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My young-YA/middle-grade fantasy Fireboy, a nominee for Best Young Adult Novel in this year’s Aurora Awards, is also a finalist for the 2027 Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award in the Northern Lights Division. This is …
I’m thrilled to announce that I’m up for two Aurora Awards this year! Fireboy is on the ballot for Best Young Adult Novel, and The Worldshapers is once again on the ballot for Best Fan …
I spent a good chunk of today at Wordbridge, the annual writers’ conference in Lethbridge, Alberta. My main reason for coming was to launch a Shadowpaw Press title (Broken Realm by Jenna Greene, a Lethbridge …
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Weyburn: the Psychedelic City
LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide) has been on my mind recently–not because I’m taking it, I hasten to add, but because I’ve been working on a children’s biography of Jimi Hendrix, who was rather fond of the stuff.
Thus I was interested to come across this history of scientific experimentation with LSD…particularly since I already knew, though I have a hard time convincing people of the fact, that some of the most important research into LSD took place in my old home town of Weyburn, at the Saskatchewan Hospital (pictured above), one of two massive mental hospitals in the province at the time (the 1950s). Not only that, the very term “psychedelic” was coined in Weyburn by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond.
Why this isn’t on the sign welcoming people to town, I have no idea. Doesn’t “Weyburn: the Psychedelic City” have a nice ring?
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2005/08/weyburn-the-psychedelic-city/
1 comment
Hey! good post!. BR/BR/I was looking for some info about that hospital and I hope you can help me.BR/BR/I recently watched a t.v. show from The History Channel, the name of the show is The Psychodelic Pioneers, it was about those days in Saskatchewan, and the experiments with LSD, they mencioned that they started to investigate with some artist from the local area (writters, musicians, etc). There was a band called The Regina or The Regina 5, that name is because they were from the Regina City. I’d like to know if any of this were true, I don’t know if you have that kind of source, it would be nice if you do, I’ll appreciate it.BR/BR/Thanks!