Saskatchewan Landscapes

David Mattison is a librarian with the B.C. Provincial Archives and
Records Services Library.

A retired reporter and magazine editor, as well as a photographer, Rusty Macdonald has published two previous books, one of which, Four Seasons West (Western Producer, 1975), consisted of photographs of the Prairie provinces.

Saskatchewan Landscapes is an idealized pictorial of the province, which, although dedicated to “the Homesteaders,” does not have a single photograph of people. There are two shots of canoeists on lakes and two of farm equipment, as well as the ubiquitous grain elevator and neat farms. The author’s pleas in his introduction to see in the land the work of the pioneers could have been strengthened by photographing close up some of these farmers and homesteaders.

Short quotations from Prairie writers counterpoint the images. The design is basic: quotation on the left and photograph full page on the right. The reproductions are all muddy and flat. Many of the prints have red or blue spots in them, flaws not caught in the blueline stage of the printing process. The book is overpriced and does not offer fresh insights into Saskatchewan. The urban landscapes of Regina and Saskatoon are not included. Generalized photographic locations are given at the end of the book, along with sources for the quotations.