Between Fifth and Sixth Avenues North, just off Smith Street, is a small well-treed park. Just a block from the Shaw home, it is named after Cliff Shaw.

Cliff Shaw was born in Elgin, Manitoba, in 1907 and came with his family first to Sintaluta, Sask. and later to Bulyea, where his father Walter was the village blacksmith. Here he acquired his life long interest in nature.

Growing up during the depression years, he had a variety of jobs. He and his friend Tom Melville-Ness, a graduate of Edinburgh University, established a health food store in Regina. Offered a contract by a museum in London, England, to collect insects in northern Saskatchewan, they gave up the store and spent the summer in Waskesui.

That fall, Tom went to Regina to work for the Leader-Post newspaper, while Cliff went to eastern Ontario to work as a gardener on an estate.

Later he moved to Winnipeg and was employed as a relief milkman. While in Winnipeg he worked with Harry Rand of the Winnipeg museum, where he continued his interest in plants, birds and collecting Indian artifacts.

In 1941 he came to Regina, to be a district manager and photographer for the Leader-Post. There he became associated with the Regina Natural History Society.

He came to Yorkton in 1944 as bureau manager of the Leader-Post, which entailed both reporting the news, and looking after the circulation of the paper. He not only reported on the day to day activities of the city, but was associated with provincial and national organizations that were delving into the early history of the area, especially the history of the early fur trading forts of the area.

When he came to Yorkton, he joined the Yorkton Natural History Society, which had been started by Mrs. Bob Priestley, a trained botanist. Mrs. Priestley, with the assistance of a group of high school students published a small magazine, the Blue Jay.

On the death of Mrs. Priestley the Saskatchewan Natural History Society took over responsibility for the magazine and Cliff became the first provincial editor that that publication.

With his interest in gardening, he became associated with the Yorkton Horticultural Society and served as president of the Yorkton Society and the Saskatchewan Horticultural Society. In his garden he grew plants given to him by Dr. Patterson of the University of Saskatchewan and Dr. Skinner of Manitoba.

Cliff died in July of 1959 of a massive heart attack as he was preparing to cover the Yorkton Exhibition. That evening in front of the grandstand at the official opening, Norman Roebuck, president of the exhibition, asked for a minute of silence in tribute to Cliff.

That same evening, when City Council assembled, there was a minute of silence to honor the man who had faithfully reported the activities of Yorkton's council, and the people of the city, for over 15 years.