Some years ago I asked my father why he had a sign on the wall in his museum that read,

“For those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat them”.

 

With a twinkle in his eye and a deep sigh he said, “I will tell you a story...”

In the spring of 1929 I was a teenager of 17, and my older brother Hannes was 19. We had been commercial fishing all three seasons for five years. My father, Siggi, owned a sailboat that he used to catch whitefish at the north end of Lake Winnipeg. The price for all commodities after World War One was good. By that I mean that a high price was being paid for not only fish but wheat, timber and other commodities. The sailboat required a crew of three, and we left Gimli harbour mid-May and proceeded approximately one hundred miles up the east side of Lake Winnipeg to a fishing station on Leaf River. Once there, we set heavy, roped nets for lake sturgeon. The fishing Gods smiled on our little crew and we were soon hauling in big numbers of these prehistoric beasts. Many weighed over a hundred pounds, and many an unsuspecting fisherman received cuts and bruises to his legs and feet from the sturgeon’s powerful tail.

The sturgeon fish is a delicacy when smoked. A bigger delicacy is the roe, and the high society of the Roaring Twenties had discovered a fondness for caviar. To keep the fish fresh for market we ran a heavy rope through the gills and tied them to our make shift wooden dock. Thus, when the freight boat came for the weekly pick up to market in Winnipeg and beyond, we had a quality product to sell.

The season for sturgeon only lasted two weeks. So with no time to rest on our laurels, we headed to Warren’s Landing at the mouth of the mighty Nelson River. We started fishing whitefish on June 1st in Mossy Bay. We got good catches at the Spider Islands, Montreal Point, and near the buoy markers near Limestone Bay. When we arrived back in Gimli in mid-August, we had worked every day, but to our credit we had done well.

As my brother and I were still living at home, the resources were pooled. My father Siggi had a lifelong love affair with the American automobile. He convinced my brother Hannes and me, to buy a new car. It was a beauty: a 1929 Ford Roadster. The cost was a staggering $875.00. (This was at a time when a $1.50 a day was the going wage.) But this was the Roaring Twenties - everyone had cars, fancy clothes and money. Canada had come of age at Vimy Ridge and we were not going to be denied anything. We thought it would go on forever. So we gave the dealer the down payment and took possession of our wondrous toy.

Well, as the world knows, in the fall of 1929 everything changed. The stock market crash saw to that. Companies and people were going bankrupt on a daily basis, and money which had been so free was now scarce. People refused to believe that things won't get better tomorrow and carried on as usual. The results were disastrous - the ‘dirty thirties’ were testimony to that.”

My father then philosophically looked skyward and said, “Look around you. Look at the excess the world has gotten used to. What many would consider luxuries are now in their minds necessities.”

What happened to the car? Well they struggled to make the payments but they eventually lost it. The price for everything had dropped dramatically, including the delicious sturgeon. They realized too late that when you get yourself in a hole you need to ‘quit digging’.

The excesses of the Roaring Twenties have been repeated many times despite the history lesson.

 

Ken Kristjanson

February 2008