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.
Residents of Snow Lake have heard references to a precursor to the current town site, which was called Tent Town/Cabin Town. However, most are likely unaware that remnants of this early settlement are still functioning parts of present day Snow Lake. Three old garages straddle the back lane that winds behind the Anglican-United and Catholic churches. All three were once homes in Cabin Town. Actually, the brown one on the north end of the alley was the first home of the former general manager of the original Britannia Mine, George Lipsey (mind you, he soon moved to much finer digs situated further on up Lakeshore Drive). Longtime resident George Wood currently owns that little brown garage and he notes that when these buildings were homes in that original subdivision, they didn't look much different from what they do now. "They were two rooms back then, a kitchen and a bedroom," Wood recalled. "But there was a porch shelter over the door and a little portion on the side in the back that housed a chemical toilet. They only had paper over the rafters for a ceiling and there was really no insulation to speak of." Wood not only has an amazing memory for songs and the odd off-colour limerick, but also for facts and figures from the past. He says that residents of Cabin Town paid a $16 monthly rent, of which $15 went towards that rent and the other dollar to pay for un-metered power. The long-time resident states that there were "15 or 16" cabins in the area at that time. Wood added that there are also five houses on Willow Crescent, between Larch and Pine streets, which were crafted from sections of an old 'H' Hut Bunkhouse that was once situated in Tent Town/Cabin Town. That bunkhouse was affectionately known as the 'Red Barn'. On to another matter of interest. I was recently advised that Wuskwatim Hydro lines currently being strung throughout our area would be waterfowl-friendly. A local fellow named Petey (David) Syms tells me this will result from the utility attaching a deflector of sorts to power lines in areas where they cross water. See 'Worked' on pg. Continued from pg. Like a number of residents, Syms worked for Interlake Powerlines on the Wuskwatim Line over the past winter. Having operated heavy equipment for the majority of his working life, he knows his way around construction sites and there isn't much he hasn't come across throughout that process. However, when two of his bosses asked him if he'd ever seen any swans in the areaÉ that got him scratching his head in wonder. "I told them that I've probably only seen one swan up this way in all the time I've lived here," said Syms. Regardless, that didn't keep the company from making their appointed installations of something called a 'swan deflector'. "The bosses called them swan deflectorsÉ I heard different guys call them bird deflectors, but the guys putting them up called them duck deflectors," Syms said. Every creek the company crossed with the power line, a crew of workers would put up these deflectors. And that, said Syms, was something to behold. "There would be one guy in the bucket," he explained. "The other guy is just sitting on a ladder installing them. Both are attached to a rope hung on a pulley on the top line. The bottom of the rope is attached to a snowmobile on the ground, where it is pulled along 15 or so feet at a time." The deflectors themselves look to be nothing more than a squiggly piece of yellow wire, but waterfowl must be able to see them, as they work on the premise of visibility. They have another use as well. These deflectors are also known as 'spiral vibration dampers' and were originally developed for placement on static wires and conductors to control vibration and reduce line wear. However, it was found that during the fall and spring, lines marked with spiral vibration dampers had 31 per cent mortality, while unmarked lines had 69 per cent mortality for geese, ducks, and cranes within one area of installation in Colorado. My Take on Snow Lake runs Fridays.
