In the mid-1950’s, a British psychiatrist took part in a ceremony with members of Red Pheasant Cree Nation; a followup to work being done further south in Saskatchewan that saw the creation of a term that would come to define a generation: psychedelic. Humphry Osmond, working out of the Souris Valley Mental Hospital in Weyburn coined the word that is synonymous with ‘60s’ counter-culture in 1956 but, well before the hippie movement took off in the United States, Osmond and others gathered at the Native American Church of Canada’s Peyotism ceremony in Cando. A new chapter was written in Saskatchewan’s psychology history then and many more chapters are now being added with ‘The Barber’s Collection’.
North Battleford writer R. Conrad Speer celebrated the release of his novel with friends, family and a Madhouse Mead yesterday. “In the summer of 1997, I worked as a groundskeeper on the old grounds of the Saskatchewan Hospital,” said Speer during the launch party at the Armoury Brewing Co.
“This novel, it’s centered around the escape of a violent criminal patient and looks at kind of the history of the treatment of the mentally ill, of mental illness – all the good, bad and ugly that has happened – through this vast architectural marvel of this institution.” The idea for the story ruminated for years before Speer finally set about his writing journey in 2012 and the result was a weaving a “tragi-comic historical” narrative of unique characters toge.