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Some of the bizarre treasures to be found in Local History clippings, photos, and other resources:
Norman Falkner, practising his unusual talent after losing his leg in WWI.
The indomitable one-legged figure skater
Norman Falkner grew up in Saskatoon living close to a skating rink, and became a proficient figure skater. He lost a leg in World War I, but refused to give up his chosen sport. After falling again and again, he finally mastered a technique for staying upright and performing figures on ice, although he had to be pushed onto the ice to gain initial momentum. On his return to Canada he wowed audiences throughout North America. He continued skating until he was an old man. Several photos, an autobiographical manuscript and a few seconds of moving footage remain as testimony to his incredible athletic feats. To learn more of Falkner's story, borrow the video "Heroes, Rogues and Adventurers" - or watch SCN for three-minute blurbs about Falkner and other amazing people in our history.
The City of Medicine Hat marine disaster LH 744
Saskatoon’s biggest "marine disaster"
Captain Horatio Hamilton Ross lost his $28,000 investment in the steamboat City of Medicine Hat when it smashed against a pier of the steel Victoria Bridge and capsized on June 7, 1908. A herd of cattle thereupon stampeded on the bridge above. The crew all scrambled onto the bridge, except for the engineer, who swam to safety.
Furor over a sculpture
The appearance of the moose-like sculpture at City Hall caused such an uproar in the 1950s that its creator left town and became an internationally-acclaimed sculptor in New York. Read about Robert Murray in the Local History Room’s biography collection.
First automobile?
A newspaper clipping says the first auto in Saskatoon was brought here in 1903 by A. J. E. Sumner. Other authors claim the first car came here in 1905, brought in by the Drinkle and Kerr firm. This is one of many contradictions present in written reports of Saskatoon’s history.
Grace Fletcher, Saskatoon Industrialist PH 92-6
First industrialist — a woman!
Saskatoon’s first industry is said to have been the export of buffalo bones for the manufacture of fertilizer. That would make Grace Fletcher the city’s first industrialist. Bones were shipped over the Old Bone Trail to Saskatoon, from where Fletcher sold railway carloads of them to the United States for manufacture. She was a prominent businesswoman, church leader and women’s rights advocate, as well as a staunch temperance activist. She also ran a general store, a livery stable and a land agency.
The Rain-makers
Weather Modification Ltd., an affiliate of Water Resources Developemnt Corp., of Denver, Colorado was briefly established in Saskatoon in 1954. Their system attempted to prod nature into producing rain by using a generator on the ground to send a chemical spray aloft on the air currents. Whether by intent or chance, a veritable deluge of rain fell in the Borden area the following year, and farmers raised a storm of protest.
Former farm-hand later knighted
Sir Frederick Banting dropped by in 1939 to inspect facilities for medical research in Saskatoon. He recalled the summer of 1910 when he worked for Alvin Fletcher on a farm just outside Saskatoon. He stooked wheat and rode the binder. He also recalled his other Saskatchewan connection - for a time he had been medical officer of the 44th Battalion, which was from this province. He was later killed in a plane crash.
Prairie earthquake
Saskatoon’s first recorded earthquake occurred in 1909. At 9:15 p.m. on May 15, 1909, an earthquake shook the city, lasting between 30 seconds and one minute. The quake was felt from Winnipeg to Lethbridge and from St. Paul to Prince Albert. Saskatoon’s reaction to the quake appeared in the May 16, 1909 Phoenix.
Moving Mountains
No one thought it could be done. Downhill skiers need a mountain to ski, but Saskatoon is set in the middle of the Canadian prairie. In order to bring the 1971 Winter Games to Saskatoon, city promoters built a "mountain" on the shores of Blackstrap Lake, also a "man-made" creation, the result of the South Saskatchewan River Dam project.
CNR train crash LH 9371
The day a train fell into the river
On March 4, 1912, twelve people were injured when the CNR sleeping car "Kipling" crashed through the old CNR Bridge and fell 50 feet to the frozen bed of the Saskatchewan River below.
Postcard photo of Lady Victorine, world champion egg layer, PM 99-1
Egg-ceptional feat
She should have won a "Pulletser" prize. On Sept. 7, 1929 a newspaper caption began, "Saskatoon has a habit of producing world champions." Lady Victorine, a barred Plymouth Rock pullet, produced 358 eggs in 365 days. This record had never been equalled by any bird of any breed, poultrymen said. Lady Victorine was owned by the University of Saskatchewan.
The Louis Riel Coffee House occupied the space now home to "Home Again"
The coffee house that turned down Joni Mitchell
Colin Holliday-Scott, co-owner of the Louis Riel Coffee House on Broadway Avenue, once turned down a gig by the then- neophyte singer Joni Mitchell, who lived and attended school here in Saskatoon. (Later she did perform at the Louis Riel.)
Sons of Jove PH 89 159-5
Secret & benevolent societies
The tradition of lodges and brotherhoods goes back a long way. Some of the quirkiest-sounding ones sounded like something out of the Flintstones TV show:
- The Loyal Order of Moose
- Woodsmen of the World
- Royal Templars of Temperance
- Sons of Jove
- Royal Antideluvian Order of Buffaloes
This temperance spoof was probably staged to illustrate the evils of the demon rum. LH 2681
First bar
In 1899 a bar was licensed for the first time in Saskatoon, the city established by the Temperance Colonization Society. A struggle between the forces of temperance and those against resulted in the cancellation of the license the following year.
"Canada's Unlikely Spy" Emma Woikin PH 98-11-32
"Canada’s Unlikely Spy" lived in Saskatoon
Emma Woikin, originally from Blaine Lake, went to Ottawa in the hungry thirties. As she was of Russian descent, a Russian diplomat seduced her into passing them supposedly secret documents she had decoded, thus precipitating the Igor Gouzenko affair which helped launch the Cold War. After serving her prison term in Kingston penitentiary, she came to Saskatoon and quietly went about her work as a top-notch legal secretary at a prestigious legal firm.
1920s axe murder
James Johnson, a railway mail clerk, was murdered with an axe while asleep in bed. His wife, bound, telephoned the police by dialing the number with a toothbrush. Mrs. Johnson was arrested for the murder, but the case was later dropped.
The first airplane arrived in pieces
The first airplane is said to have arrived in Saskatoon via the Grand Trunk Railway freight early in May, 1911. It was owned by Bob St. Henry. The pieces were put together and the machine took to the air for its maiden flight on May 17, 1911.
Nellie Carson (above right) was the first woman in Saskatchewan to qualify for her pilot's license, on Oct. 12, 1929. Her companion, Grace Hutchinson on the left, qualified the same day. PH 99-23. Photo courtesy of Ray Crone, Regina.
Aviation
In the roaring twenties, as Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart made their celebrated first flights across the Atlantic, gutsy young pilots in the Saskatoon area were barnstorming around the province, performing aerobatic stunts at fairs. On October 12, 1929, Nellie Carson became the first woman in the province to qualify for a pilot’s license and she subsequently broke an altitude record, spiralling up to 16,000 feet without an oxygen mask. That same summer, small planes were crashing with alarming regularity. E. J. Smith-Marriott of the Saskatoon Aero Club, Alfred Johnson, Theodore Helps and Ben Brotman all met their deaths that year in small plane crashes. |
