Persona

Guthrie, Les

Lester Alexander William Guthrie was born on October 05, 1918 on a homestead northwest of Swift Current Saskatchewan. Not long after Les and his family moved to Eston Saskatchewan when his father was hired as the head of a livery barn. They resided in Eston for the next six years and then moved on to Saskatoon where Les received his formal education. In 1937 Les was hired on at the sports desk at the Saskatoon Star Phoenix newspaper and worked there until he joined the army in 1940. Les spent his entire army time in Saskatchewan until he was discharged due to medical reasons in 1942. Les then took on work with the Canadian National Railway (CNR) for a period of time before returning to the Star Phoenix as a circulation manager for the North Battleford region in 1946. He remained on with Star Phoenix for thirty-six years, until his retirement in 1982. During this time it was Les' job to drive to Saskatoon on a daily basis to pick up the papers and distribute them to the various centers in the Northwest. In total Les drove over 1,450,000 miles in his career and did so without a single accident or ticket. Since it was his job to distribute the papers to the Battlefords, Les thought that it would be good to have some content in the paper about the Battlefords. This caused Les to take a correspondence course in photography and this is what began the Les Guthrie collection. Les' photos have been published by the Star Phoenix, the Canadian Press and TIME magazine. Outside of his work Les was an active member of the North Battleford community and was involved in all types of activities including: Sea Cadet, Masons, Kinsmen, Navy League, North Battleford Swim Club (manager), minor hockey (coach), North Battleford Speedskating (coach). Les' hobbies aside from photography include curling and bowling.