Fast forward to August of 1939.

At the end of each August, my parents and other family members would pack up the fall and winter clothing and, along with hired personnel and independent fishermen, would make their way to the Gimli harbour. There they would board a freighter loaded with their fishing gear, supplies and hopes for the 8 hour trip past Hecla Island and around big Grindstone Point to our corner of the world.

Albert’s Point would be their home from late August to late March. All of the men had enjoyed a short break after the whitefish season in the northern part of Lake Winnipeg ended August first. Now they were prepared for the task at hand. As this was the Great Depression no money was coming in. If fishing had been poor in the summer then they had that added burden. They were desperate to provide for their families and were anxious to start fishing again. My mother and her sister were the cooks and the only women in the crew. Of course when brother Robert and I came along and before we started school we naturally became part of the parade. It should be noted that my mother and her sister were fortunate to hire a fantastic young lady by the name of Victoria Malinoski to help cook.

Fast forward to August of 1939. My parents had turned the rain barrel upside down, shut the lights off, put the key under the mat and waved goodbye to the neighbours. As we made our way to the Harbour, I noticed my mother was carrying a strange box. It was a Kodak box camera which had been given to her as gift by her sister. The film for the camera took 8 pictures and cost $1.00.  Remember in the Depression, you were lucky to make $1.00 a day. My careful father was admonishing our mother to not take frivolous pictures. Up until this time only anniversaries and special occasions warranted taking pictures. Certainly not pictures of fishermen doing what they do every day. That would be a waste. (Although, Life magazine later used this idea and became wildly successful taking pictures of everyday life.)

We settled in to our new home easily. Lots of people around. Lots of things to build or do before the start of the season September 1. Father and his brother had had a good whitefish season and purchased a small crawler tractor. This was used to haul logs out of the bush to build the dock. The season came with its usual amount of successes and disappointments. Once the season finished, the gear was put away. Some of the independent fall fishermen went home but the crew that was to fish the winter season stayed.

While they waited for the lake to make ice, the men went in the bush. We needed a fuel supply to keep us warm in the winter months and the forest graciously provided. My father and his brother had staked out some beautiful prime spruce trees. They had taken out a $2.00 permit from the Crown to log these trees. They were going to build their own houses in Gimli. To do this they would log the trees and with the aid of the crawler tractor, snake them to the water’s edge. There they would be rafted - floated the 8 miles in the spring across the bay to Mill Point. Thorarinson's would cut the logs into lumber, season them and deliver them to a vacant lot in Gimli.

Mother seized the moment to use her box camera to record for all time the lumber being cut for her new house. How exciting! The box camera also catches my father's displeasure at having a picture of such a mundane happening. My uncles Hannes and Eddie are seen laughing at his stubbornness. Of course, us kids are there to complete the picture of the logs that eventually built the houses at 127 Fifth Avenue and 97 Third Avenue in Gimli.

The fishing industry requires ice to keep the product fresh until it can get to market. The early fishers built ice houses for this purpose. Now it is one thing to fill an ice house in Gimli with readily available men and equipment. How about 100 miles from now where? There were crews who did this work filling ice houses the entire 300 mile length of Lake Winnipeg. Of course this cost precious capital. Instead, the idea was to have your own equipment. By chance our family heard that Arctic Ice was selling some of their ice ploughs. As we already had horses that we used for winter fishing, it was a great opportunity. Stocking an ice house with ice is straight bull work but with plough cutting the ice and the horses doing the work, it goes smoothly. Of course, mother wanted to get a picture of this new happening. This time the two willing actors were uncle Eddie Jonasson and Bill Taraschuk. The box camera record the moment for posterity.

The ice cutting equipment shown is over 100 years old and extremely well made. A relic of a forgotten craft and time. They probably would have wound up at the scrapyard to be made into lawn mower blades. But thanks to Tammy Axelsson and her group at the New Iceland heritage museum, they have been rescued. She expects to have them on display and they will be preserved for future generations to see and enjoy this part of the passing parade

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March 2016