Bill and Joyce Anaka spent part of the summer of 1996 creating an inventory of two dozen cemeteries in the RM of Good Lake, part of a project sponsored that year by the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society.

It was familiar territory for both of them, having grown up near the south end of the lake. Joyce's grandfather first came there in the 1880s because of the good grazing land, and the Gunn family became well-known to the area, including Yorkton, for Gunn's Beach, and later Gunn's store, which provided goods not only for the local rural residents and nearby Indigenous people, but for the many visitors to the lake in summer.

Now 97 years of age, Joyce recalls the summer of searching out cemeteries, some of them abandoned in bushes or plowed over, one of them in a rural road ditch, and creating an inventory of those buried there, at least where the names on headstones were recognizable or obtainable. 

She also talks about her family's history on the land that now forms part of Good Spirit Provincial Park. And we talk about the name of the lake. Back in those days, Good Spirit Lake was known locally -- and still is referred to today by many oldtimers -- as Devil's Lake.

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Fifty years ago, Elwyn Vermette with help from a lot of friends built a geodesic dome house just south of Yorkton along Highway 9. About 20 years ago his daughter Tonia, with Elwyn's guidance and assistance, built a monolithic dome house close by. This is the story of those two projects which resulted in two one-of-a-kind houses that stand alongside a seed potato farm which Elwyn also started.

You can hear this podcast and see photo galleries and links related to this topic at www.yorktonstories.ca.

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Yorkton Stories will launch in May of 2023. Dick DeRyk, the researcher, writer and podcaster, provides an introduction and overview of the new venture which will explore the history and present-day happenings in the Saskatchewan city. 

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