He took up prospecting and travelled the English-speaking world at it, going from South Dakota (in the Black Hills region) to New Mexico and Colorado, and then spending time in New Zealand and Australia.

James East first sought political office in the February 1912 municipal election, when he ran for alderman on the Edmonton City Council, finishing fifth of eighteen candidates.

Accordingly, Thomas J. Walsh - the second-place southside candidate, who had come in eighth - was elected to a two-year term, and East just for 1912.

In 1916, East enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, where he spent the rest of the First World War on the hospital ships Araguaya and Letitia before leaving the military in 1919.

In the years intervening since his last election, party politics had arrived at the municipal level in Edmonton, and East aligned himself with the Labour slate.

This was a good election for Labour; its mayoral candidate, Joseph Clarke, was re-elected; it took the top three spots in the aldermanic race (East finished second); overall it took five seats on the 11-member city council.

Woodsworth) in Edmonton West, where he finished last of three candidates, behind Liberal Charles Stewart and Conservative James McCrie Douglas.

In the 1929 municipal election, rather than running for re-election as alderman, East challenged his former federal rival James Douglas for the mayoralty.

Three Labour Radicals in Early Edmonton (Rice Sheppard, Harry Ainlay and Margaret Crang).