Cranberry Portage Evacuated

Cranberry Portage has been evacuated as a wildfire closes in on the tiny community. My paternal grandmother and her partner Val lived in Cranberry Portage for as long as I knew them; it lies just a few kilometers south of Flin Flon, my birthplace. 

Cranberry Portage is barely a blip on the highway, home to just a handful of businesses and some dozens of homes; it's a peaceful, quiet, lovely corner of northern Manitoba. I hope it survives this latest crisis. 

Grandma and Val's house in 2006, demolished after their deaths a few years back. Warm memories. 

Faculty of ENG

Electronic News Gathering, that is. Well, not really; I'm simply lugging around the VHS camcorder that Grandma and Val gave the family back in the late 80s or early 90s. Here I am in 1990 or 1991, caught in the act of preparing to videotape some Lister Hall shenanigans at the University of Alberta. Behind me stands Iain Getty, who I reconnected with decades later during the brief period we were both working at ATCO Electric at the same time. 

The Fading Stones

Old photographs fascinate me. Here we have what appears to be a stone fence connected to a round stone building. Who shot this? Where did they shoot it, and when? What's the significance of the building?

Based on the other negatives on the strip, I can  limit the "who" to my parents or Dad's parents. "When" could be anytime between the 1950s to the 1960s. Beyond that...a mystery captured in silver nitrate. Or, since this is a scan, in photons, inconstant as memory.

UPDATE: Mom says this could be Upper Fort Garry, north of Winnipeg, sometime in the late 1960s. 

Hope and William

Yesterday I scanned some very old black and white negatives for Mom, and among them was this photo of my paternal grandparents, Hope and William Woods. They both look quite young here, perhaps the youngest I've seen them; I have no idea where or when this photo might have been taken. 

Grandma's Birthday, 1986

I found this in an envelope of some of the photos Mom and Dad salvaged from Grandma's home after she and Val died - tragically, many were missing. Nice to have this one, even with Mom and Sean closing their eyes. 

Money Spent in 1941

While helping Dad with some stuff a couple of weekends ago, we came across this old record of the money his parents spent in 1941, a year before Dad was born. It looks like most of the spending supported their farm; they bought $55 worth of lumber, a $25 plough, a team of horses for $117, $23 for wages (a farm hand, perhaps?), two harnesses for $30, $15 in oats, $5 worth of nails, a $25 cow, and a $20 trip to Prince Albert, among other fascinating items. 

The House that Jack Built

During the 1970s, we drove to Cranberry Portage many times to visit my paternal grandmother. Grandma had an old Singer sewing machine with a drawer filled with fun toys and knick-knacks for my brother and me to amuse ourselves with. Naught survives but this Wade Whimsies ceramic model of the house that Jack built, of nursery rhyme fame. Grandma had this Wade Whimsy, and others, because they came packaged with Red Rose tea. How I managed to come into the possession of this lone survivor, I don't recall. 

I was surprised to learn just now that Red Rose still distributes Wade Whimsies with its tea. 

Hope and Bill

Here are my paternal grandparents, Hope and Bill Woods, near the house they rented in Dauphin, Manitoba, sometime in the late 1950s. I don't have a lot of photos of Dad's side of the family, so each image like this one is precious, particularly since Bill Woods passed away before my brother or I were born. 

Grandma, Granddad and Dad

Here's a partially restored photo of Dad and Grandma and Grandad. It looks like this was a professional portrait shot in a studio of some kind. I'm terrible at guessing the age of toddlers, but I think Dad can't be more than one or two years old in this photo, which would mean it was taken in 1943 or 1944.

I scanned this using Google's PhotoScan app, since my proper scanner is broken. Once I have a new scanner, I'll be able to capture a cleaner image. Still, this isn't bad for a handheld scan! 

No Unsharp Mask Can Save Thee

While scanning the family collection of negatives, I came across an entire roll of film shot out of focus. I have no idea how this could happen. And it's a shame, because the photos capture an early 1980s trip back to Cranberry Portage. I tried re-scanning the roll to see if it was some weird scanner configuration problem, but no dice. And the blur is so bad that tools like unsharp mask can't fix it.

Quelle dommage, as they say in France! 

A Dog in the Shadows

By now everyone knows that I'm not a dog person, but I find this image strangely evocative. This would be the dog of my paternal grandparents, shot sometime in the early 1960s. 

Grandma and Granddad Woods

I don't have many photos of Dad's side of the family, so I was pretty happy to see these shots of his parents on what might be their farm near Dauphin, Manitoba. Judging by the vehicles, perhaps this is the late 1950s..?

Edited to add:

Dad confirmed that this is the old Woods farm four or five miles north of Dauphin. He thinks this was taken around 1961 or 1962. Dad's first car, a Fiat 600, is in the background; it had "suicide doors," that is, they opened at the front. It was red with a tan interior, 4-speed standard transmission. 

Mr. Peanuts

My paternal grandmother left behind these intriguing Mr. Peanut salt and pepper shakers, presumably a collectible giveaway from some decade long past. One Mr. Peanut is missing a hat, making him useless as a spice dispenser, but he still cuts a dashing figure. 

Val Head

Val Head has died, and I'll be going to Cranberry Portage to pay my respects on Monday. Val took care of Grandma for many decades - longer than I've been alive. Val took us boating and fishing on the gorgeous lakes of northern Manitoba, taught me how to perform a moose call and in many ways acted as a surrogate grandfather, since unfortunately Dad's father died before my brother and I could meet him. Val always impressed me with his toughness, and frankly I'm shocked and saddened that he passed only a few months after Grandma. But I'm grateful that they shared many happy years together, and I'm sorry he's gone. 

The First Place I Lived

Grandma's funeral service and internment happened today in Cranberry Portage. It was a lovely ceremony held in the school gymnasium where Hope (and Val) worked as cafeteria servers and custodians for a quarter-century, touching who knows how many young lives with kindness. To my eyes it looked like about fifty members of the community turned up in addition to the family members who made the trip - and fifty people is a considerable proportion of Cranberry Portage's population. 

It was a hard day, but a warm and well-executed event, which made the process easier to bear. 

After we returned to Flin Flon, Mom and Dad took Sean and I on a short drive to see the house where I spent my first couple of years. Unfortunately it sparks no memories for me, though Flin Flon itself remains a strange marvel of the north, with its rolling hills carved into giant rock formations, as well as the iconic smokestack that continues to belch. 

The Last Time We Saw Grandma

Grandma Woods passed away yesterday. Pictured above are Sean and I with Grandma and her partner of over 40 years, Val Head, in 2009, the last time Sean and I were in Cranberry Portage, Manitoba.

My thoughts are with my family. I'll have more to say after the funeral service. 

Grandma's Satellite Dish

Mom or Dad shot this sometime in the late 1980s on a trip to visit Grandma in Cranberry Portage, Manitoba. I wasn't on that trip, but I'm sure I would have been impressed by Grandma and Val's new satellite television antenna, which loomed large in their back yard for several years. Cranberry Portage is just a few minutes' drive from Flin Flon, so it's not as isolated as some northern communities, but the presence of this dish is a sign of the technology needed to tie tiny frontier settlements to the outside world. I remember being very impressed with their collection of movies on VHS, too. Up north, entertainment options were limited to fishing and whatever movies you could import from down south.

Cranberry Christmas

Cranberries and Christmas go together like...well, turkey and cranberry sauce, I guess. Christmas also goes well with Cranberry Portage, Manitoba, where we often visited Grandma and Val for the holidays. I remember 80s winters as being a lot colder and snowier than we experience today, but then everything is colder and snowier in northern Manitoba. I'm not sure who took this shot of Grandma's place, but it feels festive despite the oppressive snow and darkness. This might have been four in the afternoon...

Signposts of an Earlier Era

Back when we lived in northern Manitoba, our crew cab, camper and motorboat allowed us to take full advantage of the few recreational opportunities available on the edge of nowhere: fishing and camping. I'm fascinated by the little details in this photo that hint at the era: the stubby beer bottles, the huge Ford truck, the brown and beige colours of the truck and camper, my "XXI Olympic" shirt, the package of Rothman's cigarettes. I wish the photo were sharp enough to reveal what I'm holding up in front of my face. And if I'm not mistaken there's a toy machine gun on the picnic table in the background.

Manitoba Fish Stories

It's funny how the mind stores some memories firmly and allows others to slip away. I certainly remember the Purolator hats Dad and I are wearing, along with the orange cooler and Dad's rubber boots. I've forgotten the life jackets, though; the ones I remember were yellow, filled with segmented rectangles of foam.

Judging by the other photos included in this set, this shot was probably taken near Leaf Rapids by either my grandmother, her friend Val Head or our cousin Hugh Woods. Perhaps the Super 8 mm film that must have been shot on this trip (note the camera sitting atop the life jacket near Dad's feet) will offer more clues.

We often boated on the many lakes and rivers in the area. I wasn't a big fan of fishing, but I did love it when we went fast on choppy waters, bouncing on the waves. Once I made the mistake of reaching out to grab a cattail as we passed, and one of the plant's leaves gashed a deep cut in my palm. The pain was sudden, sharp and shocking. I never tried that again.

Once - perhaps on this very trip - I pointed to the anus of a fish we'd caught and asked what it was.

"That's it's asshole," Hugh said. "If you touch it, you'll die." I believed him, and my already strong aversion to touching live fish doubled. Oh, how I loved the meat, though - nothing in the world tastes better than the pickerel of northern Manitoba grilled over a fire.