Back to the Coteau Hills

Thin textured card covers, 113 pages, 6x9 in - 15x22.5 cm, B&W illustrations and photographs. Illustrated by Nick Friesen.

Covers lightly soiled and moderately sunned; front cover and early pages creased at corners. Spine chipped at heel and sunned. Stamp to title page scribbled out in ink. Pages tanned; pp.34 and 40 text corrected in ink.

Florence Gates (b.1913) was a Saskatchewan rancher, teacher, and author. In addition to contributing to publications like “Canadian Cattleman,” Gates wrote “Back to the Coteau Hills,” a personal memoir of growing up in rural Saskatchewan and homage to the Coteau Hills region (west of Regina). Gates begins her story with her grandparents’ arrival in Saskatchewan in search of land in the early 1900s. She describes the circumstances of her parents’ meeting, her birth in 1913, and the family’s ranch established in 1917. Gates recalls growing up and going to school with siblings, teaching in a country school, and eventually meeting her husband in 1937. Throughout, Gates’ thoughtful insights and fond anecdotes form an engaging personal history of ranching in southern Saskatchewan. No publication date indicated, but illustrations are dated 1984, making a publication date of 1984 or later likely.