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.
Jonathon Naylor Editor When Fub Krezeski recently cracked open a cookbook, he had no idea he was about to add a new chapter to the story of a famous Flin Flon photo. It all started when Krezeski, a former Flin Flonner who lives in Vancouver, borrowed a copy of Flin Flon's 75th Birthday Cookbook, published by The Reminder in 2008. Mixed in with recipes for perogies, and peanut brittle are historical photos of Flin Flon and area. There's Phantom Lake in its heyday, early construction at Hudbay and Flinty on his original perch. But it was the famed photo of a partially capsized trailer, from which kegs of beer fell into the muddy sinkhole that was Main Street, that caught Krezeski's eye. Standing on the trailer, overlooking a man knee deep in the muck, was a grainy yet familiar figure. 'I said, 'That's gotta be my dad,'' says Krezeski, still sharp at 83, in a phone interview. Sure enough, when Krezeski dug up an old family album he found a photo of his father wearing the same cap and overalls as the man in the cookbook. See 'Cloth...' on pg. 7 Continued from pg. 1 Not only were the clothes a perfect match, the man in the cookbook stood with one shoulder tilted and his head straight up _ just like the late John Krezeski used to. Born in Poland in 1895, John immigrated to Canada around 1913, drawn by the promise of available land and a new life. Originally he could speak French but not English, so he was happy to land in Montreal, where he worked as a cook. Life being the journey it was in those days, John eventually found himself in The Pas. When the Great Depression struck, he moved north to Flin Flon in 1929. He continued his career as a cook, this time on Main Street, so it makes sense that he would have been at the scene of the famous beer keg capsizing, which likely occurred between 1930 and 1935. It's even possible that the beer was destined for the restaurant at which John worked. Who knows? Fub, whose given name is Fabian, borrowed the cookbook at a small, recent gathering of former Flin Flonners in Vancouver. Rita Evans lent him the book, but at least a couple of weeks passed before he decided to thumb through it for a recipe. That's when Fub noticed that the coil-bound book included photographs. On the page introducing beverage recipes was the beer keg photo. Like many early photos of Flin Flon, it had never been made clear who the depicted individuals were. People rarely made a point of jotting down names in those days. Fub believes his dad would have approached the trailer to help retrieve the beer kegs. John is pictured at the trailer with at least two other men, while another group of men look on from the wooden sidewalk of Main Street. Fub contacted The Reminder to share his story. We in turn will be e-mailing him a copy of the decades-old photo, which has appeared in various publications and slide shows over the years. As for John, he passed away in 1967 and made Flin Flon his final resting place. So that's one photographic mystery down, with many more to go.
