Today, the Kinsmen Discovery Centre still stands, though it has grown. A glass atrium now connects the old warehouse to a new wing called the Innovation Foundry , filled with 3D printers and robotics kits. The original Tinkering Loft remains untouched—same gritty floor, same smell of oil, same bins of mismatched screws.

He closed the book. That night, he wrote a single letter to the editor of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. He didn’t ask for money. He asked for stories. “Tell me what you discovered here,” he wrote.

The Centre thrived for a decade. School buses arrived from Regina, Edmonton, even Winnipeg. It became a rite of passage: you weren’t a true Saskatoon kid until you’d yelled into the Whisper Dishes.

Leo, now the Centre’s first director, kept a logbook by the door. He filled it with quotes from parents and children. One entry, dated March 12, 1994, read: “A boy in a wheelchair spent two hours here. He couldn’t reach the top of the Bernoulli Blower. So he designed a ramp out of cardboard and tape. He didn’t ask for help. He just… invented.”

Part One: The Seed of an Idea