W.O. Mitchell is best known for his novel Who Has Seen the Wind, a Canadian classic that has sold over three-quarters of a million copies since its publication in 1947, and for his “Jake and the Kid” stories, dramatized in CBC’s radio series in the 1950s and 1960s. Over his sixty-year writing career, he wrote ten novels, two collections of short stories, about 250 radio and screen plays, and five stage plays. His work won numerous awards, including two Stephen Leacock awards, three ACTRA awards, and the Chalmers Canadian Play Award. Through his radio, television, and live reading performances, he earned a reputation as one of Canada’s favourite story-tellers. He was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1973 and named to the Queen’s Privy Council in 1993. He will be remembered as the writer who put the Saskatchewan prairie and Alberta foothills on the literary map of Canada. He died in Calgary, Alberta, on February 25, 1998.