Prairies’ first Black doctor left lasting legacy

Farmer, medical doctor, teacher, community leader, and African-Canadian — Dr. Alfred Schmitz Shadd left his mark in the Kinistino-Melfort area of Sask-atchewan in the early 1900s.

He was born in 1870 at Chatham, Ont., into a distinguished family know for its abolitionist and equal-rights stances.

At a young age, Shadd was determined to study medicine but kept it a secret because it was basically unheard of for a black man to become a doctor. He earned the money necessary to attend medical school by picking up whatever work he could find.

He heard about a teaching job in a place called Kinistino, in what was then the North-West Territories, about 800 kilometres west of Winnipeg and decided to go there for the money.

The community learned about his African heritage before he got there and there was much concern over how he would be accepted by the settlers.

Shadd arrived in the spring of 1896 and soon won the confidence of the people with his good nature and humorous personality. School was held in the Kinistino agricultural hall where agricultural fairs, social and political meeting, as well as Sunday church services, took place.

Shadd’s big medical breakthrough came one day when word got around that a man in nearby Birch Hills had his head split open. He was not expected to live, but Shadd asked to be excused from school so he could have a look at the patient. Luckily, he was able to close the wound and the patient lived. That event established Shadd as a medical resource to the homesteaders.

Later, Shadd returned to the University of Toronto to complete his medical degree but he struggled to overcome the racial prejudice of some of his fellow students. He told them of his struggle to get an education and challenged any of them to a fight if they thought they were a better man. There were no challengers and eventually he became the most popular student in the graduating class of 1898.

He returned to Kinistino to become the first medical doctor in the Carrot River Valley and the first Black doctor on the Prairies.

There was lots of excitement in the area that Shadd was back as a full-fledged doctor. He served the medical needs of the area between Birch Hills, Fort a la Corne and Melfort. He often worked late into the night and faced very difficult travel conditions. Sometimes his patient turned out to be a horse with colic or a cow with milk fever. Often times, there was little prospect of payment for his medical services but he was noted as a man of grace.

Shadd bought his first farm south of Kinistino in the spring of 1903, where he planted the first crabapple tree in the region, an event unheard of at the time. The tree flourished and impressed the neighbours.

The farm became his home and medical headquarters. He had two teams of horses, which he alternated to pull a democrat buggy to attend to his many patients.

Shadd moved to Melfort in 1904 and bought another farm north of Star City and called it Craigbog Farm. There he raised purebred Shorthorns and some of the first sheep in the region.

He planted more trees, seeded tame grasses, followed crop rotations and cared for the land like a good doctor would care for his patients. He helped create the Melfort Agricultural Society and became its first president.

Shadd helped start the Farmer’s Elevator Company, which built some of the first elevators in the area.

Being that he was involved with raising purebred Shorthorn cattle, he went to Ontario in 1912 and bought the best bull available. He paid $1,000 for Bandsman’s Choice, a prize-winning yearling bull and later sold the progeny from the bull, which had a big influence on improving the quality of cattle in the region.

In the ensuing years, he operated a drug store, was co-editor and co-owner of the Carrot River Journal newspaper and served on Melfort’s town council and school board.

He was one of Saskatchewan’s first coroners, and was instrumental in the building of a small hospital in Melfort in 1906.

He even tried politics.

He promoted what many considered progressive ideas for the time, such as the building a railway to Hudson Bay, giving provinces control over public lands and resources, and organizing a national school system for all children. At the same time, he attended to his big medical practice.

In his medical practice, Shadd gained a reputation as a dedicated and tireless physician, travelling incessantly to tend patients scattered throughout the Carrot River valley.

Sometime the journeys were hair-raising but the doctor always managed to get to his patient.

In 1910, he bought a little red Reo car, the first car in the area and he would often drive it at top speed, sometimes crashing through farmers’ fences as he made his medical rounds. He always said that his little red car saved more people than it killed.

Shad died on March 9, 1915, of appendicitis. It was a major loss to the whole Carrot River Valley. At his funeral the Anglican Church and the Melfort town hall were full and hundreds of people stood outside.

The Melfort and District Museum has developed an online book about the community’s famous resident from the past and the city has named two streets after him. It’s a remarkable tribute to Melfort and area’s first doctor.