It’s the little facts that makes me love history, and I was so excited to write about John Diefenbaker - The Dief from here on out - because he has one of my favourite facts: spending a night outside in a Saskatchewan blizzard and living to tell the tale.

I first discovered this story in 2015, when I was touring Saskatchewan for a ski magazine. The tour took me to Prince Albert, a city very proud to be part of The Dief’s history. There was a plaque dedicated to the 13th prime minister detailing how he survived a night in a blizzard. In 1958, The Dief retold the story to MacLean’s Magazine, and it is a beautiful little fact.

In his own words, on March 11, 1909, The Dief was at a school concert with his uncle, who, like his father, was a schoolteacher. Around 10 p.m., the duo left the concert for home, when their horse “could not face the blizzard, and turned off”. They were forced to spend the night in an open cutter turned upside down. They were found when the storm broke in the morning.

Aside from his political legacy and everything else, spending a night in a Saskatchewan blizzard is badass and always will be.

His family moved to Saskatchewan, then yet to be a province and known as the Northwest Territories, from Ontario in 1903. His father, William, was a school teacher and accepted a position near Fort Carlton, then known for being halfway between Edmonton and Winnipeg on the wagon route. The Dief’s father was a passionate teacher, especially when it came to history and politics, a passion he embedded into his eldest son, John. From a young age, The Dief told his mother that he was going to be prime minister one day, an aspiration his mother immediately poo-pooed because there had never been a prime minister from the Western territories at that time.

In 1910, the Diefenbakers moved to Saskatoon, mostly due to the education it could provide their two sons, John and his younger brother Elmer Clive (what a name!). In fact, John Dief became the first person to ever receive three degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, including a bachelor and master of arts and a law degree. The Dief earned his law degree in 1919, after a brief stint in the army during WW1. He opened a law office in the town for Wakaw, a town of 400 people 40 miles north of Saskatoon.

John Diefenbaker in 1919, a budding lawyer.

He established his law office and worked there for four years before leaving it in the hands of a business partner, Alexander Ehman, and moving to Prince Albert to open another office. During this time, his interest in politics, both local and federal grew. His father was a devout Liberal, but the young Dief was preparing to establish himself as a Conservative. Even when his name was put forward as a Liberal candidate in 1925, he said he was “never keen” for the position. On August 6, 1925, he became the Conservative candidate for the federal election in the riding of Prince Albert.

A note on his love life: The Dief was known to woo a few woman in the early 1920s, including Olive Freeeman, before her family moved to Manitoba in 1920. He then courted and proposed to Beth Newell of Saskatoon, but he broke the engagement after her diagnosis of tuberculosis, which is kind of a dick move, even in modern dating standards. She died a year later, and he moved on with his life, ultimately marrying a teacher, Edna Brower, in 1929. After her death in 1951, he reconnected with Olive Freeman, then known as Olive Palmer, and married his first love in 1953. Though The Dief had no children of his own, he did help raise Olive’s daughter from her marriage to Harry Palmer.

I still can’t believe he didn’t marry Beth after she was diagnosed. Maybe that was common then, but C’mon. I digress.

The Dief’s Wikipedia page is filled with notes on his political career. With politics being his main love and passion, it no wonder it’s well chronicled. The Dief officially entered federal politics and was elected to the House of Commons in 1940, during the reign of Liberal PM, William Lyon Mackenzie King. He was a rookie MP during the prelude to the Second World War, and his maiden speech in the House of Commons was defending Canadians of German descent (as he was one), saying that they were loyal Canadians. He also publicly was against Japanese interment, and wrote about it in his memoirs, but this claim has since been disputed, especially in his private life. In fact, many claims that The Dief made have since been disputed, but I’m holding on to that story about him surviving a night in a blizzard. Please give me that.

A Time Magazine cover from August 5, 1957, after Diefenbaker led the Conservatives to a massive election win.

The Dief ran to be party leader for the Conservatives two times before finally winning party leadership in 1956. A year later, he was elected as the 13th prime minister of Canada, a lifelong ambition for him. And a year after that, in a snap election, he brought the Conservatives the biggest victory since the 1930s, and the biggest one they would see until the 1980s.

The Dief sat in the prime minister’s office until 1963, a total of 5 years, 10 months and 1 day (I did the math). He was the leader of the official opposition until 1967 and stayed in the House of Commons until his death in 1979, two months after Joe Clark took office. Politics was his life.

While there are many things to dig into regarding The Dief’s tenure as PM, including passing the first Canadian Bill of Rights and appointing the first female cabinet minister and Aboriginal senator, what I want to get into with The Dief is why my father has such resentment for him as a prime minister. And that has everything to do with what ruined The Dief’s reputation - cancelling the Avro Arrow program and creating the Brain Drain, where Canadian talent has been migrating south to the United States. Seriously, every time I mention this blog to my father, he mentions The Dief’s role in cancelling the program that could have made Canada a leader in the aviation industry. But that’s next time…