In February, John Cheramy brought an album of Saskatchewan picture post cards to a Tuesday-morning Muffin Break get together. Gray Scrimgeour asked if he could reproduce some of the cards in The Northerner. John brought more Saskatchewan cards to each of the next two weekly meetings. Gray then suggested that he prepare a booklet, not just a dedicated newsletter. John agreed that would be a good idea, and Glenda Cheramy started scanning cards. Don Kaye offered material from his huge Saskatchewan collection, and Doug Hannan, Hal Kellett, and Brian Plain contributed scans of some of their early Saskatchewan cards. In this way, in April 2008, the Northern Canada Study Group published a 112-page book entitled Early Saskatchewan Post Cards. This book describes view cards of Saskatchewan, generally from the period from 1903 to just after World War I, with over 200 full-size illustrations. Most of the post cards from this area, that includes the Territories of Assiniboia and Saskatchewan as well as the Province of Saskatchewan, are photoviews (i.e., they are real photographs). As such, they can most readily be reproduced as electronic files. The book starts with an introduction to the types of early picture post cards produced for Saskatchewan, followed by photoviews related to the life of early settlers. Included here are farm, transportation, and post office scenes. The main section of the book presents representative cards from Saskatchewan communities, arranged alphabetically by town name.

This book is available for members of the study group as a portable document file suitable for viewing on line and also a version suitable for printing. A CD is also available from Gray for $10. (email)

In May 2008, Don Kaye and Gray Scrimgeour were interviewed about the book for CBC Afternoon Edition Saskatchewan. The interview is available here (13.3MB; QuickTime required):

Gray is planning a second, enlarged edition of the CD book and already has quite a few additional scans for it. It won't appear for a few years, not until there's more research on the photographers and publishers of early post cards from Saskatchewan, and an even wider selection of cards.