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Evanishen, Danny
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Danny Evanishen is a Canadian of Ukrainian descent, a world traveller and a writer. He was born on February 17, 1945 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Danny graduated from the Nutana Collegiate Institute, Saskatoon in 1962, and then attended the University of Saskatchewan between 1962 and 1968 where he received degrees in both drama and education, while also being a writer and poet for the university’s student newspaper The Sheaf along with membership in other student organizations. Danny was also a member of a variety of cultural groups during this time, including the Mohyla Ukrainian Institute, CYMK (of which he was a president in 1964-65), and the dance group Yevshan and Lusia Pavlychenko's group, Saskatoon (1964-68). With Yevshan he danced in a Saskatchewan Jubilee movie in 1965, at Expo 67 several times, at the Canadian National Exhibition and for Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa in 1967. With Mary Tkachuk's youth choir he sang and played guitar in Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal at Expo 67, all in 1967.

Shortly after graduation, Danny began teaching English and art in Australia and New Zealand, but returned to Canada in 1971 to work as a Forest Officer in Yukon and British Columbia until 1978. During this time he briefly worked as an editor and publisher at a newspaper in Ross River, Yukon. In 1978, he became an owner and operator of a movie theatre and the manager of a freight co-operative in Salt Spring Island, BC. He also began pursuing freelance writing, which he continues to this day. From 1991 to 1993 Danny worked as a freelance forest fire suppression in BC. Since 1991, he has worked as a writer/publisher. Danny also worked at a mine in the Australian desert, fixed yachts on the Spanish island of Ibiza, repaired Volkswagens in Nigeria, tended bar in Canada, Spain and New Zealand, played guitar in a restaurant in Australia, drove a van in England, and crossed the Sahara in an old army truck.

Danny Evanishen's father stimulated his interest by translating some stories he found in an old Ukrainian book handed down by his father; his mother provided one story and encouraged him; and his niece and sister did the artwork. When Evanishen started to investigate, he discovered thousands of Ukrainian folktales. Danny started collecting stories in 1991. In 1994, he started going to Ukrainian and multiethnic festivals to collect stories there. He was interested in collecting stories of two types: Ukrainian folk tales and funny Ukrainian pioneer stories. With time, he started collected stories from descendants of pioneers. Danny would record verbal stories and would also invite people to send them to him by email, on paper, floppy disk, cassette, audio reel, fax, video, 8mm film. In 1994, he sent an announcement about collecting stories to many newspapers. If at the beginning of 1990s he would collect 2-3 stories per year, in 1999 he collected near to 40.

In 1993 he founded “Ethnic Enterprises, Publishing Division” to publish these stories, and his own writings around the character Vuiko Yurko which had received an award in a writers’ contest shortly after being published. Since then Ethnic Enterprises has published over twenty books containing stories of Danny’s own creation, and of Ukrainian folk tales he has collected and translated.