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University Archives & Special Collections, RG 2100 Emrys Jones aboard "Canadusa" at Waterways. (INS-331). (Patrick Hayes)

Emrys Jones

Pictured here is Emrys Jones, who in 1944 was appointed the first professor of Drama at the University of Saskatchewan.

He was in fact the first full-time professor of drama at a Commonwealth university. Sixteen years earlier he had worked aboard a barge travelling from Waterways, Alta., to Aklavik, Northwest Territories.

This was the golden age of riverboat travel, before roads and rail penetrated the northern landscape. It was a time when sternwheelers and their barges were the mainstay of the northern economy.

Fortunately Jones took along his camera. He donated his collection of photographs to the Institute of Northern Studies in the late 1960s, and they now form part of the Institute’s Papers at the U of S Archives.

Jones remained Head of the department until 1971 and retired two years later. 

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