Keith Dryden

The human body is a remarkably adaptable device. When fur traders moved into what is now the northern Prairies, they survived on what food was available. If you’re delving 1,000 miles into the wilderness there’s only so much you can pack with you. At the reconstructed Fort Carlton on the North Saskatchewan River, historical records […] Read more

Just how do you puff puffed wheat? Tom Chalmer of Creston, B.C., recalls seeing puffed wheat manufactured in an old blacksmith shop in Yorkton, Sask., back in 1930 or 1931. He says the blacksmith had managed to produce a heap of the cereal that was lying on the dirt floor and that he, Tom, had […] Read more

Driving across the Prairies, one sees a proliferation of large concrete grain elevators and one can’t help but wonder where the volume of grain is coming from to fill them. Bin capacity is one thing but these behemoths are equipped to load grain in hopper cars even faster than the product can be delivered. The […] Read more

Planting a family vegetable garden is a ritual that looks attractive in the spring but creates extra chores at the worst possible time of the year. Take a July holiday and you miss out on the luscious green peas. Take an August holiday and come back to over-ripe tomatoes and five-pound zucchinis. When the fruit […] Read more

He serves by waiting Prince Charles should include waiter in his job description. Queen Victoria was a reigning monarch for a record 63 years. Queen Elizabeth the Second has been enthroned for only 47 years. Could Queen Elizabeth break Victoria’s record? Well, since the Queen Mother recently observed her 99th birthday, with her inherited genes […] Read more

Devising menus for agriculture a difficult task Among my memorabilia are a couple of Canadian National Railway menus from 1959. Inscribed on the inside covers of each are these words: “Western Farm Delegates On to Ottawa.” Four passenger trains, two Canadian Pacific and two Canadian National, took 1,100 farmers from across the west that year […] Read more

Wetaskiwin, Hills of Peace. We visited Wetaskiwin, Alta., in late August, primarily to see the Reynolds Museum and the Canadian Aviation Museum it contains. With us was a friend whose father was a First World War pilot who flew Curtiss Jenny aircraft and later barnstormed at fairs and sports days across Saskatchewan. The Reynolds Museum […] Read more

Pinto Thompson will be a tough act to follow Passenger train conductors were people of consequence in their day. I remember Pinto Thompson, who used to embarrass me when I was a young sprout. Pinto was on the Canadian Pacific run between Winnipeg and Edmonton. There was a morning train running west and an evening […] Read more

New career raised eyebrows When a high profile person moves into journalism, sometimes the journalist becomes the story. Back in 1952, John Walter Grant MacEwan tried his hand at being the agriculture editor of The Western Producer. This was at a time when he had resigned as dean of the faculty of agriculture and home […] Read more

Better fed We headed east along the Yellowhead Highway recently and came away astonished at the changes in the quality of life. When I first travelled as a reporter for The Western Producer back in 1947, the hotels had squeaky, sagging beds, the country cafes served last week’s mashed potatoes, the roads were a brown […] Read more