These days, one cannot imagine the town of Battleford without Gordon Yarde.
He has been active in civic politics as a member of town council for 18 years, and his community involvement goes back even longer to the 1970s.
The main thing for him right now is the town council, but he is also on the Lakeland Library board of which he is a former chairman. He is also active in the St. George's Anglican Church in Battleford as an assistant layman, is also still active in the Kiwanis club, where he was "past-president, lieutenant-governor and all that sort of stuff," and is an active Mason. He is a past Master of the Masonic Lodge.
While many might prefer spending their retirement years relaxing or putting their feet up, that isn't Yarde's way. "My idea of putting my feet up is being involved in something," he said.
"As a retired man I have no time at home," said Yarde.
His story of how he wound up in Battleford is a long and winding one going back to his days growing up in Barbados, a small island nation on the Caribbean Sea.
"I was curious about things, a curious mind. I don't know if that's the right label to put on it, but I always wanted to learn, move forward, get on, whatever."
Yarde left Barbados as a "green as grass" 20-year-old for England in search of steady employment.
He ended up working in the transit system but quickly became restless.
Yarde said he saw "no advancement on the buses." You could become a bus inspector, he said, where "you get a long coat and a nice fancy cap and stuff like that, you inspect the buses. But to me that was no advancement."
He saw others who had come to the country from the Caribbean were managing to get jobs as nurses in the local hospitals. That gave him an idea.
"My other buddies from the islands, from the other islands, come to England and they're nurses and all that sort of thing; why can't I be?"
So Yarde applied to get into psychiatric nursing, and he "got in immediately." He was given an entrance exam and passed it, and "I was in."
He trained at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospital in London, the top psychiatric hospital there.
After three years of training, Yarde earned his certificate and then applied as a post-grad to be a registered nurse, and earned that, too. "I ended up as an RN-RPN," said Yarde.
He worked at Goodmayes Hospital where he was a staff nurse, and within a year he was head nurse.
After several years Yarde decided he wanted to go to North America and see what it was like.
"Canada was the only place I cared to come to. I had no inclinations, nothing, to go to the States," said Yarde.
His plan was to come to Canada for about six months, applied, and then got a call in the middle of the night asking if he was still interested.
Within three months he was in Canada. That was in 1974.
Initially Yarde worked in Brandon, Man., before applying and getting a job in North Battleford at Saskatchewan Hospital. He arrived in 1977, he said, and "here I am."
He got involved early on with a number of activities that stemmed from his early years back in Barbados. He had been involved in weightlifting and body building and had competed and finished second in the "Mr. Barbados" competition.
He returned to weight-lifting in the Battlefords, and also joined a choir, something he had done since he was a young boy.
"I was singing from the time I was about seven or eight years of age," said Yarde. He sang with three different choirs in elementary school. "I was a boy's soloist and boy's soprano up to close to 18 years of age, then I went to tenor."
Yarde's lifelong ties to singing began at the Bay Street Boys School in St. Michael.
He and the rest of the kids growing up back in Barbados did not have much money, and had been talking among themselves about how they wouldn't have the opportunity to play music or learn the piano because they couldn't afford any instruments.
Yarde said his school headmaster was an organist with one of the main churches back on the island, and in class one day broached the subject.
"I understand you guys have been talking about you're not able to play the piano or an instrument or whatever," the headmaster said. "What are you talking about? You have got the original instrument."
His headmaster went on to say the human voice was "the original instrument. All other instruments on Earth have been copied from the human voice."
"So he says 'learn to use it'," said Yarde.
Every morning the kids sang two hymns from the Anglican hymn book. "I know almost every tune," Yarde said. It was there, he said, that "we were taught the love of singing."
He adds his school would be "one of the tops for singing on the whole Island at any time." At the school music festivals his school would field three choirs. Yarde was one of the soloists there as well.
Here in the Battlefords, Yarde has sung with the Gallery Singers and in the church as well. Yarde still has the love of singing, he said. "If I hear a tune once, I can almost repeat it."
It took a little while before Yarde decided to run for public office, winning the 1985 byelection for a seat on town council. Getting elected is a tough task in itself, but Yarde said by that point he had become well-known in the community for his activities.
"Most people in Battleford knew who I was," said Yarde. He was in the Kiwanis at the time, and people "knew I was always campaigning for something, for the liver (foundation), for the heart (foundation). I was always at somebody's door, knocking."
For the Kiwanis, he had travelled to a number of big conventions in places like Houston or New Orleans and then he would put the word out about his travels to the papers, and that helped get him noticed.
Yarde served on town council until 1991, then again from 1994 until losing in 2006. After being out of office six years, Yarde returned to council in 2012.
It was in the 1990s, when he was working with young offenders, that Yarde was motivated to return again to bodybuilding after a 15-year layoff.
He saw it as a way to motivate those in the young offenders program to get involved themselves.
"I actually entered the competition in Moose Jaw and I think I was third or fourth in that, and then that kind of spurred me on."
Yarde then entered and came second in the 1995 Provincial Bodybuilding Championships in the Men's Masters category.
Being in top shape would prove valuable for Yarde over a decade later, as he took on what he admitted was one of his most physically challenging initiatives: a role in "Swine Lake."
"That was a hoot," said Yarde, but it almost didn't happen.
Yarde said he was meant to actually travel back to Barbados at the time the performance was scheduled. Catholic Family Services called up looking for some big names from the town to perform in that fundraiser. Although he had lost his seat on council, Yarde fit the bill.
A change of flight was arranged, and Yarde headed to dance school to learn ballet steps along with other cast members, including incumbent town councillors Cameron Duncan and Garth Walls.
"That was the most painful thing on Earth, learning to dance on your toes and stuff like that," said Yarde.
Also, "they didn't tell us that we had to wear these tutus." It was no problem getting him fitted, but for the others it was more of a challenge.
"Some of the guys were big guys," said Yarde.
It was not the type of thing he would do every day, but he did it because it was for charity. The night of the performance, "we just brought the house down." Yarde recalls they made over $18,000 for charity on the night.
What life lesson did Yarde gain from it all? "You learn to be humble," he said.
In his duties on council, Yarde has been able to go out to various community events and bring greetings on behalf of the mayor and town council, and meet the people and hear their concerns close up.
"I like getting out meeting people, find out what they're about," said Yarde. He believes the comments he gets back inform the decision-making at town hall. "What we're doing in town, how does it affect you? How do you feel about it?" said Yarde. "It is from that then, we build and we make decisions."
Yarde has been a trailblazer for minorities in politics. He showed a certificate from the Saskatchewan African Canadian Heritage Museum from 2010, honoring him for being the first of African descent to be elected to office in Saskatchewan, though Yarde believes there were actually others before him.
"The way it's worded it looks like I was the first. That's not quite right, but anyway, it sounds good," he said.
Yarde has found Battleford a welcoming place.
"We are a welcoming people, I think," said Yarde of his home community, who adds, "I am a part of Battleford. I don't think of myself as a West Indian or whatever. I am a part of Battleford."
He also celebrates the freedom in Canada that you often don't find in other parts of the world where people have been persecuted for their beliefs.
In Canada, people "can come here and call the prime minister an idiot or other words, and not get themselves in trouble," he said.
Yarde has been on the receiving end himself, he says. But he accepts it as part of the job.
"They could see you downtown and give you a bloody rough time. I've had it. But they're speaking their mind and you're in council - could be Parliament, could be wherever - but you're their councillor and (they would say) 'we want this done without a problem.'"
It was through his council activities that he got involved in the Lakeland Library board. He also embraced Habitat for Humanity through his church involvement. Yarde says he will be headed to Mexico in June for a Habitat build there, with three houses going up.
In his 37 years in the Battlefords, "I've got involved in everything, I mean involved in everything."
"It has been one of my ways of doing things and one of the ways I tell other immigrants coming in. 'You get involved'."
He noted immigrants bring with them all sorts of gifts. "You bring gifts with you," said Yarde, "we have got to learn to share these gifts. That is what makes Canada what it is."
The latest project Yarde has taken on is "training to be a full-time minister in the Anglican Church."
He said he's done some ministry on First Nations and in small towns. He says he doesn't have interest in the big cities, big cathedrals, big churches. "I care for the small people. The small towns."
That is one of many activities to keep Yarde busy, and motivated, for the foreseeable future. "I'm only 75, going on 76, going on 25," said Yarde.
