A Prairie Memoir: The Life & Times of James Clinkskill

James Clinkskill, a young Scottish immigrant to Canada, enjoyed great success in his new home, both as an entrepreneur and businessman, and as a politician and community leader. His life was undeniably one of accomplishment: he owned and managed a number of successful businesses; he was a member of the Territorial Legislative Assembly for over a decade; he was mayor of Saskatoon during its transition from town to city; and he served on the Board of Governors of the University of Saskatchewan and on its Senate.

Clinkskill's memoir is more, however, than a record of personal accomplishments, for he lived during a period of great transformation in the North-West. The losses and gains of those times are recorded here, too: the disappearance of the buffalo; the trials and tribulations of travel in the North-West before and after the coming of the railway; the struggles with the storms and bitter cold of the prairie winters; the North-West Resistance; the transition from colonial status to responsible government, culminating in the birth of the province of Saskatchewan in 1905.

With the passing of the last of the pioneer generation, memoirs such as Clinskill's become ever more important, for they alone now remain to evoke memories of that bygone era.