Only One Time Around

When I was younger I was quick to anger and even quicker to judgment. But as time went on I found myself changing.

I saw people that I loved leave, reminding me of how fragile our little flame of life is. And how precious a gift it is. When my heart gave me trouble and a big scare, it was another reminder of how short a life can be and how quick it can draw to an end.

And time races by. Seemingly quicker as you grow older. I reached that stage in life when I was biding more goodbyes than hellos. More funerals than christenings.

Anger and resentment have given way to the understanding that every ones life is special and is to be respected. Much of what once was a big deal has little meaning now.

And I sit in my little boat on the river I so enjoy. I see the white birch swaying on the hillside, the muskrat with his nose poked out of the water heading towards his bank burrow. I think I see an eagle overhead soaring in the upper air currents. And it occurs to me. We only have this one opportunity to experience these things. We are just visitors.

Signs of the Past

The Riverside Tavern is the oldest business establishment still operating in Blind River. It dates back to the late 1800's.

The owners, respecting the great history of the place decided to leave some 'signs of the past' intact.

The 'Ladies and Escort' sign was a left over from the day when in Ontario unattended single women could not enter a bar. They had to be with a boyfriend or husband and sit only in the bar room from which single men without a lady were not allowed.

The official reason for the separation policy was to prevent the spread of venereal disease. (I can well imagine what the reaction would be if some hapeless politician suggested such a policy).

Of course today the signs hanging outside the Riverside are meaningless. But they do attract attention and quite often people will pose for a photo under them.

Four generations of Provenchers have worked and raised families in Blind River. My good friend Henri Provencher, who up until recently, operated a discount store in Blind River was born in this house.

He has an interesting story.

During the 1930 depression Henri's mother a devout, church going, catholic woman decided that she would open a tea room in the front of their home as a way of making extra income.

Apparently business was not that great, so the mother decided to advertise. She hung a red railroad lantern on the front porch to attract attention.

When her husband came up the street after closing his butcher shop for the day, he noticed a small group of ladies gathered on the sidewalk opposite his house. As he approached, his greeting was met with silence.

He looked up at the porch lantern and ran into the house. He quickly told his wife what a red light on the front of a house meant.

The poor embarassed woman slipped out on the porch and quickly took down the lantern.

This pair of Canada Geese were the first arrivals of the season. Photo taken on the north channel Lake Huron March 18, 2010

Creepy Algoma?


I tell myself that after more than 3 score years on this planet, there aren't many things that surprise me anymore. But it seems I'm always proved wrong.

This time it involved a trip to Sault Ste Marie to research a list of things, the main one being the story of the old Bayview Hotel in Bruce Mines. A grand old hotel in it's day and a place that was . The story has been circulating since as early as the late 1800's.

Apparently when the place was operating guests would complain of hearing the cries of a baby coming from the attic.

My plan was to search through the microfilm copies of old Sault Star and the Bruce Mines newspapers, now kept in the main branch of the Sault Ste Marie Library, for any item mention of the hotel and its haunting. There wasn't much. And I was a bit deflated realizing that I might be going back home to Blind River knowing no more than when I left.

But then another group of clippings caught my attention. It included a 1903 story about a man who was killed in a gas explosion in one of the rooms at the Windsor Hotel on the 600 block of Queen Street in the Soo. The man was not identified by name, only that he was a salesman and that it was presumed that he had lit one of the cigars he was well known for smoking, in a room that had filled with gas. I remembered the Windsor Hotel because during the 1980's my wife and I stayed there a few times when we visited the Soo.

In recent years it was converted to a retirement residence. More recently the retirement home operation ceased and the building was donated to Algoma University as student apartments.

Another clipping really tweaked my interest. It seems that in the mid 1920's several people came forward claiming that the hotel was haunted. They said that the fourth floor hallway would often smell of cigar smoke even though no one was observed smoking. They also reported seeing a hazy figure of a young woman walking along the second floor hallway.

It appears that in the fall of 1911 a young woman who worked as a cleaning lady was found strangled in that hallway. A search of the files failed to reveal that incident but that does not mean it did not happen since the microfilm has months of missing newspapers, including from 1911.

As I sat pondering the information my mind went back to a remark that my wife made one one trip back home. I asked her if she was comfortable at the hotel. She said she was and that she liked the place but added, “they should really do something about the carpets in the hall or maybe check the air conditioning system ... I keep smelling smoke .. like cigars or something.”

That remark hadn't meant much to me up until that afternoon in the Sault Ste Marie Main Library.

On the way out of town, I stopped in front of the old hotel and looked up at the fourth floor. And wondered.

Neil, Mort & Bert

Bert has spent the better part of his life in Blind River. He retired after years of owning his own mechanical and body shop. He raised a family and built a reputation as a fair and decent businessman.

In the summer of 1962, Bert was a young man just learning his trade and working in the same garage that one day he would own. He recalls that business was not all that great sometimes and there were days that there was not enough work and Bert would be sent home.
On one particular day however it got pretty busy (and as it turned out quite strange) when his boss pulled his truck up to the front doors with a black hearse in tow. Inside the 1947 Buick Roadmaster sat three young men, long and shaggy haired and looking tired and disappointed. Their trip from Thunder Bay to Toronto was interrupted just outside of town, when the drive train on the car snapped.

Bert recognized the men as musicians by the equipment heaped in the back of the hearse. Of course, he had no way of knowing that a few years down the line, one of the men would become a household name - a major star. The young musicians were Neil Young, Ken Koblun and Jeff Wuckert. At the time they made up the band known as the Squires.




One of the men wore an old style German army helmet and all of them wore the uniform of the 60’s – the psychedelic shirts, beads and headbands. Certainly standing out in a small northern Ontario town.

It was determined that the part needed to repair the vehicle would have to be specially machined and since it would take a few days, the young men had no choice but to plan on staying around. The problem was that they were pretty well broke and the local restaurant refused to serve them because of their appearance. Bert said that the garage owner allowed the trio to sleep in the garage and his wife made sandwiches for them.

In the evening Bert would drop by with his guitar and the four of them would jam. When the car was ready, the owner refused to give the boys the keys until the bill was paid and Young had to get on the phone and call his father Scott Young, a sports reporter with the Toronto Star, and arrange for money to be sent.

Shortly afterwards, the group was on their way. To this day a ton of myths surround the episode.

There are those who say that the hearse never left town and was in fact stored behind someone’s house. Bert says that this is untrue. The vehicle had been repaired and was full of instruments (Young liked the hearse because he claimed that the instruments were easy to load and unload). Bert saw the car- which Young dubbed ‘Mortimer Hearseburg’ - leave town.

I too fell victim to the rumor that the hearse never left town. I was walking past the parking lot of a local transportation company when I noticed an old rusting hearse parked in the back. Curiosity got the better of me so I walked into the yard and started checking the old wreck out. It was a Cadillac. But just for the briefest moment I thought that I might be onto something.

Of course the whole episode was immortalized in Young’s big song, “Long May You Run” which was released in September 1976 on a Stills-Young album. More recently he sang the song during the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Because he mentions Blind River and speaks of the hearse in such emotional terms, at least one unofficial biography makes the absurd claim that Young was born in Blind River and that he was really singing about an old girlfriend. All untrue, of course. Young was born in a suburb of Toronto.

The story still circulates around the internet and Bert says that once in a while he’ll get a call or a visit from someone who wants to get a first hand account.

Well, it was
back in Blind River in
1962
When I last saw you
alive
But we missed that
shift
on the long decline
Long may you run. Long may you run
Long may you run
Although these
changes
have come
With your chrome
heart shining
in the sun
Long may you run.

One Of The Last Surviving Tug Boats

The day will come when the Blind River Lumber Mill, it’s distinctive burner and the surrounding buildings will be gone. Unfortunately that day may not be too far off.

Recently, when a 27 foot logging tug boat was found inside a shed that was scheduled to be demolished, one of the salvage workers took it upon himself to try to save the old girl.

The boat had a special significance for him since his father worked in the mill and his grandfather worked on the tugs. Perhaps even on the very tug that they found.

His plan is to get the boat back into shape and to perhaps use it to take people on short tours of the harbour area. It will not be a small project. Time has coated the 3 ton tug with a layer of rust. Vandals have sprayed graffiti on her.

According to my research, the tug was named Eddy VIII (C.176598) and was built in 1946 by Russel Steelcraft of Owen Sound. It was powered by a 2 cylinder – 20 horse power Russel-Hipwell gasoline engine. It 's job was to push and pull rafts of logs around the mill pond. It's powerful winch not only made it possible to pull large booms, it also enabled the tug to pull itself onto dryland or across portages.

Restoring the Eddy VIII will not be a small task. It will be time consuming and costly. But in the end there will be one more piece of the area’s past which may not have to be sacrificed to ‘progress’.

The Blind River Bethune Connection

St. Andrews: Bethune Connection

St. Andrews United Church stands on the corner of Center Street and Michigan Ave and over it's better than 100 years of existence has witnessed a lot of history.

What is not commonly known is that Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian physician who invented the mobile blood transfusion system, a variety of surgical instruments and a man who attained near sainthood status in China, lived in Blind River as a child. His father was the Rev. Malcolm Nicolson Bethune a Prebyterian minister. In 1907 he served as minister at St. Andrews. Norman would have attended the local school.

In 1925 St. Andrews church changed when 70 percent of members of the Presbyterian Church of Canada joined the United Church of Canada.

This past weekend the banks of the river were clear of snow and the river itself, although there is still 16 inches or so of ice, had a 2 to 3 inch cover of water. Ice fishing is finished for the season. Last year the ice stayed until the end of April. Not so this year.

A NOTE

In his book, 'The Force of Character' author James Hillman suggests that there is a stage some of us reach in our lives when we become more backward looking than forward looking. Have more in common with our parents than our grandchildren. Or worse, become more like our parents.

I think that I understand what he is saying. For me, I find that I now spend more time pouring through my family photo album, I certainly watch more of the history channel, I am drawn to stories of a historic nature, and hum Bobby Vinton's song 'Blue Velvet' more often than 'Speechless'. Who the hell is Lady Gaga anyways?

What Really Counts

It amazes how some people have managed to turn 'a day late and a dollar short', into an art form.

It seems that no matter what they set out to do – they come back with a complaint that they were too early or too late or that someone or something had beat them to the punch. Or perhaps if they had other equipment things would have been better.

My own experience is that when things look like there stacked against you, stop, take a look around and you'll probably see something unexpected waiting for you.

The other day I went to one of my favorite pike fishing spots and found; A) the early melt had set in and the river was flooded with a layer of water. B) the Coast Guard had posted red marker cones across the river as a caution against any further travel, and C) the fish were definitely not interested in any bait, spoon or jig that I dropped down the hole.

It could have bleak but I looked around and I saw, perched on a fallen tree near the shore, a beautiful Bald Eagle. I took the binoculars from my tackle bag and spent the better part of an hour watching the big bird hunt along the shoreline.

Net gain? The rare opportunity to watch one of the most spectacular birds in Canadian forests. Net loss? Non.

After two days of planning, the morning arrived that I packed my gear, made a thermos of coffee and and couple of sandwiches, and headed out to a small lake a couple of miles from my home. On the trail in I met up with an acquaintance who told me that the trout were not biting at all and that as far as he was concerned the lake was fished out to boot. He pointed out that I would be crazy to waste the energy hiking in.

I went in - and sure enough no trout. But I did notice that my friend had tossed a bullhead onto the ice. Probably disgusted because that was the only thing that he pulled out of the lake. Anyways, I changed my tackle for something lighter and spent the better part of the afternoon filling a bucket with mud pouts.

Net gain? Breaded and deep fried, I treated myself and my friends to a great meal. Did I regret hiking into that lake? No. It turned out to be one of the best days I've spent in the outdoors. Net loss? None

Big Fish

When I first saw this photo it nearly blew me away. This is my granddaughter Emily with a 5 pound bass that she caught near Espanola, Ontario.