A Dick legacy
George Dick, now a Torontonian, has written a book that takes a fictional look at life in rural Saskatchewan, specifically in the Foam Lake-Wynyard area. It is not a pretty picture because it focuses on a family’s cover-up for a sexual predator in their midst.
The reason this book interested me is that George Dick is the grandson of William Dick, a sub-editor of newspapers in Scotland and India, who brought his family to settle south of Foam Lake about 1904.
William Dick brought with him a remarkable classical library. He couldn’t make a go at farming so to support his family on the farm he went back to newspaper work in Regina and, later, Yorkton.
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He died in 1910 but his library remained on the farm until the 1950s, even after family members had all moved away.
I spotted the library and was given permission by the farm owner to take any books I wanted, so I took some home.
In 1978 I wrote a column for The Western Producer about William Dick. This drew letters from family members who told me the whole interesting story of this editor-settler.
George Dick will be in the West in July to promote his book, In Things Evil, published by Lugus of Toronto. Perhaps I’ll come up with more grist for the mill.
