W.O. Mitchell
(1914-1998)
W. O. Mitchell's writing offered prairie readers the gift to be at home on the wide open spaces, with 'the skeleton requirements simply, of land and sky.'
Although he lived for many years in Alberta, William Ormond Mitchell was born and grew up in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. His first novel, Who Has Seen the Wind, was published by Macmillan of Canada in 1947 to immediate critical acclaim and popular success. It remains Mitchell's most popular novel and established his reputation to define 'a poetry of the earth.'
The author's popularity was reinforced through the weekly CBC radio series, Jake and the Kid, broadcast from 1949 to 1957. He was also an outstanding public speaker and storyteller and was one of Canada's most enduring cultural celebrities throughout his life. Writer Margaret Laurence recalls that the early Jake and the Kid stories "were among the first that many of us who lived on the prairies had ever read concerning our own people, our own place and our own time… [We felt] that's us; he's writing about us". In his many novels, radio dramas, and plays, Mitchell "captured the landscape and peoples, the realities and myths of the prairies and foothills and has invested them with universal significance."
Mitchell was among the first popular Canadian writers to effectively write about the influence of the surrounding land on prairie people. He successfully conveyed the beauty, power and vulnerability of prairie land and sky and drew meaning from it in a way to which the average person could relate. The prairie wind, in particular, is ever-present, sometimes symbolizing freedom, sometimes personifying God.
In a very real sense Mitchell's question about the wind could be 'who has seen the complex web of interrelationships that sustain life?' Mitchell showed how awe, humility and relatedness are appropriate responses in the face of that dependence. Mitchell's creative talent also reveals a common pattern-exposure to the natural world at an early age, which remains a touchstone for the creative imagination. His genius relates to 'genus loci' or spirit of place. In Mitchell's case, wandering the prairies alone as a youth during a period of illness stimulated and imprinted his imagination and in his own words 'fixed my inner and outer perspective.'
Mitchell's poetic sense of the prairie environment is brilliantly captured in Courtney Milne's book W. O. Mitchell Country.
The most colourful characters in Mitchell's novels are the eccentrics, such as the mad "prophet" Saint Sammy, in Who Has Seen The Wind. Through Saint Sammy, Mitchell translates the justice and conservationist traditions of biblical prophets to the prairie idiom.
The list of honours Mitchell received includes honourary doctorates from five Canadian universities, an appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada, and being named an Honourary Member of the Privy Council in 1992. In 1989 he won the Stephen Leacock Award for According to Jake and the Kid.
For more information visit http://www.ucalgary.ca/library/SpecColl/mitchell/.