G D BennekeGerald Benneke is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan's College of Education and has taught History and English at a number of locations in Saskatchewan before returning to the land as the fourth-generation operator of the family farm. The athor's farmstead lies in an area immersed in personal, territorial, and national history. A short drive takes him to the historic sites of Fort Riviere Tremblante, Fort Pelly, Fort Hibernia, Fort Livingston, the Crowstand Mission, and nearly forty of the sixty-one old world Doukhobor village sites. A bit further takes him to Cannington Manor, the Qu'Appelle Valley, Fort Carlton, and the battle sites of Duck Lake, Fish Creek and Batoche. A mile and a half from his door puts him on the old Fort Pelly-to-Yorkton trail.
The author's maternal grandparents did indeed walk out of Siberian exile and were indeed aboard one of those trains that bleak December day of which he writes. His paternal great-grandparents did indeed board a train out of Maynard, Iowa that cool October evening to establish the homestead, much of which he and his wife still own today. Read More Read Less