...Winnipeg Telegram editor and later freelance journalist, Colonel Garnet C. Porter. However, another name should be added to this impressive list. Quietly, modestly and professionally, Free Press newspaperman John James Conklin contributed significantly to the fine tradition of Western journalism as well as the social, cultural and recreational life of Manitoba for over 70 years.

From 1886 until his retirement in 1937 Conklin spent 51 years with the Manitoba (later the Winnipeg) Free Press holding more positions than any other employee. The list of his Free Press duties included carrier boy, reporter, drama, music and movie critic, specialist on real estate and Winnipeg's pioneers, telegraph, automobile and city editor, as well as editorial writer. In addition, for many years Conklin was employed as stringer (1) for several Canadian, American and British daily papers and for over 25 years was Western correspondent for the Canadian Moving Picture Digest. As well, from 1920 until his death in 1952, Conklin was one of the major promoters of Victoria Beach on Lake Winnipeg and the editor of the Victoria Beach Herald for 22 years.

Early Years in Winnipeg

John James Conklin was born 23 June 1868 in Forest, Ontario and came to Winnipeg from Hamilton with his family in the Fall of 1881. When he arrived as a boy of thirteen, the Manitoba capital was celebrating the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway as well as a hectic land boom. Some of Conklin's first memories of Winnipeg were seeing the rails for horse cars laid down along Main Street, shopping in the one-storey Hudson Bay Company's store within the walls of old Fort Garry, watching stem-wheelers with livestock and baggage on the upper decks and settlers housed below-deck ply the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, and witnessing the collapse of Winnipeg's original City Hall. Also, when John Conklin arrived in 1881, his uncle, Elias George Conklin, co-founder of the pioneer real estate firm of Conklin and Fortune, was mayor of Winnipeg. (2) It was Elias Conklin who helped solidify the city's bid for the CPR's main line over Selkirk by casting the deciding vote for municipal property leases when Winnipeg's City Council met William Cornelius Van Home and Canadian Pacific Railway officials in St. Paul, Minnesota.

John Conklin entered the University of Manitoba in 1885 and soon became editor of the school's newspaper. He made his first connection to the Manitoba Free Press through his column, "College Notes," in which he reported on intercollegiate sports and other events. However, Conklin did not graduate because in 1886 he left as editor of the school's paper for full time employment at the Manitoba Free Press. When he joined the Free Press, the owner was Clifford Sifton, Walter Payne was the paper's executive editor and John W. Dafoe was city editor.

Conklin's first job at the Free Press was drama critic, and it was through this assignment that he brought many celebrities to Winnipeg, and for the next twenty years became one of the city's most versatile impresarios and boosters. Among the famous personalities Conklin brought to Winnipeg in the 1880s were Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh born American journalist and the first explorer to cross Africa; Frederick Villers, the world renowned British war artist, journalist and correspondent for the Graphic; William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the US army scout, Indian fighter, buffalo hunter and wild west entertainer; and boxing legend and first heavy-weight world champion, John L. Sullivan, who gave a boxing demonstration in the Princess Theatre.

In the 1890s Conklin widened his activities as a celebrity agent and continued to attract important individuals to Winnipeg including American humorist, novelist, writer and lecturer, Mark Twain (Samuel Longhorne Clements) who remained in Winnipeg for ten days. "Mr. Clements," Conklin observed, "had a carbuncle on his back, which was giving him much trouble, but did not interfere with the lectures of the funniest man alive." (3) English author of The Light of Asia and Oriental Traveller, Sir Edward Arnold, arrived to the delight of Winnipeggers with Japanese girls to wait on him, and India born British author, poet and Nobel Literature Prize winner, Rudyard Kipling, visited Winnipeg as part of his wedding tour. Conklin said of Kipling, "He was bright and restless and aggressive, and he kept walking up and down as we interviewed him for the Free Press." (4)

From the Turn of the Century to the Winnipeg General Strike

In mid-October 1901 the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, who later became King George V and Queen Mary as well as the grandparents of Queen Elizabeth, visited Winnipeg and Western Canada. One of the highlights of the royal visit in Winnipeg was a duck hunting trip by the future King of England, who was an expert marksman. At the time John Conklin wrote in the Free Press about the events of the hunt, which occurred at Poplar Point along the shore of Lake Manitoba near a portion...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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