which was quite a feat at the time". Smith remembers his father as very friendly and someone who genuinely liked people. He'd go out of his way to meet them. "During the later years, when I joined the firm, he liked to stand outside the office and greet everybody...and he never really retired, he just slowed up a bit." In the 1920s, he served four years as an alderman and later became Swift Current's mayor for two years. In 1929, the year of the stock market crash and the advent of the Depression, Smith moved up the political ladder. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan as a Conservative member. "He was known as Machine-Gun Smith in the legislature for his rapid-fire speaking style", Gord Smith said. Smith served in the government of James Thomas Milton Anderson during a time of severe economic hardship, social upheaval, and bitter political rivalries. Drought brought the province to its knees, striking a severe blow to agriculture. Smith was passionate about the outdoors and enjoyed hunting upland game birds. In 1931, he helped persuade the government to create and fund the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, located almost next door to Swift Current. Today, the park is a destination point for tourists and campers. Cypress Hills, which straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border and is the highest point between Labrador and the Rocky Mountains, is an area similar to that of the Black Hills of South Dakota, where prairie suddenly meets pine. There are small lakes, streams, and majestic, soaring hills. It became Canada's only interprovincial park when space in Alberta was designated as parkland in the 1950s, and is adjacent to historic Fort Walsh, the North-West Mounted Police post established in 1878. William Wensley Smith died in 1955 at the age of 67. A diabetic, the illness probably shortened his life. His wife Islay survived him for another 30 years. She died in 1985, at the age of 94. References 1888 births 1955 deaths Mayors of places in Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan MLAs People from Woolwich English emigrants to Canada