Description of Historic Place

The Stegner residence is a Municipal Heritage Property located at 126 Tamarack Avenue in the Town of Eastend. The designation applies to one municipal lot and consists of a wooden, one-and-a-half storey, two bedroom house.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Stegner Residence resides in its association with Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner, one of Saskatchewan’s most famous writers. Stegner and his family lived in the house until 1921. Stegner’s work became widely popular in the mid-twentieth century due to its thoughtful, poetic, and poignant style of describing prairie life at the turn of the twentieth century. Stegner referenced the community of Eastend in works such as "On a Darkling Plain" (1940); "the Big Rock Candy Mountain" (1943); and one of his more famous books, "Wolf Willow: A History, A Story and a Memoir of the Last Plains Frontier" (1955). Stegner’s reference to Eastend in many of his books, through the pseudonym Whitemud, has made the community symbolic of many other prairie towns. It has also led to further interest and awareness of the prairies and prairie life. Although Stegner was only a child when he lived in Eastend, his experience of living on the prairies inspired him to return three more times as an adult. Wallace Stegner was twelve years old when he and his family moved to Great Falls, Montana in 1921. The Stegner Residence remains today as a symbol of Stegner's presence in Eastend, and an inspiration to other writers.

The heritage value of the Stegner Residence also lies in the building's architecture, particularly its upstairs window. The large picture window on the second level faces directly west into the east end of the Cypress Hills, one of the many landscape features of southern Saskatchewan that influenced Stegner's writing.

Source: Town of Eastend Bylaw No. 348/88.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Stegner Residence resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements which influenced Stegner's writing, including the upstairs picture window and the siting of the building on its original location.