The voice of the prairies
A writer, broadcaster, and teacher, W.O. Mitchell was known as the Canadian Mark Twain.
W.O. Mitchell (’43 BA) was born in Weyburn, Sask. in 1914. He studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Manitoba, and then completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Alberta in 1943. While at the U of A, Mitchell — along with future Canadian literary heavyweights Rudy Wiebe and Robert Kroetsch — was a student of F.M. Salter in the country’s first creative writing course.
Mitchell’s first published novel remains his seminal work. Published in 1947, Who Has Seen the Wind tells the story of Brian O’Connal, a young man growing up in the 1930s on the Canadian prairies. The book is a Canadian literary classic, and has sold nearly a million copies. The book was made into a movie in 1977, and a quote was read from it by actor Donald Sutherland at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
In 1950, while fiction editor for Maclean’s, Mitchell began writing the radio series Jake and the Kid for the CBC. Over 300 episodes were produced between 1950 and 1956, and a collection of short stories under the same name was published in 1961. In 1962, Jake and the Kid won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Throughout his career, Mitchell published nine novels, three radio and television plays, two stage plays, an audio book, and a number of television scripts. He won the Leacock award a second time for According to Jake and the Kid in 1990.
Aside from his own work, Mitchell had an enormous impact on Canadian literature as an instructor. He established the creative writing program at the Banff Centre, and while there, introduced what he called “Mitchell’s Messy Method,” later known as “freefall.” Rather than editing and being overly critical while writing, Mitchell encouraged his students to turn off their brains and instead capture whatever came into their consciousness. This method is still used and taught by many writers in Canada and around the world.
Mitchell was the first writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary (1968–1970), and was also writer-in residence at a handful of other Canadian universities. These include the University of Toronto (1973–74), York University (1977–78), and the University of Windsor (1979–1987). He also taught at the U of A from 1971–73.
In 1973, Mitchell was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1992, he became an honorary member of the Queen’s Privy Council. In 1994, he received the Writers Guild of Alberta’s first Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2000, his image appeared on the Canadian stamp.
Mitchell received honorary doctorates from the University of Regina (1972), University of Saskatchewan (1972), University of Ottawa (1972), Brandon University (1974), University of Calgary (1982), and University of Windsor (1982). In 1975, he received an honorary doctorate from the U of A, and in 1996 received its Distinguished Alumni Award.
For almost as long as there’s been a Canada, there’s been a University of Alberta. Over the next year, in honour of Canada’s 150th anniversary, we’re proudly celebrating the people, achievements and ideas that contributed to the making of a confederation.
