Late in winter of 2026 I spoke with Alvin Law about Yorkton’s Snowarama, a longtime fundraiser for what is now SaskAbilities. Each year the Council would name a Timmy, someone who represented the council at events and was the ambassador on behalf of the so-called “handicapped” community of the province. Alvin was the Timmy in 1976, at the age of 16.

Alvin was born without arms, one of about 125 in Canada whose mother was prescribed thalidomide. He has since become a well-known motivational speaker, who has travelled the world from his home base in Calgary, providing a positive message to audiences while also amazing them by playing the piano and drums.

I knew of his parents, Hilda and Jack Law, but didn’t know them personally. So when I talked to Alvin back in February, I suggested we should do a podcast – not about him, but about the couple who first became his foster parents, then adopted him. At the time they were in their mid-50s. They had raised two sons who had moved out and away to start careers and their own families. They were empty nesters. But they took on a task most would not even consider, let alone do… caring for a newborn baby with no arms.

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If you want to explore this topic in more depth than what is included in the podcast, go to www.yorktonstories.ca, where you will find links to documents and other sources related to this podcast, as well as photos if available.

In the very earliest years of Yorkton in the 1880s, the pioneer residents in the village and on the farms either had their own cows for milk, or bought it from farmers.

By 1891, a group of residents saw the possibility of establishing a dairy to distribute milk, but that only lasted a couple of years because some of the shareholders did not come up with funds when needed to continue the operation. In 1895, local businessman James Crerar had another go at setting up a creamery, but he went out of business in 1902.

After that, it is said, as many as 14 farmers made their way into the village to sell their milk, butter and whatever other dairy products they produced on the farm.

This is the story of milk processing in Yorkton, which went from farmers selling their milk to -- at one time -- five or more creameries and dairies processing milk locally (and more than 40 dairies in the province), to today, when there is only one plant in Saskatchewan processing milk.

On our website you will find a detailed timeline of dairy production in Yorkton, and a wide range of photos from the earlier days.

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If you want to explore this topic in more depth than what is included in the podcast, go to www.yorktonstories.ca, where you will find links to documents and other sources related to this podcast, as well as photos if available.

Sherry Whitehawk has eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. For most grandparents that’s where the counting stops. Not so for Sherry.

For clarification: many still know her as Sherryl and still call her that, but she will explain how that additional letter in her first name came about, and why it is no longer there.

Since her retirement from a career in social work and very active volunteer participation in community and Indigenous organizations, she became a story-teller known as Grandma Sherry, talking about her childhood and youth growing up on a reserve in southwest Manitoba, and touching on many indigenous aspects of life.

She is also grandma now to literally tens of thousands of people who subscribe to her TikTok channel, where she has 250,000 followers and almost two and a half million likes. Plus some thousands more on Facebook and Instagram.

This spring and summer, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) Language channel is showing a series of 13 half-hour programs called Grandma Sherry’s Kitchen – a cooking show that was recorded in Yorkton last year.

Grandma Sherry, who three years ago had those 10 grand- and great-grandchildren, is now everybody’s grandma.

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If you want to explore this topic in more depth than what is included in the podcast, go to www.yorktonstories.ca, where you will find links to documents and other sources related to this podcast, as well as photos if available.

When Linda Cymbalisty married Joe Skomorowski, they set their sights on leaving Winnipeg and setting up their own plumbing shop in a rural town. And that included quitting university and becoming a plumber herself!

As it turned out, that was easier said than done – much, much easier said than done. She was far ahead of her time, and ran into major roadblocks with educators, and even with the plumbers union.

But she was not a quitter. She knew what she wanted, and would not, did not give up. They attained their goal, set up shop in Norquay, Saskatchewan, and are now retired in Yorkton.

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If you want to explore this topic in more depth than what is included in the podcast, go to www.yorktonstories.ca, where you will find links to documents and other sources related to this podcast, as well as photos if available.

In 1997 Gene Krepekavich, the longtime Yorkton Terrier booster, volunteer and club president for six seasons published the history of the first 25 years of the junior Terriers hockey team. It starts with the 1972-73 season.

But what few, if any, remembered then and now, and what is not recorded in recent official histories of junior hockey in Yorkton, is an earlier team, also known as the Yorkton Terriers, which also played in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. It played one season, 1955-56, and hosted that season's SJHL all-star game. It was managed and coached by Bill Hunter -- THE Bill Hunter of World Hockey Association and Edmonton Oiler fame which came a decade later.

On it was one player who still lives in Yorkton, Merve Kuryluk. He was 18 at the time and on his way up the hockey ranks. It was covered for CJGX Radio by a rookie reporter, also 18 years of age, Linus Westberg.

We talked with both of them 70 years later, and listen in on interviews Linus did with hockey and media luminaries who attended the game, and the preceding dinner at the Yorkton Hotel.

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If you want to explore this topic in more depth than what is included in the podcast, go to www.yorktonstories.ca, where you will find links to documents and other sources related to this podcast, as well as photos if available.

A local fundraiser that started in a snowy highway ditch has grown into an event that refuses to slow down, and now includes wheeled riders in the desert.

We follow the history of Yorkton’s Snowarama from a 1977 ride sparked by the pro wrestler "Whipper" Billy Watson to a multi‑chapter effort that supports SaskAbilities programs including Camp Easter Seal, the summer fun program, and adaptive technology services that enhance the lives of clients with various challenges.

A number of those who built and grew the event talk about why they did what they did, and still do! Founders, fundraisers, and next‑gen riders share how Yorkton's Snowarama kept growing while those in Regina and Saskatoon didn't make it into this century.

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If you want to explore this topic in more depth than what is included in the podcast, go to www.yorktonstories.ca, where you will find links to documents and other sources related to this podcast, as well as photos if available.

Duval Lang, known to many as Duve, has been immersed in Calgary live theatre for 46 years now. He ended up there for university, and has called it home ever since, other than when he travelled the world as an actor.

But in Yorkton, in the 1960s, he was one of the players on a provincial high school championship football team, representing Yorkton Collegiate Institute; not a big guy to be playing on the line, but fast and pesky for the opposition to deal with.

His dad, Elmer Lang, owned a plumbing business among various endeavours, and was involved in baseball, hockey and curling in the city; his mother Meta volunteered for many community organizations, including the Yorkton Arts Centre and its art gallery.

We talked about his life in Yorkton as a youth, and his long and well-recognized, rewarded and rewarding career in live theatre.

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If you want to explore this topic in more depth than what is included in the podcast, go to www.yorktonstories.ca, where you will find links to documents and other sources related to this podcast, as well as photos if available.

To the many newer residents of Yorkton, the name Ruth Shaw likely isn’t recognizable. But to those who lived here in the latter half of the previous century, the name, and the woman who bore that name, was an unassuming but powerful force and voice in helping the province and beyond know about Yorkton through at least three major roles she played in the city.

For 16 years she was the reporter and bureau manager of the Regina Leader-Post, a job she took over from her husband when Cliff died unexpectedly at an early age. She was then the manager of the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce for 22 years.

During all that time, she was an active promoter of Yorkton events, and was involved in the formation of the Yorkton Arts Council and the Yorkton Film Society, which became the Yorkton Film Festival.

In retirement when she was in her 80s, she learned to use a computer and wrote 113 historical vignettes, recalling Yorkton happenings and people.

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If you want to explore this topic in more depth than what is included in the podcast, go to www.yorktonstories.ca, where you will find links to documents and other sources related to this podcast, as well as photos if available.