for Scholarly Writing nominee, 2005

In Saskatchewan: A New History, award-winning author and historian Bill Waiser presents a fresh, entertaining account and interpretation of Saskatchewan’s unique and captivating history. Writing with clarity, candor, and compassion, Waiser describes in detail his province and its people through the stimulating, often tumultuous years since joining Confederation in 1905.

A gift to the province from the University of Saskatchewan, written in commemoration of the province’s centennial celebrations in 2005, Saskatchewan: A New History tells, above all, the engaging stories of the people of Saskatchewan. Their wisdom, foresight, bravery, toil, and eternal optimism gave birth to one hundred years of extraordinary history.

Waiser leaves no stone unturned as he records the events and stories of the people who experienced them: from the province’s earliest days, when anything seemed possible; through the years of the Great Depression, when the prospect of greatness seemed all but lost; to the second half of the century, when an intense, at times bitter, debate raged over how best to govern Saskatchewan. Relying on the most up-to-date historical research available, he offers new perspectives on traditional views and tackles previously neglected, often difficult, concepts and events.

"What is most striking about these images, aside from the richness of their colour and the skillful use of light, are the happy, smiling faces. He could see things like no one else with a camera. He had an uncanny skill to set the scene. He caught people in everyday life and everyday activities and people wanted to have their picture taken by him."

Generously illustrated with carefully selected archival images and two sixteen-page colour inserts of commissioned photographs by Saskatoon’s John Perret, Saskatchewan: A New History also pays a stunning visual tribute to the historical, urban, and natural splendour of Saskatchewan and its people.

Includes: two 16-page colour photo inserts by John Perret, 205 Black and White photographs and illustrations, 20 reference tables, 15 maps . .and more. ... Read more

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The outstanding fact impressed upon the author at every turn, in con-
nection with the monumental task of collecting information for the following
work, is that of the crying need in Saskatchewan of the services of a Pro-
vincial archivist. Week by week Old Timers are passing away, and with
them is being lost information of incalculable historical value which no future
expenditure, no matter how lavish, can possibly make good. Xot only is
there no provision yet made to reduce to permanent form the unwritten
reminiscences of those whose courage, enterprise and endurance laid the
foundation of Saskatchewan's greatness ; no systematic effort is being made
even to collect and preserve the actual documents now available. Many
such papers have already been mislaid or destroyed through accidents or
through ignorance of their value. .For example, an account of the rebellion
of 1885, written by an Indian in C'ree syllabic characters, has passed from
hand to hand, apparently to become a children's plaything, at last, and but a
short time ago, to be destroyed. Other valuable Kiel papers were burned
by someone engaged in "tidying up" an old desk.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1
Purpose and Plan of the Following Work i
CHAPTER II
The Founding of British Interests in North Western America 5
CHAPTER III
Early Explorations and International Rivalry For Control of the West. 15 '
CHAPTER IV
The Rival Fur Companies and Further Explorations in the West
1759-1821 36'
CHAPTER V
Life and Customs of Prairie Traders and Hunters 5 2
CHAPTER VI
Saskatchewan Indians: Origin. Tribes and Modes of Life 68
CHAPTER VII
Indian Religion and Folklore 97
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Bounty and Benevolence draws on a wide range of documentary sources to provide a rich and complex interpretation of the process that led to these historic agreements. The authors explain the changing economic and political realities of western Canada during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and show how the Saskatchewan treaties were shaped by long-standing diplomatic and economic understandings between First Nations and the Hudson's Bay Company. Bounty and Benevolence also illustrates how these same forces created some of the misunderstandings and disputes that arose between the First Nations and government officials regarding the interpretation and implementation of the accords. ... Read more

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Revised and expanded to include new research, a discussion of new interpretative trends and a review of new literature since the publication of the first edition in 1990, "The Free People Chr(45) Li Gens Libres" is a comprehensive history of the Metis community and national historic site of Batoche, Saskatchewan. Diane Payment has a long personal association with Batoche. Her study is the culmination of over twenty years of documentary and field research as a participant-observer within the community. Her inquiry draws on a range of dictated and written historical sources, both Metis and non-Metis, as well as more recent oral history narratives and personal observations.This is one of the few studies on Metis communities in western and northern Canada. Payment's approach demonstrates that any understanding of Metis culture cannot be based on European or Euro-Canadian historical models, but on its own values and traditions. She provides new insights into the armed resistance of 1885 and figures such as Louis Riel, Gabriel Dumont and Charles Nolin, as well as women such as Marguerite Caron and Christine Pilon.Payment argues that Batoche has persisted as a community despite conflict, crisis and prejudice from immigrant ethnic groups and institutions such as the Canadian government and the Roman Catholic Church, succeeding in maintaining its uniquely Metis identity. ... Read more

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The Mountie may be one of Canada’s best-known national symbols, yet much of the post-nineteenth century history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police remains unexamined, particularly the period between 1914 and 1939, when the RCMP underwent enormous transformation. The nature of this transformation as it took place in Alberta and Saskatchewan – where the Mounties have traditionally dominated policing – is the focus of Steve Hewitt’s Riding to the Rescue.

During the 1914-to-1939 period, the nineteenth-century model of the RCMP was evolving into a twentieth-century version, and the institution that emerged responded to a nation that was being transformed as well.Forces such as industrialization, mass immigration, urbanization, and political radicalism compelled the Mounties to look away from the frontier and toward a new era.

Incorporating previously classified material, which explores the RCMP both in the context of its ordinary policing role and in its work as Canada’s domestic spy agency, Hewitt demonstrates how much of the impetus behind the RCMP’s transformation was ensuring its own survival and continued relevance. Riding to the Rescue is a provocative and incisive look behind one of Canada’s most enduring icons at the cusp of the modern era.