Grant MacEwan's biography recounts the life of Robert Chambers "Eye Opener Bob" Edwards (1861–1922), one of Western Canada's most colourful and influential newspaper editors. Born in Scotland, Edwards immigrated to Canada in the 1890s and established a succession of newspapers in Wetaskiwin, Leduc, High River, and ultimately Calgary, where he published the Calgary Eye Opener. Renowned for its biting satire, political commentary, and fearless criticism of the powerful, the paper championed causes such as social reform, women's suffrage, environmental conservation, Senate reform, old-age pensions, and improved public welfare.
Drawing on research and interviews with people who knew Edwards personally, MacEwan recreates the Calgary and Alberta of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries while capturing the wit, and enduring influence of one of the West's journalistic personalities.
