That dead woman in Saskatoon

The slaying of a Saskatoon nurse 50 years ago haunts Sharon Butala.

The Saskatchewan writer, now living in Calgary, has published 16 books of fiction and nonfiction, as well as essays and articles, poetry and plays. A new special issue of Prairie Fire magazine focuses on all things Butala.

“I can die happy now,” she joked to Red River College Creative Communications students Thursday, though assuring them that, at 72, she is not planning to do so any time soon.

But she really wanted to talk about the 1962 death of Alexandra Wiwcharuk.

In 2009 Butala published a highly readable book, The Girl in Saskatoon, investigating the case and criticizing the persistent and inexplicable reluctance of justice authorities to reopen it.

Becoming an investigative reporter was terrifying, Butala said.

She was not prepared for the official hostility to her work, and she came to doubt whether the people to whom she sent her questions even received them.

“Pretty soon you start getting paranoid.”

Someone even tapped her home phone, she said.

When a student asked who killed Wiwcharuk, Butala responded, “I wouldn’t dare to say.”

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a strong suspicion.

Butala’s frustration extends to the treatment of her book by HarperCollins, its Toronto publisher.

The company’s choice of title, based on a song Johnny Cash wrote for and sang to Wiwcharuk when she won a radio station contest, limited the book to regional sales, she believes.

Clearly, Wiwcharuk’s relatives and friends deserve answers to the questions Butala raises.

And perhaps the book deserves reissue under a title with wider appeal.

Butala’s original suggestion?

The Sweetest Face on Earth.

Hockey journalists should have been locked out, too

One elite group benefited greatly from the three-month National Hockey League lockout that ended yesterday.
 

Hockey journalists kept their jobs.Why?

There was no news for them to report.

Sure, there were rumour and speculation aplenty – retailed by those journalists.

This column by BryanCurtis captures the absurdity of trying to cover the lockout beat.

News media proprietors missed a money-saving bet by leaving these writers on the payroll.

OK, keep them working through the first weekend of the lockout and bring them back a week before games resume. That’s still big bucks in savings.

After I offered this modest proposal in class the other day, a student blogged about his horror at my cruelty.

Hey, it’s not personal.

Here, as in so many of life’s endeavours, we can learn from The Godfather.

Mobster Tessio, led away to be killed for trying to arrange a similar fate for Michael Corleone, pleads, “Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked ’im.”

Tom Hagen, the ultimate professional, responds, “He understands that.”

I hope that student understands.

My hockey-journalist friends, too.

Quotation from The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay With Commentary on Every Scene, Interviews, and Little-Known Facts by Jenny M. Jones ©2007 Paramount Pictures.

Don’t be that student

To mark the start of a new semester, here is a post-apocalyptic (Mayan and zombie) list of seven unsuccessful student strategies I have observed.

Owing to a hangover of peace and goodwill, I have changed the title of this post from my first draft, which was How to Piss Off Your Instructor.

1. Email your instructor saying you are sick and cannot attend class. When the instructor sees you on campus 45 minutes later, tell her you are “returning equipment.” Do not attend her classes that day.

2. Arrive late for class. When the instructor asks why, say you fell asleep.

3. Arrive late for class and talk to a classmate, disrupting all those who showed up on time.

4. Miss the first class of the semester. In the second class, tell the instructor, “I’m here now for good.” Then miss two more classes.

5. Write an article in the student newspaper complaining that the college is trying to destroy your family by requiring students to meet assigned deadlines and attend classes on time.

6. Tell your instructor you were late for class because your alarm clock didn’t work.

7. Tell your instructor you missed yesterday’s class because “I had to clean my aquarium.”

Two ways of looking at a murderer

In 1994 Bruce Douglas Stewner killed his wife Kelly Lynn Stewner.

He stabbed her repeatedly at the busy entrance to Assiniboine Park, which generations of Winnipeggers have cherished as a respite from the heat and crush of the city.

In 1997 Catherine Hunter published Rush Hour, a poem about this evil act, in her collection Latent Heat (Signature Editions).

this is the corner where the husband hunted down
his wife through the rush-hour traffic
she ran between the cars
and as she was running, her terror
beating through the city
like an awful drum, he cut her
and cut her and still
she continued to run

On Dec. 6, 2012 – the 23rd anniversary of the killing of 14 women in Montreal – the Winnipeg Free Press reports that Bruce Douglas Stewner is out on early release from his sentence for second-degree murder.

Somehow, while imprisoned, he has managed to marry another woman.

As reported by Mike McIntyre of the Free Press, the Parole Board of Canada tells Stewner, “You have a history of failed intimate relationships with women that often featured spousal violence.”

Citing a 2010 psychological report, the board says, “Your risk to reoffend violently was assessed as moderate and your risk to reoffend in the context of an intimate relationship was assessed as high.”

Here’s a third way of looking at our Mr. Stewner:

 WTF?

Words, words, words

“Such things are easily said, since words themselves have no shame and are never surprised.”

 Ancient Light, John Banville

#firstworldproblems

1. Black Friday lineups

2. Ikea traffic jams

3. Hot dog crust stuffed pizza or bacon sundae?

4. Big Gulp or Red Bull?

5. “I used to dig Picasso/ Then the big Tech giant came along/ And turned him into wallpaper.” Neil Young, Driftin’ Back.

Winnipeg Metro: Small, with big plans

Two weeks ago Paul Samyn, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, told Creative Communications students, “Don’t ask me where the newsroom is going to be in 12 months.”

His caution is probably commendable, given that the business in which he has been newly promoted is going through dramatic changes.

Contrast it, though, with the confident one-word assertion today to those same students by Elisha Dacey, editor of Winnipeg Metro.

When I asked what her paper will be like in a year, she said, “Bigger.”

Dacey hopes to increase her full-time reporting staff by 50 per cent next year.

OK, that means growing to three reporters from two.

But it’s still growth, a feature unfortunately absent from many news media business plans these days.

Dacey and Alison Zulyniak, the paper’s advertising sales manager, gave an upbeat presentation about Winnipeg’s year-and-a-half-old newspaper.

Metro Canada, of which Winnipeg Metro is a part, is 90 per cent owned by Torstar Corp., the parent company of the Toronto Star. Stockholm-based Metro International, which originated the international chain, owns 10 per cent.

Key to the success of the Metro papers, in addition to free distribution of the print edition, is small, low-cost staff, lots of short stories, and bright pictures and ads, all designed to appeal to free-spending but time-short 18- to 34-year-olds.

Oh, and the editor writes a ton of stories and takes pictures. “This is the best job I’ve literally ever had,” Dacey said.

Next year we’ll invite her and her colleague Zulyniak back to tell us how much bigger Winnipeg Metro has become.