When the Flin Flon Elks Lodge was established, it aimed to serve the underclass of a fledgling community whose prosperity flowed unevenly.
Eighty-five years, the underclass remains but the Elks are on their way out.
The charitable organization will fold in June, the latest victim of this area’s aging, unreplenished volunteer base.
“Sure I would have liked to have seen it keep going, but the way things are there’s no way we can do it,” says Wanda Abrahamson, one of the last remaining members.
With perhaps eight active members – an exact count was unavailable – the Elks have been wrestling with questions over their future for years.
On the wall
The writing went on the wall last September when the lodge, struggling to keep up with expenses, put its headquarters, the Elks Hall, on the market.
There had been some hope the lodge could simply sell the building and find rental space elsewhere for its meetings.
But with the building unsold, membership static and no one to fill the top position of exalted ruler, the Elks will hold their farewell meeting either June 3 or June 17.
“Nobody’s really wanting to carry on,” says secretary-treasurer Linda Martindale.
“We talked about [folding] last year and said, ‘We’ll try and eke it out for one more year’ and we were kind of sure that we were going to close this year. We thought it would be more toward the fall, but the way things were happening we closed earlier.”
Abrahamson says the decision is sad in a way.
“But I can see the point [of the decision] and that there’s nothing we can really do about it,” she adds.
The Elks’ long history has its roots in July 1930, the month the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks Lodge No. 232 accepted its charter in Flin Flon.
Over the next 85 years, the lodge would quietly inject hundreds of thousands of dollars into the community through service and charitable donations.
The Elks’ signature initiative is their Christmas Cheer campaign, which dispenses holiday food and gifts to area families in need.
The Elks have backed numerous other worthy efforts over the decades. When house fires and diseases struck families, the lodge was there with generous financial assistance.
The lodge also contributed to Camp Whitney and aided children’s groups such as Girl Guides and Scouts. They co-sponsored a minor hockey team and awarded bursaries to deserving high school graduates.
At the national level, the lodge pumped thousands upon thousands of dollars into the Elks and Royal Purple Fund for Children, which offers monetary assistance to kids and teens facing any number of life challenges.
And that’s just a sampling.
Welcome mat
What appealed to many Elks was the lodge’s expansive welcome mat. Lower-class, middle-class or upper-class, anyone and everyone was encouraged to join.
The Elks may be a club for the everyman (and woman), but it still managed to attract its share of notable citizens.
The lodge’s first exalted ruler was none other than Sir Maurice Roche, mines superintendent and assistant general manager at HBM&S, now Hudbay, from the 1920s until 1960.
Roche was also a dedicated Catholic for whom Flin Flon’s long-defunct Catholic high school was named.
Roche’s role as the man in charge of new hires at HBM&S evidently boosted the Elks’ numbers.
“If you wanted a job, you joined the Elks,” the late Randy Hersikorn, a devoted Elk, told The Reminder in 2010.
Flin Flon Elk Jim Atkinson went on to serve as district deputy grand exalted ruler as well as Manitoba Elks Association president.
Other local Elks have included former Flin Flon mayor Howard Abrahamson and former fire chief Reuben Hagan.
At one point Flin Flon was believed to have had the largest Elks lodge in all of Canada with well over 200 members, if not more.
But time was not kind to the lodge. In 2004 came what may have been the first serious discussions around folding due to low membership.
Members persevered, however, and in 2010 received a mixed blessing when their sister lodge, the Order of the Royal Purple, folded and several of its members transferred to the Elks.
Word of the Elks’ pending closure disappoints Mayor Cal Huntley.
“It’s such a shame to see some of our long-time fraternal organizations struggling and in this case closing their doors,” says Huntley. “The Elks have been significant contributors to our community and have played a major role in our communities’ character. Unfortunately it is a sign of the times and they will be sadly missed.”
The Elks are now planning a sale at the Elks Hall for June 20, hoping to sell the contents of the building.
The lodge hopes to transfer the building to another not-for-profit group, but details have not been finalized.
What is clear is that Flin Flon is about to change forever – and no one will feel the impact more than our underclass.
