Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Fall 2010
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly 30:4 (Fall 2010).
Abstract
On a warm May evening in 1962, young Saskatoon resident Alexandra Wiwcharuk left her flat to mail some letters and enjoy a little time on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River before reporting in for her night shift as a nurse at City Hospital. Sitting near a weir, she was within sight of a parking area and city streets. Many others were out that evening, sharing Alex's delight in heat and late sun on a holiday weekend, walking the paths, laughing over jokes and shared gossip, watching children play, and soaking in the city scene. But none of them noticed Alex's disappearance; none of them were aware that a murderer lurked among them. May 18, 1962, Alex Wiwcharuk, one of her city's best and brightest, just at the beginning of her adult life, was brutally raped and killed. Her murder remains a mystery, one that has permanently disturbed the social fabric of this seemingly safe Canadian city. Decades later, a high school classmate, writer Sharon Butala, mulls over these reverberations, feels compelled to recognize Alex's life, and seeks answers to the violence that stunned her community.
Comments
Copyright © 2010 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.