Yorkton Stories
A podcast hosted by Dick DeRyk about people and events, past and present, in Yorkton, Saskatchewan Canada, sponsored by Harvest Meats and Grain Millers Canada.
Episodes
26 episodes
Perry Ehrlich: the lawyer who has them singing and dancing
Perry Ehrlich left Yorkton in the early 1970s to attend the University of Saskatchewan. He became a successful lawyer in Vancouver, and continued to indulge in his love of music and performing; 30 years ago he founded Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! H...
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Season 2
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Episode 10
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21:56
Yorkton's General, judge and more
This is the story of Alexander Ross – he had a middle name which started with the letter E, but in no sources, including when he was received an honourary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Regina, is his middle name mentioned. He was g...
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Season 2
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Episode 9
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42:51
The challenge: motivating youth
Jason Payne has taught at the Yorkton Regional High School since 2002, but his involvement with youth and sports has expanded greatly beyond the boundaries of the school. His dedication to high school sports and youth sports in Yor...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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32:09
Dr. Brass Academies: a turnaround for a struggling school
In the 2010s, Dr. Brass elementary school in Yorkton was down to under 90 students, and consideration was being given to closing the school. It is one of the older schools in Yorkton and parents in the area preferred to send their kids to other...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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42:18
About co-ops and Cambodia
Cambodia is a country of 17 million in southeast Asia, sandwiched between Vietnam to the east and Thailand to the west, with Laos bordering it to the north. Eighty percent of the population lives in rural areas, and 57 per cent of households in...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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38:05
The homeless: we don't know their story
In Yorkton, where there are no homeless encampments, it would be tempting to think that it's one problem we don’t have to deal with. But that would be a mistake. Most of us may not see it every day, or at all, but homelessness happe...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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38:08
A tale of two barbershops
Ben and Tony's Barber Shop was an iconic institution in Yorkton from when the two shared a business starting in 1961 to Ben's retirement in 2008. Tony continued on his own until 2013. When he closed his shop, it provided the impetus, and inspir...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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45:39
When the news was printed on paper
The history of newspapers in Yorkton now spans 132 years, starting with The Messenger, published in 1892, two years before Yorkton officially became a village. It was written by hand on notepaper, and reproduced by stencil. But we ...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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59:54
Raising the curtain on community theatre
From early travelling shows that entertained settlers in the Yorkton area, to occasional local little theatre productions, Open Lit nights at the old Yorkton Collegiate Institute starting in the post WWII years, elaborate musicals performed by ...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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1:02:01
Clay Serby: Reflections on life in politics
Clay Serby was first elected as the New Democrat member of the Saskatchewan Legislature for Yorkton in 1991. While he and Premier Roy Romanow had their differences initially, they became close friends, and Clay subsequently served in cabi...
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53:05
4 for Fore!
It is January in Yorkton, where a golf season of five months is considered a good year. We're still at least three months from teeing it up, but talk about the game seldom takes a break for golfers; it's a form of self-preservation to make it...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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1:16:13
The Balmoral Hotel... and those tunnels
The Balmoral Hotel on Livingstone Street was a Yorkton landmark for almost 90 years. It was owned in the early 1900s by Harry Bronfman, whose family later owned the vast Seagram empire founded on the production and sale of liquor. Their booze b...
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Season 1
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Episode 14
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40:43
Yorkton, where Harry planted the money tree
From 1928 to the early 2000s, the Seagram corporation was one of the giants in Canadian industry. Its primary business was making and selling alcoholic beverages – it owned such distinguished product lines as Crown Royal, Chivas Regal Scotch, C...
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Season 1
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Episode 13
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43:49
Take what you need, leave what you can
A community fridge opened in Yorkton in mid September 2023. It's a place where someone who has no food to eat, and at the time doesn’t have the means to buy it, can go anytime day or night, every day of the year, and find food for themselves an...
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Season 1
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Episode 12
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46:21
What's in a (street) name?
Most Yorkton streets are named for people who were part of our story going back to the founding of York Colony in 1882. Mayors, council members (called aldermen until about the 1980s, then councillors), prominent business owners and others who ...
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Season 1
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Episode 11
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34:47
A podcast about podcasts. And an idea
We answer questions about podcasting for those who may be interested in contributing ideas, starting their own podcast, or who may just be curious about how this all works. After hosting a workshop for Yorkton Culture Days 2023, the idea of put...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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28:54
The many sides of Stan Obodiac
To the people of Yorkton back in the late 1940s and 50s, a young man who was born and grew up here, Stan Obodiac, was a bit of a puzzle. He was a really good athlete, and a sometime-writer for the Yorkton Enterprise weekly newspaper. He played ...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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1:00:53
Gertrude Ingham: the quiet rebel
Anna Gertrude Ingham of Yorkton was the subject of a cable television documentary called The Quiet Rebel in 1993, which told the story of why and how she developed a revolutionary program for teaching grade 1 kids to read. Why a rebel? Her meth...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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47:46
Food we love
Our years of reading about food from many cultures, collecting recipes from family, from our own time in the food business, and being graciously given recipes by other restauranteurs, allows us to explore some of them in this podcast, and tell ...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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23:21
The flour mill: 125 years of history
In 1898, J.J. Smith built a flour mill at the new site of Yorkton, which had moved south a few miles from the original York Colony settlement to be alongside the new rail line. The mill, built of brick where most mills of the era were wooden st...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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44:17
Curt Keilback talks to himself, and to us
Curt Keilback started in radio in Yorkton, following on the heels of his father Jim who moved to Regina to continue an illustrious career that started in Manitoba and continued in Yorkton. After leaving Yorkton, Curt was the broadcast voice on ...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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42:54
Life of Lai and later
The Broadway Restaurant in Yorkton, also called the Broadway Café, was a longtime local institution serving Chinese and Canadian food. It was operated in the early days by Joe Mak, an immigrant from China who had come to Canada with his younger...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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43:19
Cemeteries near a lake of good spirits... or the devil?
Bill and Joyce Anaka spent part of the summer of 1996 creating an inventory of two dozen cemeteries in the RM of Good Lake, part of a project sponsored that year by the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society.It was familiar territory for bot...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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32:51
Two generations, two dome houses (and a potato farm)
Fifty years ago, Elwyn Vermette with help from a lot of friends built a geodesic dome house just south of Yorkton along Highway 9. About 20 years ago his daughter Tonia, with Elwyn's guidance and assistance, built a monolithic dome house close ...
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Season 1
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Episode 1
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46:58