Sundog Highway: Writing from Saskatchewan

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

This treasure trove of Saskatchewan art, history, and culture contains
58 entries by 51 of the province’s literary and visual artists and two
of its historical icons, Louis Riel and The Right Honourable John G.
Diefenbaker. Designed to support the Saskatchewan English Language Arts
A30 and Canadian Studies 30 curricula, it provides summary statements
and brief biographies for each of the contributors, an index of titles,
an index of authors and artists, a genre index, and unit and thematic
indexes keyed to the relevant curriculum. The entries are grouped into
eight major sections with intriguing titles such as “Home Place,”
“Put On My Mask,” “A Thousand Supperless Babes,” and “Editing
the Prairie.” Within these sections there are reproductions of a
collage, a couple of photographs (one modern, one historical) and
several paintings, as well as nine essays, eight short stories, a
variety of pieces of poetry, and excerpts from six plays.

The book presents some of the best and brightest of Saskatchewan’s
literary and visual luminaries. Here in one volume are writers and
artists with international reputations (Wallace Stegner and Eli Mandel,
for example), national award winners (Lorna Crozier, Sharon Butala, Ken
Mitchell, Guy Vanderhaeghe), First Nations and Métis writers or
painters (Janice Acoose, Rita Bouvier, Doug Cuthand, Allen Sapp), and
Saskatchewan stalwarts such as John V. Hicks, Gertrude Story, David
Carpenter, Robert Currie, Rex Deverell, and Anne Szumigalski. Whether
they are new or emerging artists or writers, all the contributors are
splendid representatives of a province noted for its creative abundance.