The entire written, public record, of 20th century Saskatoon history is being compiled in one place, and has led one Saskatoon resident to index over 59,000 articles so far.
Terry Hoknes, creator of SaskatoonHistory.com, says he’s compiling Star-Phoenix newspaper articles, and cataloging them into a series of books based off the decades. So far he has published volumes for the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, covering everything from local news, to school sports teams, to musicians and concerts. Hoknes says a lot of people find it nostalgic to pick a decade they remember and relive the past.
He explains Saskatoon went it’s first 20 years as a population of 100 people, and then in 1902 as the town got it’s first newspaper, it began to grow. Hoknes suggests this was perfect timing and allowed the city’s growth to be documented including new businesses downtown, actually becoming a city, and the construction of bridges and schools.
Hoknes says he’s already gone through over 600,000 pages, and estimates he needs another year and a half to finish reading the remaining papers of the 20th century. Hoknes says the public library and city archives have a ton of information but he wanted to get the information online and utilizes social media to educate and entertain people.
