Manitoba – A Deck of Ancestors

52W Mark III – Week 29: Automobiles

I don’t know if my father acquired it before or after I was born, but for us the first family car was a 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Or, as my father called it, The Hutless Cutlass.

Me in front of the Hutless Cutlass a month before my fifth birthday, in Creighton, Saskatchewan. My father often took me fishing. When we lived in Creighton, we usually went fishing at the lakes and rivers right over the border in Manitoba. Here I’m holding a jackfish (northern pike), but what I really preferred to catch were pickerel (walleye).

My father bought it when we were living in Lethbridge, Alberta. The Hutless Cutlass travelled all over western Canada, both as we moved around the country and for many family road trips. With my youngest sister, it meant that there were six people packed into that car (dad sold it before my youngest brother was born). Invariably, whether we were in Creighton, Saskatchewan (on the border with Manitoba, next to Flin Flon) or Duncan, British Columbia, the road trip was to Lethbridge to visit family. Since my dad loves exploring, that car has probably driven over nearly every primary, secondary, and tertiary highway from the Pacific to Manitoba.

The Hutless Cutlass was old school – no power steering, no power brakes, no air conditioning. I remember it had a choke. From time to time, while checking under the hood, he’d have me open or close the choke, or rev the engine.

At the A&W Drive In in Terrace, British Columbia, with my sister and Mrs. Beasley.

One night, when I was about 13, my dad and I went to a hockey game in the small prairie town where we were living at the time. We got home pretty late. We didn’t pull into the driveway. Instead, we parked in front of the house, with the engine running. If memory serves, we were listening to the sports highlights on the radio. Somehow the conversation turned to me telling my dad what I knew about operating a car. I then bragged that I probably could even drive it. Dad doesn’t let it slide; rather, he says show me. So we switch seats and I drove very slowly and tentatively down our empty street at the edge of town.

Sometime when I was 13 or 14, my father traded the Hutless Cutlass in for an Oldsmobile Delta 88. It was a real land yacht, and the car in which I learned to drive and took my driving test. (I am always quick to point out I took my driving test during a blizzard – how Canadian!) When I was in grade eight or nine, sometime after my dad traded it in, I saw our old Hutless Cutlass parked downtown. Of course, I had to check it out. The interior had been completely redone in some sort of heavy metal decor. I particularly remember that the steering wheel had been replaced with a metal chain with the links welded together so that it formed a circle. That poor car.

52W Mark III – Week 20: Taking Care of Business

When I was a kid, we moved around a lot. People often asked my if my dad was in the military. No, he was a Woolworths manager.

My father entered the Woolworth manager training program right out of high school. Back in the day, the program involved a lot of moving around. Later, promotions almost always meant a transfer. He was with the company for 28 years, leaving the company about six months after Wal-Mart bought it out in Canada. That’s a story for another time.

My sister and me at the Woolworths in Regina

My dad began his career with Woolworth’s in Lethbridge, Alberta as a management trainee. He once told me that his very first assignment on his first day was to unload a shipment of bras, and the female staff stood there giving him a hard time. Next, my dad trained in the Regina, Saskatchewan and Medicine Hat, Alberta stores, where he was an assistant manager.

Dad’s first store as manager was in Flin Flon, Manitoba. After Flin Flon, dad was transferred to Terrace, B.C., and shortly afterward to Duncan, B.C., where he opened a new store there as the Associate Manager.

Grand Opening of the Woolworths in Duncan. My dad is second from the right.

At one point, the Canadian head office in Toronto transferred dad to Kirkland Lake, Ontario. However, when the international head office learned about the transfer, they cancelled it. They thought it was too much to move a man with young kids halfway across Canada.

My dad (left) at the Canadian head office in Toronto.

Dad transferred to North Battleford in 1974 and was General Manager when Woolworths opened a large new store there as the anchor tenant of the Frontier Mall in 1975.

Dad quit in the early 80s and went into business as a sales agent for a furniture company. The new career was not what dad anticipated, and he did not enjoy being separated from his family as the job entailed a great deal of travel. He returned to Woolworth’s a few months later. As he had been replaced at the North Battleford store, he was assigned to the Woolworths in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. He commuted from North Battleford to Swift Current, a distance of about 320 kilometres. Dad was there until he was transferred to Terrace, British Columbia six months later.

Four years later, the company transferred dad to William’s Lake, B.C. In 1989 Woolworth’s converted all of its larger Woolworth stores into Woolco stores, which included the Williams Lake location.

Until last Christmas, I had no idea my mom still had these.

In August 1991, dad was transferred to the Woolco in Chilliwack. In March 1994, Woolworth’s sold its Woolco stores to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart transferred Hans to Hinton, Alberta that same month. Dad left the company in August 1994. My parents and younger siblings then moved to Lethbridge, where we still had a fair amount of family. My dad briefly went into sales before he and my mother bought a small motel in southern Alberta. My dad has now been a motelier longer than he was a Woolworths manager. My youngest sibling and I have had much different fathers!

One of my brothers had this on his bedroom door for years.

52W Mark II – Week 47: This Ancestor Stayed Home

Stayed home??? This is not the 52 Ancestors theme for me! My ancestors never stayed anywhere for very long! Even before moving to North America, my ancestors moved around a lot.

I follow in that tradition, having lived all over western Canada. By the time I moved away from home for university, I had lived in Lethbridge AB (two places), Regina SK, Medicine Hat AB, Creighton SK (on the Manitoba border), Duncan BC, Chemainus BC, Terrace BC, North Battleford SK (two houses), Terrace BC (again – and two houses!). The longest we ever lived in one house was the second place we lived in North Battleford. I was always the new kid in the class.

Even after I moved away from home I didn’t stop moving. While I lived in two different residences during undergrad, I spent the summers in Terrace, Coquitlam, and Vancouver, respectively. After graduation, I lived in North Vancouver for a short time until I relocated to Victoria BC for a six-month legislative internship (where I stayed at two different addresses). I then relocated to Vancouver for a few months until embarking on a seven-week trip to Europe. On my return, I stayed at my folks, who by then had moved to Williams Lake BC (with several moves still yet to come for them). I moved back to North Vancouver, followed by longer residencies in Vancouver, Burnaby, and Richmond BC.

By my count, to date I have lived at 25 different addresses since I was born. The longest was 13 years, a record I set in the 90s. I would be very happy to beat that record. Our children, on the other hand, have only moved once in their lives, and have attended the same elementary school for every grade. I can’t even imagine what that’s like!

I feel like I lived a Johnny Cash song.

52W Mark II – Week 27: The Great Outdoors

Whenever I pointed out to my father how my younger siblings always got things that I was never allowed to have, he’d say, “at least I took you fishing!”

That answer sufficed for the seconds it took me to remember… “Dad, they hated fishing!”

Some of my earliest memories are going fishing with my father. We also did a fair amount of camping, but far less frequently. Fishing was our favourite outdoor activity. Growing up, we lived all over western Canada, so we’ve fished in all sorts of lakes and rivers, as well as the ocean. During trips to Alberta to see our grandparents, we’d often go fishing with my maternal grandfather as well.

I was four and a half. We were living in Creighton, Saskatchewan at the time. We must have been on a road trip to my parents’ friends, who lived in southern Manitoba.

While we have angled for all types of fish, my favourite catch was always pickerel, which is what walleyes are called in western Canada. We also caught a lot of jackfish, which is another name for northern pike.

A month later, closer to my fifth birthday. In our driveway in Creighton.

One of the greatest controversies in my family involved pickerel. When we lived in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, one of our favourite fishing destinations was where the Battle River meets the North Saskatchewan River. In late summer, water levels were so low that a large sandbar developed, forming a sort of island. Water levels often were low enough that you could wade to the “island”, which took you to a particularly good spot where the pickerel seemed to gather.

During one of those late-summer fishing expeditions, my brother caught two particularly large pickerel. However, he was about four years old at the time, and not strong enough to reel them in – one of the great things about pickerel is the fight they put up despite their size – so my father had to help them.

My brother and father with the controversial pickerel – along with one my brother was able to reel in himself.

Pickerel are not a large fish by nature, so the eight-pounders my brother caught were pretty impressive. So much so that my father decided to have them mounted. However, in the decades that followed, they both claim that they caught the fish and have tried to take sole credit. In recent years, they’ve reached a compromise, and both recognize each other’s role in the achievement.

One of the two infamous controversial pickerel.

I also much prefer freshwater fishing to saltwater. However, one of my most memorable fishing trips was when I was in high school. At the time, we were living in Terrace, British Columbia. My father had a friend in Prince Rupert who had a fishing boat, who invited my father, me, and one of my brothers (he of pickerel fame) out one weekend. (My youngest brother was an infant at the time, so he wasn’t invited.) I’m sure my sisters were welcome to join us, but they had no interest.

Quickly after we started, not far offshore, we dropped some crap traps, and then set out for open water. Our goal was halibut, and we were quite successful. One of the best parts of the trip was that, at various times, we were able to see the coast of Haida Gwaii and Alaska. The most amazing part was seeing porpoises swimming along side us during part of the voyage. I’m sure my brother’s most significant memory of the trip was being nauseous.

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