Mike Fedyk founded the Rural History and Culture Association and was largely responsible for the projects the RHCA organized.
Family Background and Early Years
Mike Fedyk’s grandparents were pioneer immigrants who came to Saskatchewan in the early part of the 20th Century. Theodore (Tommy) Haroldson, his maternal grandfather, was part of a large contingent of first-generation Americans of Norwegian ancestry who moved from Fosston, Minnesota to the Mossbank area in Saskatchewan between 1908 and 1910. In 1926, Tommy married Emily Heymer, an English Roman Catholic who had come to Canada in 1924. In 1931, Tommy and Emily were among the farm families from southern Saskatchewan who moved to less arid northern areas to escape the ravages of the great drought of the 1930s. There they were pioneers all over again and literally carved a farm out of the forest around Kinloch, near Greenwater Lake Provincial Park. In this bush country they raised a family of three daughters and one son. Most of Tommy’s siblings had stayed in the Mossbank area, however, and connections with the south never diminished. All three of the daughters, including the middle girl, Margaret, married farmers in the Mossbank area. In 1967, Margaret married Anthony (Tony) Fedyk and moved to the Fedyk farm near Ardill (eight miles east of Mossbank).
Tony Fedyk was the youngest of Michael and Anna Fedyk’s five children. Michael was Ukrainian and he immigrated to Canada from Poland in 1910. After working for a year laying tracks for the railway, he settled in Moose Jaw and worked in the flour mill there until 1922. In 1911, he met and married Anna Oranczuk, another Ukrainian from Poland who had also come to Canada in 1910. In 1922, they began renting land near Ardill from the Hudson’s Bay Company. Despite the hardships of the Great Depression, Michael and Anna were able to purchase the land from the HBC in the early 1940s and the land has remained continously in the Fedyk family since then. Tony took over the farm after Michael’s passing in 1960 and farmed co-operatively with his brother William (Bill), a World War II veteran, who also owned land in the Ardill district. Today, Tony and Margaret’s eldest daughter Arlene, along with her husband Jim Macknak and their sons Noah and Cole, farm the land.
Mike (Michael Anthony) Fedyk is the oldest of Tony and Margaret’s five children. He attended Mossbank School, from grades one to twelve, where he distinguished himself mainly for his uncommonly keen interest, even at a very early age, in history and politics and his admiration for his hero, John Diefenbaker. While not gifted in sports, he was noted for some success as a runner, winning the Mossbank track and field championship two years in a row (1977-78). On the farm, Mike proved to have little interest and even less skill in agricultural pursuits. The first attempt to teach him how to drive the farm truck resulted in the chicken coop being knocked off its foundations. In the neighbourhood of fifty chickens were killed, which remains one of the largest purely-accidental mass killings of chickens in Saskatchewan history! Like most rural students with non-agricultural interests, he was encouraged to leave rural Saskatchewan and started attending the University of Regina in the fall of 1979.
Education and Early Career
In University, Mike pursued his interests in history and politics in both conventional and unconventional ways. While working towards a Bachelor’s degree in history he became heavily involved in campus politics and student leadership positions. One of the most colourful examples of Mike’s leadership took place during the 1980 federal election. Mike established a Western Canadian version of the Rhinoceros Party known as the “New Improved Original” Rhinoceros Party and launched a campaign with himself as the candidate for Regina East. A media conference held to announce his candidacy garnered, much to his parents’ chagrin, huge media attention with television stations all over Canada picking up the story from their Regina affiliates. Among Mike’s promises were committments to improve grain handling by moving the Port of Churchill to Ardill, Saskatchewan, and to amend the Official Languages Act to allow for five official languages (none of which would have been English or French), which of course would have meant five-sided corn flakes boxes!
Most of Mike’s activities were less controversial, at least in an obvious way. Mike held a series of elected student positions and was responsible for organizing various campus events. He served a term as President of the Luther University Students’ Association and capped off his student-leader career with a term as the President of the University of Regina Students’ Union. As Students’ Union President, Mike successfully negotiated an agreement with the University that released a large sum of previously disputed funds for use by intra-mural sports. He initiated reforms to the funding of on-campus clubs that remain in place today, which increased both funding and accessibility. His tenure was marked by the purchase of the Students’ Union’s first computers, renovations and service improvements to the student bar as well as leaving a surplus, after several years of significant deficits.
After receiving his History degree in 1983, Mike pursued a degree in Education to become a history teacher. He completed the second degree in 1985, and taught for two years, first in Foam Lake, and the next year in Sturgis. In both cases his major teaching assignment was not history but work experience, a field where he had no training. Frustrated that he was unable to obtain a history position (due at least in part to the low retirement rates in that discipline at that time), Mike decided to return to university to pursue a career in marketing and public relations. Just prior to returning, however, Mike applied for a new position with a new program – provincial coordinator of Students Against Driving Drunk.
Students Against Drinking and Driving
Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD) was an American organization started in 1981. Some Canadian schools had also established SADD chapters and Bert Yakichuk, a Regina principal, had established the first Saskatchewan chapter in 1986. He had successfully encouraged four other Saskatchewan schools to follow suit and this initial support proved enough to convince Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) to fund a one-year pilot project to establish SADD chapters more generally in Saskatchewan schools. The program was to be facilitated through the non-profit Saskatchewan Safety Council, which created a program coordinator position to facilitate this goal. They hired Mike Fedyk.
The one-year pilot project continues to this day! Between 1987, when Mike started with SADD, until 2000 when he left, SADD grew steadily from its original five chapters to over 150. In that time, almost every Saskatchewan school with a grades 10-12 component attended at least one SADD event or was visited by a SADD speaker. SADD became the largest non-sports positive lifestyle organization in Saskatchewan schools. Provincial SADD events, and even some regional events, regularly attracted between 500 and 1000 students. This impressive growth was largely a function of a unique focus on youth leadership that Mike initiated.
Originally, it was intended that SADD in Saskatchewan would follow the American model, which was based on adult authority and leadership and was similar to most programs for youth that worked in the positive lifestyle field at that time. Mike, however, noticed that on the grassroots level, the students joining SADD exhibited passion for the cause that could not be equalled by adult authority figures and he believed these students would be more effective leaders than any adult. To facilitate these students emerging as leaders, SADD in Saskatchewan broke from the American mould by changing its name to Students Against Drinking and Driving and adopting a new logo designed by a Saskatchewan SADD student. Posters, public service announcements and other media produced by SADD abandoned the traditional fear tactics of horrific collision scenarios and instead featured SADD students themselves, stressing positive messages about saving lives by being leaders and taking responsibility for their own actions. Through a young speakers program, SADD leaders developed their own drinking and driving presentations and talked directly to their peers in schools and at conferences.
In the provincial SADD organization youth leaders, rather than adult advisors called the shots. Youth leaders, not adults, always served as spokespeople for SADD and were given unprecedented authority to decide on the direction of the organization. Through a series of conferences, SADD members developed proposals to improve Saskatchewan’s drinking and driving laws. Between 1991 and 1995 the provincial government commissioned a number of studies, reports and held hearings on changes to such laws. Numerous organizations and experts recommended punitive measures such as raising the drinking age and restrictions that targeted young drivers on the basis that drinking and driving problems were caused by young people. SADD, however, believed young people were the solution! All across the province, at public hearings, in reports and through meetings with political leaders, hundreds of SADD leaders lobbied for their own proposals. When new laws were introduced in 1995, political leaders of all parties recognized that SADD students had changed many minds. The new laws treated younger and older drivers equally and included many measures that students had recommended including impounding the cars of impaired drivers, lowering the Blood Alcohol Content level to .06 for 24 hour license suspensions and probationary licenses for new drivers (as opposed to just young drivers).
In 1990, on Mike’s initiative, SADD-Saskatchewan hosted the first Canadian Youth Against Impaired Driving (CYAID) National Conference. The event attracted nearly 800 students from every province and the North West Territories and brought together, for the first time, the SADD and similar groups from every part of Canada. The conference became an annual event, hosted in different cities across Canada, and led to CYAID being established as a national coalition of youth organizations combating impaired driving. In 1996, SADD-Saskatchewan hosted the CYAID conference again and this time attracted 1100 students from every province and the North West Territories. This remains the largest CYAID conference to date and earned SADD a nomination for a Saskatoon Tourism Award.
The success of SADD’s youth leadership focus cumulated in 1997 when SGI decided that SADD could be funded directly, rather than through the Saskatchewan Safety Council. As a result, SADD became an independent non-profit organization. The principles of youth leadership were enshrined in a new SADD constitution.
A New Direction for an Old Idea
In SADD’s first decade, Mike focused almost all his energies on building youth leadership programs. By 1996, however, he was ready to start exploring other career options and was particularly interested in returning to university to complete his honours certificate in History, which he had started when he was teaching in Sturgis. His intention was to leave SADD shortly after the 1996 CYAID conference but when unexpected events led to SADD becoming an independent non-profit organization, Mike felt he should delay his departure until SADD’s new status was firmly established.
By 1999, Mike had completed his honours certificate and at the beginning of 2001, he left SADD and became a full-time graduate student at the University of Regina, pursuing a Masters degree in History. Mike’s intention was again to become a history teacher, although this time he wanted to eventually obtain a Ph.D. and teach at a university level. Mike became attracted to a new area of historical research that had not been prominent when he was doing his undergraduate work. The new area was the study of collective memory, which rather than examining the so-called “objective” facts about the past, instead studies what people believe about the past. This took Mike’s passion for history in entirely different directions.
As an aspect of collective memory, Mike selected the 1955 Saskatchewan Golden Jubilee as the topic for his Masters Thesis. The Jubilee celebrations centred around tributes to the pioneer generation and celebrations of progress, which together formed a challenge to the 1950s generation to match, if not exceed, the contributions of their forebears. No statement more perfectly captured the spirit of the Jubilee than the phrase, “We’re Pioneering the Future,” found in the Jubilee edition of the Swift Current Sun. In the pioneer theme, Mike observed a sense of connection to the past that was positive, inclusive, personal and emotional and which informed how Saskatchewan people defined their present and future. This contrasted sharply with current attitudes, which often viewed the past as negative, exclusionary, distant and irrelevant to the present and future. The 1950s generation clearly believed that history was useful, even necessary and that the past could be used as an engine to propel economic development, tourism and provincial pride.
The Jubilee research inspired Mike to examine his connection to his own past, in particular his rural roots. For the first time, he became aware of the spiritual element that under-lies the meanings attached to historical narratives. One manifestation of this personal revelation, led Mike back to the family farm, where he planted a vegetable garden in the summers of 2002 and 2003. Time had not improved Mike’s agricultural aptitude, as he rag-tag garden consisted of several plants that were accidentally cross-pollinated with results that were comical and not that edible.
On a more practical level, Mike’s believed that the upcoming 2005 provincial centennial provided an opportunity to re-establish Saskatchewan’s connection to its past. He sought vehicles to promote his viewpoint and spoke at, and organized university history conferences, which led to his appointment to SaskCulture committees including the Heritage Community of Interest. In 2003, he returned to Mossbank to suggest a project that he hoped could be used as a template to present history during the Centennial. The idea was to re-enact the famous debate between Tommy Douglas and Ross Thatcher, which had taken place in Mossbank in 1957. Dubbed “The Debate of the Century” and organized with the assistance of a local committee with all profits going to community organizations, the re-enactment was held June 28, 2003, and its two sold-out shows attracted over 600 people, mainly from outside the Mossbank district.
While completing his Masters degree and working on his various projects, Mike supplemented the income he received from scholarships with contract work with the Discover Saskatchewan project, the Celebrate Canada Committee for Saskatchewan and the Canadian Museum of Civilization as well as acting as a part-time instructor and teaching assistant at the University of Regina. Mike decided to finish his Masters degree on a part-time basis when he accepted a full-time position in the provincial Department of Culture, Youth and Recreation in 2003 with the new Historic Places Initiative (HPI). HPI is a provincially administered, federally funded program to catalogue all designated heritage properties in Saskatchewan and prepare written descriptions of the significance of these sites for the internet site, the Canadian Register of Historic Places (CRHP). Mike only remained with the program for five months. By the end of 2003, he had moved to the financial planning company, Partners In Planning, which has its national head office in Regina, where Mike became Manager of Communications and Marketing. Between 2004-2008, however, HPI contracted Mike to research and write statements for Saskatchewan properties on the CRHP. Mike toured and researched 38 historic places through these contracts including properties in or near Wilkie, Maidstone, Bresaylor, Prongua, Blaine Lake, Hafford, Parkview, Unity, Loreburn, Borderick, Milden, Senlac, Gravelbourg, Assinboia, Mossbank, Moose Jaw and Regina.
While working for Partners In Planning, Mike continued to work on history projects on his own time. During this period, Mike became a regular speaker at the Seniors Education Centre at the University of Regina and presented at several conferences including the 2004 SaskCulture Heritage Forum and Museums Association of Saskatchewan Annual Conference. He also made presentations at First Nations University business classes on historical tourism and he continued to search for ways to make a major contribution to the 2005 Centennial. Near the end of 2004 – he got his chance.
In anticipation of the Centennial, the federal government had designated nearly one million dollars in funding for the Celebrate Canada Committee for Saskatchewan to make the July 1, 2005, Canada Day a major Centennial event. In early 2005, Mike started working for Canadian Heritage, the federal department that administered the funding for the Celebrate Canada Committee but he quickly moved over to work directly for the Committee as its Program Manager. Mike’s duties were primarily administrative with responsibility for ensuring Canadian Heritage’s funding requirements were met but he was able to use his influence to initiate a Heritage Exhibit program. As part of the larger “Celebrate Canada Centennial Jam,” which drew some 50,000 people to Wascana Centre on July 1, Heritage Exhibits featured actors portraying famous historical figures on stages with historical pictures as backdrops. Located in the flower beds in front of the Legislature, thousands of people passed by the Heritage Exhibits and watched actors re-create famous speeches and moments in Saskatchewan history.
Perhaps appropriately, Mike finally defended his thesis and received his Masters Degree in 2005. His thesis, “Pioneer Narratives as an Aspect of Collective Memory during the Saskatchewan Golden Jubilee,” was the Department of History nominee for the Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal. An article based on his thesis recently appeared in the book Prairie West as Promised Land, from the University of Calgary Press.
The Rural History and Culture Association (RHCA)
After a few years writing and speaking about the value of rural history and culture, Mike was about to put his money where his mouth was. He completed his contract with the Celebrate Canada Committee at the end of 2005 and in January 2006, Mike moved to Mossbank. There he formed the Rural History and Culture Association of Saskatchewan. After some soul-searching Mike had decided that his real calling was not to pursue a Ph.D. but rather work to develop a different kind of history. Mike’s goal was that RHCA would develop Mossbank into a historical tourism destination, which would generate enough revenue to provide him with gainful employment. In its first year most of RHCAs efforts went towards holding the Celebration of Rural History and Culture in Mossbank on June 17, 2006.
Although reasonably successful, the Celebration did not generate the revenue necessary to provide Mike with employment, and as a result, Mike accepted a job as Communications Officer for the Sun West School Division, based in Rosetown, Saskatchewan. Not easily deterred, Mike began re-tooling RHCA by developing a wider range of projects not based in only one community. He also started writing a book, to be titled Pioneering the Future: Storytelling About Saskatchewan since the Great Depression, which will discuss changes to collective memory in Saskatchewan, including the contributions of local Museums, histories and the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society. Research on the book was finished in the spring of 2010, and Mike plans to finish writing sometime in 2011. The RHCA launched its new program in March, 2008. In the summer of 2008, over 2000 people attended RHCA events in Prince Albert, Kindersley, Mossbank, Lemberg and Manitou Beach. These events attracted extensive media coverage including front page stories in both the Leader Post and Star Phoenix as well as TV and radio coverage. In the summer of 2009, the RHCA followed up with six festivals in south-west Saskatchewan to Celebrate the NWMP Trail. These events also attracted good crowds and media attention. The Celebrate the NWMP Trail festivals included a legacy element, which took the form of a book about the NWMP Trail. Mike edited the book, which was called Fort Walsh to Wood Mountain: The North-West Mounted Police Trail. The book was released in July of 2010.
Also in 2009, Mike got back in contact with a special person he had known in university named Kerri Bjornson, who he had gone to university with, and who had been living in Ottawa for over 20 years. Although they had not been in contact for many years they struck up a long-distance friendship that eventually blossomed into much more as they took turns visiting each other. In June 2010, Mike left his position with the Sun West School Division to move to Ottawa to be with Kerri. As a result, the RHCA had to be dissolved, but Mike intends to stay active with history projects once he settles in Ottawa. He was hired as Director of the Registry/Communications for the Métis Nation of Ontario starting in July 2010.