We were glad to be in Yorkton when we awoke to thunder showers and strong easterly winds. After breakfast and laundry and a quick look at the Globe and Mail, we took a cab to the Fifth Ave Cup and Saucer for good lattes and carrot muffins. It is a family-run business that is up for sale, with a conditional offer currently accepted.. The two young brothers are going back to school – one to do computer programming and the other, to barber school in St. John, NB. They say the business is doing well and they are confident it will continue under new ownership. We said we would be back for lunch and wandered off to the Godfrey Dean Art Gallery. The gallery is currently exhibiting local artists, so there was quite a range of subject matter, medium and ability. We noticed there were three photographs by Ed Stachyruk, the same person who had photographed the Ukranian churches, on display in the bakery in Wynyard (owned by the photographer and his wife, we now learned). Mr. Stachyruk has been documenting the interiors of the tiny Ukranian Catholic and Orthodox churches, many of which are disappearing. The executive director of the gallery, Donald Stein (a Google search shows Mr. Stein has an impressive bio himself) told us that the icons from the churches cannot be destroyed, so are being gifted to congregations in parts of the world where there is a need. Mr. Stein needed to pop out to Staples for a computer problem and asked us if we would watch the gallery for him for a few minutes! He left us a pile of fascinating art journals and magazines to browse through. Fortunately, no other visitors came while he was out, so we didn’t have to pretend to know something about Saskatchewan art.
As we mentioned before, we visited Stuart and Mary Houston in Saskatoon. Stuart’s parents were both GPs in Yorkton and his mother, Dr Sigridur (Sigga) Christianson Houston, had a particularly interesting story.