Hasty History #10: The Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

Hashtag History

In this week's BONUS Hasty History episode, we will be discussing the Saskatoon Freezing deaths, a series of deaths of indigenous people in the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan area between the late 1970s and into the early-2000s. It was discovered that the Saskatoon Police Service were taking indigenous people on what became known as “Starlight Tours” in which they would pick up an indigenous person (sometimes because they were drunk, sometimes due to disorderly behavior, and sometimes for no reason at all), drive them outside the city limits, and leave them stranded in subzero temperatures with no alternate fate but a horrendous death.

This was all brought to light when, in January of 2000, a man named Darrell Night survived one of those horrendous tours and filed a complaint against the Saskatoon officers involved.

This is an awful and shocking story that many have attempted to erase from History.

So let’s just get right into it. Hasty History BONUS episodes are no-nonsense, crash course, cram session History lessons. No cocktail segment, no ads, no bloopers. Just a quick download of some heavy History content. Submit your topic suggestion for future Hasty History episodes at [e-mail].