The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Fub came to Flin Flon at the age of two years, with his mother Mary and sister Albina who was 11 years-old, from The Pas in 1932. Fub's dad John was a "European Chef" by trade and had worked his way over by ship as a cook. When you landed in Canada, if a person had $5 and money for a train ticket, they could go to Winnipeg. There were jobs working for the railroad there, so John got himself a job as the "bull cook" for the railroad gang. When war broke out the railway work shut down and everyone was sent to Kamsack. After the war, John and his wife Mary Skulmoski, who he married in 1920, went to work for the Hudson Bay Railroad till the work was finished and then they made their home in The Pas. They opened up a restaurant and also ran a boarding house and were doing very well till the crash of 1929. The sawmill that had 460 men working for it shut down and many of the men who were boarding at their boarding house were out of work, and subsequently the restaurant business suffered as well. John heard that there was work in Flin Flon and he, along with many others, headed North. John got a job working at Whitestar Lunch, which was on Bellevue, and the business boomed when the people from The Pas knew John was cooking there because of his great reputation in The Pas. See 'Work' P.# Con't from P.# John's wife and kids followed him to Flin Flon by train in 1932 landing at Channing and having to walk to their home site in Birchview which was a dance hall that John had bought, that had two bedrooms. Fub's mother Mary was quite distraught at first, having to leave a lovely home in The Pas that even had a telephone and power. Fub's father was not afraid of work. He started a catering business, catering to weddings and renting out the dance hall. Then he bought a cow and a large piece of land. The land went from Anderson Avenue, Whitney Street to Green and Bracken. A lot of it was just bush, but they cleared it for a large garden and the land also had its own well. (Today there is an actual house built on that site and they are still having water problems in the basement). He bought more cows and a few horses. He cut wood and sold it for $2 a load for spruce and jackpine and $3 a load for tamarack because it was a harder wood, burned longer and had less ashes. Slowly the family began to prosper. John built himself a wagon and was soon delivering milk around the proposed town site. (Once pasteurization came into affect John sold the dairy production to Taiplus who later sold it to Tikkannen and still later it became the property of Modern Dairies). There were many log cabins and homes built along the Whitney/Bracken area. This was the original town site and the railroad had cleared and put down lot of gravel to make a roundabout at the "Y" near Flin Flon Creek. A family named Hagan who had seven sons lived near the Krezeskis and Mr. Hagan taught the kids to ski. Other families were Fauteux and Chaboyer who spoke French. There was also a family named Johnson who lived in that area. Most people had dog teams that pulled toboggans. In the summer the dogs were allowed to run loose, and Fub laughs, "There were dogs all over the place!" The kids walked to school at Ross Lake going over the Finn Bridge (thought to be named after a family named Finnie who lived near the bay in the lake before the railroad came in. It is about where the Flinty submarine is now). See 'Town' P.# Con't from P.# Fub went to Ross Lake School till he was taken out when Birchview School was completed in 1939. It was only a two room schoolhouse at that time. He remembers his teacher as being a Miss Porter. Fub also recalls another teacher who taught grade one. Her name was Roberts but she only lasted till Christmas when it was found out that she strapped kids who were left handed trying to make them become right handed. Many of these kids could barely speak English and the parents wouldn't dream of contradicting the teacher. However Fub, who is left handed, told his father and things were soon rectified! Fub says even today when he sees some of those kids they mention how grateful they are to his dad, because they were terrified to go to school. Fub went to Ross Lake for grades four to six and had Mr. McLennan as a principal and his teachers were Mr. Klemm and Miss Anderson. Once the 'city fathers' of that time decided to begin surveying lots to build the town site in the Birchview area, many of the families that were living there moved away and others began to complain of not wanting to have to walk to work every day. So, unfortunately, the town site was changed to above the hill where many of the businesses had set up shop anyway. Fub stated that a lot of people used to trap in the winter along the old Flin Flon Creek. He said that there was a family named Thornquist, who also lived in that area and later moved to Big Island. They made canoes. Fub went to Hapnot School in 1943 for grades seven to twelve. He recalls some of the teachers as Miss Medd, Mr. Butterworth, Claude Joyce, Herb Albert and Miss Wilmot who later married Rod McIsaac. He recalls going to school with Terry O'Kane, Elwood Strom, Jim Sorenson, Norm Cluff, George Ramsey, Ken Brunning and Joe Pasiuk. Fub added, "We did our homework by the light of a coal oil lamp!" Fub said, "Graduation was grade eleven and anyone who wanted to go to grade twelve had to pay $50 because grade twelve was considered first year university at that time!" "My money I earned trapping came in handy to buy a suit coat for graduation and to pay for my grade twelve. A good pelt would bring me $3 but most were worth about 75 cents to $2. I had to skin the animal and then stretch the skin." Sydney I. Robinson from Winnipeg would buy the furs. The Vancoughnetts trapped at Big Island Lake, the Davenports trapped at Trout Lake and the Chaboyer family also did a lot of trapping. "Sometimes we'd go fishing at Big Cliff. We had a stone tied to a string and we'd throw it in the water. There was no such thing as a rod and reel!" Fub went on to say that, "As a kid my mom taught me how to use her treadle sewing machine and we recycled long before it became popular. I would take old straps and a bit of leather and make myself a knapsack for carrying my stuff." Fub went on to say that often people would pay their debts "in kind" because nobody had very much money. For example, he talked of a man who owed his father for wood. The man made his dad harnesses for his horses to pay his bill. A man named Jonesy lived by the Finn Bridge and he used to issue permits for wood cutting. See 'An' P.# Con't from P.# Fub said, "Many people came here after the war. It was hard to get building supplies to build homes, especially bathroom fixtures." Fub added, "The pit that was going to be the freight yards when the railway pulled out became a shooting gallery! There were bulls eyes placed in sand blocks and there were sand bags and trenches with yardages marked. The military and the police used it for target practice!" "As kids, we used to play hockey on the Flin Flon Creek or on the open air rink on Ross Lake. There was an old box car with a pot belly stove to keep warm. The problem was that by the time we cleared off the snow on the lake it was time to go home. It seemed like we were always clearing off the ice but not getting much time in playing hockey. Our equipment was hand made. Our shin pads were made of old felt socks. Sometimes if we were lucky we'd get a patch of leather from worn out shoes. Our hockey sticks were home made as well, usually out of willow. I played goal because I didn't have any skates. Catalogues were rare for us to get our hands on, because they were used for toilet paper. But they would make great pads if we could get one and split it!" Fub also remembers, "We would go berry picking every summer and get $2 a pail from Northern Groceries owned then by Jack Rosen who also had a sawmill. That gave us the money we needed to buy flour, sugar and other staples." Fub recalls the first car belonging to Dr. Johnson in the mid 30s and remembers Dr. Johnson getting stuck in the mud at the "Halfway" (near Ross Lake Cemetery) and walking to Birchview to get his dad to pull him out with his team of horses. There were no grocery stores in the Birchview town site in 1939. The only grocery stores at that time were up the hill at Ostry's, Northern Groceries or Sam Swick's ? later to become the Central Meat and Grocery. Lots of people came and went but most that stayed chose to live "Uptown" near the stores and work. When the bus service came in under Doxey, it only went as far as Ross Lake Island because there were no roads to mile 84, Birchview or Willowvale. "We took the foot bridge to school and then climbed up the stairs to Scarth Street and on to school. "In the beginning the sewer system only went as far as Sipple Hill and if you look in that small bay in Ross Lake you can still see the wooden posts that held the pipes where the sewage was dumped into the lake." Fub recalls that there were no water works at Ross Lake School when he finished there. They did have indoor toilets that the "honeyman" would empty. Water works was put into the rest of the town site as the rock was blasted to accommodate it, beginning in the late 40s, early 50s. As kids who grew up below the hill, Fub recalls swimming at locations that were called: the mud pond, Little Cliff, Flin Flon Creek and "bare bum creek"! They used to swim in Ross Lake along Lakeside on a beautiful beach. Families who originally lived along there were the Lindgrens, Dragolowskis, Grants (Bob spent five years in a prisoner of war camp in Japan), the Pasiekas and the Thornquists. Fub married Kay Booker who was born at 51 Bellevue in 1938. Kay went through the school system in Flin Flon as well, having Fub as her "patrol boy" through some of her years at school. They moved to Vancouver where Fub attended the University of Simon Fraser in 1966. They have lived in Vancouver ever since. They had one son and one grandson. They have come back to Flin Flon every year since and now have the Booker family home since Toots passed away last year. Fub explained the reason for their different sounding names quite simply. "There were so many Alberts, Josephs, Marys and Mikes in the family that everyone was getting confused so my mother had a book with names for children born on specific days. Thus my sister is Albina and I am Favion (Fub)! No more confusion!" Thanks so much for such an interesting interview. Wow, What a memory you have! It is great to find out more of what went on "below the hill" in those days!
