The Indian Head and Wolseley News has to be one of the most unique weekly newspapers in Saskatchewan.
When I visited the paper a few weeks ago I had no trouble finding it in a strip mall on Indian Head’s Main Street, just as my directions said.
When I stepped inside the door, however, I could only stop and stare.
The actual newspaper part of the establishment took up a small amount of the available space. The rest was taken up by sports memorabilia.
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I soon found out I was in the Rural Sports Hall of Fame.
Publisher Ken McCabe, who has had a lifelong love of sports, started the hall of fame. He maintains it is the finest such facility in small town Canada, and I don’t think he’s far off the mark.
McCabe started out collecting Indian Head sports memorabilia. The News covers 13 communities besides Indian Head, however, and when people from those communities began bringing in sports memorabilia, he couldn’t turn it down.
The switch from the hot lead type of printing machinery to the more compact desktop publishing freed up some room. McCabe began collecting more seriously.
The hall of fame soon grew out of its original space. A new building was bought.
The collection grew out of that space and the move made to the mall where the hall of fame now dwarfs the newspaper operation.
Not being particularly knowledgeable about Saskatchewan sports history, I was delighted to be able to say, when he showed me a picture of the Bentley brothers in Indian Head Rockets uniforms, that they were hockey players from Delisle and are commemorated on the Delisle water tower.
More than 1,000 people visit McCabe’s Rural Sports Hall of Fame every year. It is open six days a week and by appointment when it’s closed.
It is well worth pulling off the Trans Canada for a look-see.
While in Indian Head, if you’re feeling peckish, you might want to visit the Craft-Tea Elevator. The establishment is housed in a former seed-cleaning building from the Indian Head Experimental Farm.
Built in 1918 at a cost of $4,500, it was moved to its present location in 1994.
There is a restaurant and dining room downstairs. Crafts are sold upstairs where some 278 varieties of wheat, barley, oats, peas and corn were once stored.
I’ve often thought that if I didn’t do what I do, I’d like to be involved in the tourism industry.
Visits such as the one I made to Indian Head serve to reinforce that dream.
