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.
Ivale was born to Fred and Evelyn Constable on September 9, 1934 in Winnipeg. Ivale came to Cranberry Portage at the age of nine months and as she smiles says, "I have been here ever since!" Ivale's dad, Fred, built their first home out of logs with moss used for chinking in 1929 at the site where their family lodge, "Constable's Lakeside Lodge" still stands today. Ivale laughs, as she remembers stories her parents told her about the logs not being peeled and how there were wood beetles in the logs and that often in the morning there would be sawdust piles all over the place! Ivale was very close to her dad and relates how she was barely three years-old when he had made her a pair of snowshoes and she would tramp along Lake Athapap with him. Her grandparents, Cap and Granny Brydges, lived in a small home right next door (it has been turned into a cabin that is still used today). Ivale's uncle Earl Brydges had a dog team with 21 Malamute-Siberian Huskies. She laughs at how she used to play with the dogs and how friendly they were. In the summer the dogs would continue their exercise by swimming behind a canoe to keep in shape. In the winter Fred would cut big blocks of ice and drag them with huge tongs up into an ice house, and the ice was covered with sawdust to preserve it for summer use. Of course, there were only ice boxes in those days. There was no electricity, no telephones, no television and no running water, and in some cases no indoor toilets. See 'Meet' P.# Con't from P.# Ivale stated, "We had a cook stove in the kitchen that had a water reservoir on the side so we always had warm water!" Once Ivale started school the family moved into Flin Flon in September 1939. The family lived at 49 Church Street and Ivale went to Main School, having a Miss Govenlock as her teacher and Neil McLellan as her principal. On Church Street the Bowes family (that included dear friend June Bowes) lived at 45 Church Street. Also another friend, Marilyn Burrows, was across the street on Main Street, Freda McIntosh lived on the corner of Hill Street and Maggie Karpan lived where the Co-op store is now. They all chummed together for many years. Ivale recalls going to both the Rex and Northland theatres and how, "Beatty Bowes, June's sister, was an usher at the Northland Theatre and as kids we had to sit in the first six rows. So when the lights went down, we'd sneak back to get a seat further back. Be darned if Beatty wouldn't come along and make us move back!" "As kids we'd all meet at Freedman's Fall Inn. Sometimes on a Saturday, we'd try to sneak into the Rex Theatre Saturday matinee and Saul Nathanson, the owner, would catch us every time!" Ivale attended Main School through to grade 7 and then went on to Hapnot where some of her teachers were Miss Wilmot, Miss Kelly, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Alpert, Mr. J. Allen, Mr. Nichols, Mrs. B. and P. Hayes. Some of the students that Ivale went to school with included Velda Porter, Pat McIntosh, Eileen and Eleanor Kepper, Shirley Douglas, Don Burrows, Bob Rodgers, Bill McGilivary, Gerry Heath and Glen Barker. During the summer Ivale's family would walk from Church Street down to Channing to Fred's boathouse and get his 20 foot freighter canoe and its 10 h.p. Johnson motor and head for Cranberry Portage. They would leave Channing at 8 p.m. and get to the lodge about 2 a.m. Ivale's friends June and Marilyn spent lots of weekends together swimming and berry picking either at Beaver Lake (where the Bowes' family cabin was) or at Constable's Lodge in Cranberry Portage. "When going to Cranberry Portage, if we didn't take the canoe, we'd take the train. Mr. Ravic was the conductor and he'd let me go into the caboose, climb the ladder and get a marvellous view on the way to Cranberry Portage!" Ivale played on the Kopper Kweens basketball team with Jim and Bud Rheaume as her coaches. This team was so good that in the '40s the Manitoba Basketball Association announced that the Flin Flon Kopper Kweens high school girls' team had been inducted into the Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame. Some of the team members included Emily Bogash, Norma Duncan, Betty Nisbet, Ivale Constable, Germaine Floch, Doreen Nomeland, Evolda Hampson, Velda Porter and Enid Simms. Ivale graduated in 1952. Also in 1952 her father, Fred, won the Flin Flon Trout Festival fishing derby by catching not one but two prize winning trout. For his efforts he won the car that was the prize that year, supplied by Uptown Motors, owned at that time by John McKay. Fred would have qualified to have won the car the previous year that had been supplied by Gail Motors (owned by the Lockhart family), but the rules hadn't been changed yet and they excluded lodge owners! Ivale laughs, "When Dad was presented with the keys, he had to take driver's lessons 'cause he couldn't drive a car!" That same year, Ivale took the car to The Pas along with a friend, had a blow-out on the gravel road, rolled the car and broke her wrist! The next day the headlines read, "Father wins car, daughter smashes it!" When the Flin Flon Trout Festival began its canoe derby, it was Bob Dadson and Fred Constable who organized the race and designed the canoe route. Ivale got a job at MTS and she learned how to do shorthand. Then in 1953 Ivale went to Angus School of Commerce in Winnipeg. She stayed at the YWCA along with other students from Flin Flon. "We would hand wash our clothes on a scrub board and then hang them on a clotheshorse to dry," she stated. After graduation from the School of Commerce in 1954 Ivale took a job in Winnipeg at the Government Department of Agriculture. However, once summer came along, Ivale became so homesick that she asked her dad if she could come home! See 'Group' P.# Con't from P.# Of course, he couldn't turn his beloved daughter down and she got a job at HBMS, working in the personnel office. She worked with Laurie Johnson, Eddie Carate, Jean Thompson, Lorna Rogan, Annette Lavergne, Toddy Murray, Irene Mearns, Evelyn Smith, Irene Lengyel, Mugsy Gillespie and Marilyn Martin was the messenger girl. In the employment office was Bob McLaughlin and his secretary Marilyn Burrows, who resigned when she got married to Dr. Ron Watson, and Ivale took over her job! Ivale said, "I became the secretary for Buddy Simpson who was involved with the Flin Flon Junior Bombers and was working when the Bomber hockey team won the Memorial Cup! What an exciting time that was! I remember so well the terrific parade down Main Street and practically everyone in town came out!" While working at HBMS, Ivale said, "As a group we would often go out for what we called a 'progressive supper'. We would start at one restaurant for appetizers, then go to another restaurant for soup/salads, then another restaurant for the entre and then another restaurant for dessert! We'd have a great time!" Also in 1957 Ivale married Don Gibbon who was working for the Royal Bank. The couple were married in the United Church by Rev. Garth Nelson. They moved to Winnipeg in August of 1957 where Ivale worked at the Winnipeg Supply and Fuel and Don at the Royal Bank. She laughed, "Yes, I was earning $200 per month and Don was making $180 per month!" In 1958 their daughter, Deborah Lee, was born in Winnipeg. Then one day while reading the Winnipeg paper they noticed an advertisement from Inco in Thompson for a Cost Controller for $750 per month. "Don applied and was accepted and we were gone," laughs Ivale! When the family first arrived in Thompson there was a population of 250 people! There was only one store, no television, no telephones. Their three sons were all born in Thompson: Randy in 1961, Shawn in 1962 and Bob in 1964. Ivale curled in the winters. In 1967 the family moved to Fort McMurray when Don changed jobs, working for GCOS, Great Canadian Oil Sands. When the family moved there, there were only 3,500 people living there and they had to live in a trailer until their home was completed, "along with our dog Mitzy," laughs Ivale. Ivale stated that there was only one little curling rink with four sheets of ice and none of the roads were paved. Fred Constable passed away in October of 1970. Ivale got a job with the RCMP and in 1970 there were only six members and one other steno besides Ivale and when the family left in 1984 there were 60 members and 12 stenos. "Sometime during the summer of 1976 Marilyn, June, Freda and myself started getting together and playing cards once all the families had gone back home. We continue to do this even today, we have a great friendship and enjoy each others' company very much!" smiles Ivale The family then moved to Sherwood Park, Alberta until 1995 when they moved to Lamont, a small community outside Fort Saskatchewan where the population was about 1,300 people. In 1990, the year of the wonderful Flin Flon School reunion, Ivale's mother also had to have cancer surgery. Evelyn Constable celebrated her 100th birthday in 2004 and still lives in her own home. Ivale and Don come back to run the lodge every summer with their sons coming back every spring and fall to open and close the lodge. The Gibbons' children all come back sometime during the summer and bring their families to enjoy the solitude of the beautiful area. They spend many hours swimming, fishing. golfing at the small course at Cranberry Portage as well as playing board games, etc., staying away from the televisions, and computers, etc. The family has no plans of ever selling the lodge. It will be passed on to the children, grandchildren, etc. Ivale and Don have six grandchildren: Don (aged 25), Shan (24), Aaron (14), Ashley, (13), Darren (14) and Jared (9). Thanks so much for such an intereesting and positive story, Ivale. It was a pleasure to meet you and I am certain everyone will find it a pleasure to read your story!
