History Matters: Outlaw turned farmer tried to run from his past

When asked why the early cattle industry in present-day southwestern Saskatchewan was never as violent as its American counterpart, a ranch hand suggested, “the alkali water (cowboys drank) up here took it out of them, and the winters froze out what was left.”
But there were outlaws operating in the border country. One of the most notorious was Joseph Erving Kelly, more popularly known as Sam Kelly or by his alias, Red Nelson.
Born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1859, the tall, lanky