REGINA — Ken Mitchell spent his life telling Saskatchewan stories, but those who knew him say his greatest story was the one he created through the people, artists and communities he brought together.
Mitchell died Aug. 5 in Regina at the age of 85.
For longtime friend Linely Schaefer, Mitchell was much more than an accomplished writer or celebrated professor.
“He was an entrepreneurial spirit and just a really, really good person,” Schaefer remembered.
The two met through the Cathedral Village Arts Festival, an event Mitchell helped create in 1992 after envisioning a celebration that could showcase the artists and diversity of Regina’s Cathedral neighbourhood.
Schaefer quickly discovered there was something different about Mitchell.
“He was a very diverse guy,” he said. “Smart guy, empathetic, always had an ear for you and you always learned something from him.”
That ability to make people feel heard became one of the defining characteristics of Mitchell’s life.
“He’s one of those rare individuals that you just felt better after meeting with him,” Schaefer expressed. “You just felt better being with the guy.”
Born in Moose Jaw, he earned a Master of Arts in English from the University of Saskatchewan’s Regina Campus in 1967 before beginning a 37-year career teaching English and Creative Writing at the University of Regina.
He held visiting positions at universities and institutions in Canada, Scotland, China and Cuba, and the University of Regina eventually named him a Distinguished University Professor and awarded him a Doctor of Letters.
He wrote more than 30 books, covering novels, poetry, drama, history, stories and criticism.
His work often brought real Saskatchewan and Canadian figures to the stage, including Gabriel Dumont, Sitting Bull, Major Walsh, Athol Murray and Tom Sukanen.
He was also a gifted performer who travelled extensively, giving readings, conducting workshops and promoting Prairie literature.
His accomplishments earned him the Order of Canada in 1999 and the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2001.
But Schaefer believes those honours only tell part of the story.
“He was very humble,” he said. “Always interested in your accomplishments.”
That humility was paired with an instinct to encourage others.
Schaefer remembers one particularly difficult year at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival when rain forced organizers to shut down the street fair.
Schaefer was the chair and was understandably discouraged.
“Ken come up to me and said, 'You know, if there was anybody to be chair about this fest and this happened to, I’m glad it was you',” Schaefer recalled.
Mitchell told him he was strong enough to handle what had happened.
“I thought, what a compliment,” Schaefer said. “He seemed to feel or see the good in people.”
“He always looked for the positive.”
That outlook was embedded in the festival Mitchell helped build.
From the beginning, he wanted the Cathedral Village Arts Festival to be free.
Schaefer said Mitchell believed every person should have the opportunity to experience art, regardless of their financial circumstances.
“It was about providing the audience with a performance and the performer an audience regardless of your economic standing,” he said.
That philosophy meant the festival could bring together vastly different forms of art, from opera and symphony to polka, theatre, dance, visual art and literature.
“We had people from B.C. to Minneapolis, Minnesota, that would come to this show,” Schaefer said.
“And that was all because of one man’s vision.”
Mitchell’s influence on Saskatchewan’s cultural landscape went well beyond the festival.
He was instrumental in establishing the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild, serving as its founding chairperson in 1969, and became the founding editor of the literary magazine Grain in 1973.
He also played important roles in the creation of the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre and Playwrights Union of Canada.
The Saskatchewan Writers Guild says his legacy continues through the organizations, programs and writers he nurtured across the province.
The guild’s library now bears his name.
The Cathedral Village Arts Festival describes Mitchell as a “fierce defender of the Arts” and says he leaves behind an “inspiring and enduring legacy.”
For his wife of 43 years, Jeanne Shami, there was another chapter to Mitchell’s life that deserves to be remembered.
Mitchell lived with Alzheimer’s disease for the final decade of his life.
Shami says the illness changed his world, but it never erased the person he was.
“Ken lived in the moment all of his life,” she said.
“Remarkably, despite his loss of memory, and even his loss of words, Ken embraced this new world with humour, warmth and humanity.”
Shami remembers him finding meaning in ordinary tasks: weeding, arranging cutlery, doing puzzles, turning the pages of books and sorting things.
Most importantly, she remembers him listening.
“Even as his world grew smaller, Ken’s spirit remained strong and present, and, if possible, even bigger in ways that I appreciated,” she said.
“Alzheimers did not diminish him.”
“He was himself until the very last breath, and though the words he spoke were in a language of his own making, they were eloquent and reassuring nonetheless.
“His eyes spoke volumes.”
For Shami, that part of Mitchell’s story is essential to understanding who he was.
“Part of what made him great,” she said.
Mitchell also maintained a lifelong connection to the Saskatchewan landscape.
He travelled across much of the world, visiting Scotland, Iran, Tibet, Greece and India and even meeting the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.
But after seeing much of the world, he always returned home.
The Qu’Appelle Valley and Echo Lake were especially important to him. He built cabins there with family and friends, welcomed artists and spent countless hours outdoors, tending fires, clearing paths, listening to music and drawing inspiration from the land.
Schaefer says that connection to Saskatchewan was inseparable from Mitchell’s identity.
“He was an artist at heart,” he said.
“He was a social advocate for the community for multiple causes.”
And whether he was writing a play, teaching a student, building a festival or simply encouraging a friend, Mitchell seemed to have the same instinct: create something, share it and give other people room to grow.
“He was always approachable,” Schaefer said. “And he was definitely one of a kind.”
A celebration of Mitchell’s life is planned for Oct. 10 at the Mae Wilson Theatre in Moose Jaw, with the time still to be determined.
His family has asked that memorial donations be directed to the Cathedral Village Arts Festival or organizations that foster the arts in Saskatchewan.
Mitchell leaves behind his wife, Jeanne, five children, ten grandchildren, a great-grandson, siblings, extended family and countless people who knew him through his teaching, writing, performing and community work.
But his legacy can also be found in every artist who found an audience, every writer who found encouragement, every student who discovered a love of words and every Regina resident who has wandered down 13th Avenue during the Cathedral Village Arts Festival.
Schaefer may have summed up Mitchell’s impact most simply.
“He was a very, very rare soul,” he said.
And in remembering a man who spent his life giving Saskatchewan a stage, perhaps the most fitting tribute is that the stage he built will continue long after he has left it.
