There are certain places that history seems to favour, where important events and people are drawn, decade after decade. The Saskatchewan Valley, the neck of land between the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers before they meet at The Forks, is one of those places. Famous traders, explorers, artists, politicians, and writers have all left their mark, each adding another layer to its rich past.

Author (and painter) Victor Carl Friesen remains ever a “farmboy,” although he now, with his wife, Dorothy, lives in the town of Rosthern, Saskatchewan, but five miles from the quarter-section on which he was born. He holds MA and PhD degrees from the universities of Saskatchewan and Alberta respectively. Both his master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation focused on Henry David Thoreau, a foremost nature writer, and resulted in two books: The Spirit of the Huckleberry, a literary analysis of Thoreau’s work, and The Year Is a Circle, poems and photographs celebrating the American writer. Friesen has published nine other books and has won the Alberta Book of the Year Award and the Pfeiffer Award for academic research and writing. In addition, Friesen has authored some three hundred journal articles.

Victor Carl Friesen's profile page