The Prairie Wool Weavers, last Tuesday, honoured the late June Exelby with a tapestry that was woven from wool and created from love.

Exelby, who died in 2009, was a founding member of the Prairie Wool Weavers, a guild of local spinners, weavers and dyers.

“It gives me great pleasure to dedicate this tapestry to June, our founding member, mentor and the best friend anyone could ever have the privilege of having,” said Linda Judd, the wool weavers’ president.

The tapestry depicts the hip roof barn on the Exelby farm. The guild picked the barn as the subject because it was dear to June’s heart, Judd said.  Guild member Anna Hergert drew a cartoon from a photograph of the barn taken by Judd. The weaving was done in strips by several members on looms set up in the Craik library, where the PWW, thanks to the library, have a weaving room.

The tapestry was made from pure wool and it has needle felting over the weaving. It took the guild about a year from the planning to weave the tapestry. Roy Vibert made the tapestry’s frame out of barn board from the Exelby farmyard.

Judd said the PWW was formed in March of 1977 when Agatha Heinen, Myrna Luther, Una Pound, Kate Waterhouse, Christina Kennedy, June Exelby, Leona Kunkel, Kay Gust and Mabel Nordmarken met to form a guild. “This was the beginnings of the Prairie Wool Weavers, a loosely woven organization of slow-moving fun seekers,” Judd said.

When the guild formed an executive, Exelby was its treasurer, a position she held until her death.

“As were all the founding members, June was always willing to share her considerable knowledge with all the members that were to join the guild in later years,” Judd said.

Over the years, the guild took on many projects, one of which was a tapestry of Craik’s skyline at dawn. Judd said that Exelby and her granddaughter Lynley drew a cartoon for the tapestry. From this design, members wove strips. The finished tapestry was donated to the Craik Hotel to thank the hotel for letting the guild use a room to store its supplies.

The Craik Hotel burned down about 10 years ago. The tapestry was destroyed in the fire.

Last week the overhead door closed for good on Craik Farmers Market.

After seven years, the small core group of volunteers who were keeping the market going decided this would be their last season. Friday, Sept. 21 was the market’s last sale day.

Last Tuesday, market founder Pauline Dixon, original vendor Joyce Miller and helper Marlene Stubbington were busy in the fire engine bay of Craik’s old town hall, packing up all that remained of the market’s “garage sale” merchandise.

These garage sale items were a mainstay at the farmers market, since it started the summer of 2006. The market’s purpose was to raise money to restore Craik’s old town hall and to give locals a place from which to sell their products, whether they be baked goods, garden veggies or local honey. Dixon, Miller, Carol Styles, Henry Dyck and Lyle and Gertie Bligh were the founding members.

Miller said prior to Craik’s farmers market, she used to sell her home baking at the farmers market in Moose Jaw. She recalled the days when she worked as a cook at Toppers restaurant in Davidson.

“I would work all day and come home and bake and then take 20 pies, plus cinnamon buns, tarts, cookies…I don’t know what all I took…up to Moose Jaw,” Miller said.

When Craik’s market opened up, every Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Miller was able to sell her baking in Craik. She was a vendor for a few years and then became a volunteer.

Dixon said they decided to call it quits due to health reasons.

“Joyce can’t do it anymore for health reasons. Art and his brother Hritis aren’t kind to me. It’s sad to see it go, but my husband and me sometimes spend three days a week here…” Dixon said.

In the absence of a new contingent of volunteers coming forward, they opted to close the market.

To read more please see the Oct. 1 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

An inner-city Saskatoon family doctor is heading to Craik this weekend to discuss his new book which focuses on the social determinants of health and the changes needed to Canada’s public policy with a goal of creating a healthier society.

Dr. Ryan Meili will also address the challenges of recruiting physicians to practise in rural Saskatchewan.

Meili, whose book is entitled A Healthy Society: how a focus on health can revive Canadian democracy, said he will be talking about his experiences working as a doctor in northern Saskatchewan, Mozambique, and Saskatoon as well as the stories of patients included in the book to illustrate the things that “really have an impact” on a person’s health and well-being. The book launch will be held Sept. 9 beginning at 7 p.m. at the Craik Legion Hall.

He said the challenges of income, education, employment, housing, the wider environment and social services or the lack thereof on an individual or community need to be discussed to bring about democratic reform that focuses more on ensuring a better life for all Canadians.

“As countries get wealthy, they also get less equal,” said Meili. “We’re not sharing the wealth in a way that’s allowing everyone to participate. There’s actually quite a lot of research that shows that countries that are more unequal have worse health outcomes.

“The interesting part is you would assume that in a more unequal country you would have more poor people and poor people tend to be sicker ergo worse health outcomes,” he said. “But it’s the wealthy people’s health that suffers as well. No matter what you’re level is, in a more unequal society, your health is worse than someone at the same level that has less of a gap between the rich and the poor.”

Meili said he is “hesitant” to say exactly what he will be discussing about the doctor shortage plaguing rural Saskatchewan and Craik in particular, but he will be speaking about the challenges that exist in recruiting doctors to rural areas in this province and the ideas he thinks could help solve this problem.

“We can often leave rural or the smaller centres out of these discussions, but there is really smart people and really interesting people in all of these communities,” he said about the need for a healthier society. “I’ve been hearing lots about the way the community is getting mobilized around health care with the loss of their doctor. It’s a really great time to open up the books and talk about just what is it that Craik wants for their own health and how the issues in this book will fit into that discussion.”