Homesteader - A Prairie Boyhood Recalled

by James M. Minifie

232 pages of excellent text. Mr.Minifie, CBC's Washington correspondent for many years, recalls what pioneer life in the Canadian west was like in the early years of the 20th century. First Edition.

Paperback

Reviews

[Elinor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just when you think there's nothing new to add to the homesteading narrative -- the endless prairie, the dust storms, the back-breaking labour, etc. -- you stumble across a book that makes the entire experience come alive.

James. M. Minifie wrote an intelligent and dryly ironic description of his family's experiences carving out a mixed farm near Vanguard, Saskatchewan. The book ends with James himself being chosen at Saskatchewan's Rhodes Scholar in 1923.

The author went on to an illustrious career as a journalist and war correspondent, and spent fifteen years at CBC before succumbing to illness in 1974. This book about his prairie boyhood and service in World War One was written just two years before he died. This book was simply a pleasure to read.

[Robert Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good memoir of an English family homesteading in Saskatchewan in the early Twentieth Century. The Author went on to become a Rhodes Scholar and then a CBC Correspondent, hence his eye for detail in his story.

[Rhonda Leanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent book on the life of a homesteader. Unfortunately, I found that parts of it dragged for me. I was very engaged by the story of his father's first year, the challenges he faced, and the stories of his life as a young boy growing up in the early 1900s, but I lost interest when he got to the war years. I've read a lot of books about the world wars, and I was expecting this one to focus on pre-war, so that part really dragged for me. I'm glad I read it, though.