Reid Dickie
A sad loss of a beautiful heritage house near Killarney. The Shaver house, which I posted about here, was destroyed by fire recently. It had been operated as a lovely bed and breakfast by Pam and Paul La Pierre. My thoughts and prayers are with the La Pierres.
Filed under Heritage Buildings
Reid Dickie
If you got it, flaunt it! One of the basic adages of self-promotion.
From the angle of heritage preservation, there are very few Manitoba towns or cities that can match Carberry for sheer heritage chutzpah. The town of 1670 boasts Manitoba’s only designated heritage district, two blocks of Main Street containing 30 original buildings constructed between 1896 and 1930. This summer, the town is inviting everyone to the First Annual Carberry Heritage Festival – Friday and Saturday August 9 and 10. They have plenty to celebrate!
I love this idea! It’s original, ambitious and appropriate for the town. I have called Carberry Manitoba’s Heritage Gem and written extensively on this blog about its attractions. (On the Category menu there are 44 posts about Carberry) The town is a major day tripper destination for heritage buffs. If you are a heritage buff and haven’t been to Carberry, shame on you. Their heritage festival is a great opportunity to see the real deal.
The two-day festival has a growing slate of activities planned:
Click the pic to make Mark and his band play a medley of fiddle tunes.
Announcing this festival is a bit of a scoop for me so thank you to the Carberry Heritage Group for allowing me that honour.
Alert your heritage network to this new wrinkle in celebrating a local past. See you in Carberry in August.
Filed under Carberry, Heritage Buildings, Heritage Festival
Reid Dickie
This year’s model of mighty Avenger and I ventured out to Spruce Woods Park for my first hike to the Spirit Sands for 2013. Perfection in every direction.
Along the trail the rich yellow hoary puccoon is in full bloom. That’s a picture of it above. Delicate avens are starting to lift their furry magenta heads. Anemones and poison ivy abound in the shade. The trees are alive with birdsong as the young spruce already sport plenty of bright green new growth at the tips of the branches. Winter was unkind to the low growing creeping juniper. A lot of it is brown from winter kill.
Because of our late cold spring everything is about a month behind so today several flocks of geese arrived, flying northward.
The areas of the park severely flooded in 2011 have rebounded well this year. Work still continues on lower campground but upper campground and yurts are open for the season. Most of the hiking paths in the park have been restored after the flood damage. I noticed several are indicated by fresh white gravel.
One of the many uses of Spruce Woods Park is for aboriginal sundances. The first of the summer will occur June 6 to 9 on a dancing ground near the trailhead for Epinette Creek Trail. The event is open to the public, aboriginal and non-aboriginal. watch for signs near the trail entrance. This website gives you some details on the planned events.
Filed under Day Tripping, Parks, Sacred Places
Reid Dickie
I caught this video while driving through Riding Mountain National Park on May 21/13. By the road a mother and two very young moose paused. They entered a stream leading into the bush. The little ones made chirping noises as they swam in the deep water. At the end one calf has trouble climbing out of the water. Click the pic to watch 30 seconds of moosey cuteness!
Filed under Critters, Natural Places, Parks
Reid Dickie
The last or the first historic building along this side of Main Street.
As the datestone on the stepped pediment above the entrance states, Carberry’s old town hall was built in 1907. Brandon architect William Alexander Elliott designed the building in a Neo-Classical mode and it still serves the town as a multi-purpose building.
The front elevation is a wonderful study in symmetry. The brickwork, laid in standard running bond, expresses the Classical elements: the flat roof with quiet cornice, the grand arches over the three openings, 
each surmounted with arches and keystones, the formal entrance, stringcourse and pediment.
The little triangular transom creates a traditional pediment that adds to the elevating effect of climbing the stairs and passing through the recessed doorway into the formal world beyond.
Being set on a high rusticated limestone foundation affords full use of the basement. As a town hall the place was used for offices, meeting rooms and as the local jail.
In a small treed park on the same lot as the town hall stands a somber handsome sculpture of a soldier along with a cenotaph listing the local dead in the two World Wars.
Today the building continues its role as community space housing 
offices for the Cypress Planning District, Arts Council, North Cypress Weed Control District and the Emergency Measures Organization and providing a meeting place for various community organizations.
Pa Tuckett recalls occasionally sitting with a prisoner in the jail in the basement of the town hall. This was back in the 1940s and 50s. “The law required a prisoner never be left alone so somebody had to sit with him all night. It paid well and you didn’t actually have to stay awake,” remembers Pa. “Usually it was some drunk causing a ruckus and winding up in jail. One time, quite by accident, they caught a wanted man here. I sat with him. He was the only prisoner that talked to me. He said some scary things. I just listened. He never found out who I was.”
Filed under Carberry, Heritage Buildings, Manitoba Heritage
This was shot on May 1, 2013 by Saskatchewan Water Security Agency personal while doing river recon. An ice surge, the leading edge rising to about ten feet high, is a rare occurrence and even rarer to catch such great documentation of it. This happened on Codette Reservoir on the Saskatchewan River near Nipawin. Click the pic.
Filed under Earth Phenomena, Flood, Saskatchewan
Reid Dickie
UPDATE: As of May 15 2013, the flood cams have been discontinued. There won’t be much, if any, flooding this year so show’s over, folks, nothing to see here, move along…
It’s Virtual Flood Season again in Manitoba!
The Manitoba government has added some live flood cams to their Flood Information website:
Click the vintage picture of the floodway gates to get to the 2013 flood cams.
Filed under Flood, Manitobans of Note, Winnipeg
Reid Dickie
Another unique building in Carberry!
Yes, in Manitoba’s only Heritage District which offers dozens of different styles, materials and uses, we find yet another unique structure! Now a museum and gift shop devoted to Ernest Thompson Seton, the world-renowned artist and naturalist who spent about ten years in the Carberry area, this building has a rich past.
Built about 1915, this little place is a finely-crafted example of a popular building technique of the era: concrete blocks formed on site. Choosing from a variety of moulds with various facings, Frank Thomson of Austin, MB created the blocks and assembled them into this compact, one-storey commercial building. Hiding behind the boomtown storefront is a forward-facing, medium-pitch gable roof.
Thomson used one lovely pattern on the building. The intertwining floral design flows around the little place like sweet concrete syrup, a divine, resonant texture that embraces rather than creates the inner space. Even after almost a hundred years of exposure to Manitoba weather,
the pattern on the blocks remains crisp and vibrant, a testament to the builder.
The two rougher patterns on the boomtown parapet imitate blocks but are actually a metal covering. The quoins were created by raising the corner blocks. The lintels and sills are concrete.
Today it houses The Seton Centre but its original moniker is well earned. A. E. Gardiner ran a harness repair business out of this place for 48 years starting just after it was built.
Pa Tuckett spent a lot of hours jawing with A. E. “We were like brothers sometimes,” Pa remembers, “Close and caring. We used to joke that one fixed up busted horse leather and the other fixed up busted automobiles, who would win. I think A. E. knew the answer to that all along.”
Filed under Carberry, Heritage Buildings, Manitoba Heritage
Reid Dickie
Crossing Third Avenue heading north
Manitoba’s lone Heritage District features two buildings used extensively by various telephone systems. The building across the street at 121 Main was built by Manitoba Telephones and became the new home of the switchboard and telephone operators after 1939. The flower shop building was used by Bell Telephone company from 1906 to 1908 then it was taken over by Manitoba Government Telephones. Since 1980 it has been series of flower shops including Phyll’s Flower Shop, Arlene’s Floral Boutique and Flowers and Gifts.
Though thoroughly clad in metal siding now, beneath lurks another fine one-storey brick structure with flat roof. Unassuming and
utilitarian, the building’s facade is a symmetrical display of central entrance bracketed by large display windows. This side view shows the addition at the rear of the building.
Pa Tuckett’s daughter Jane worked as a switchboard operator in this building for about six months before moving into the new telephone building across the street. “Jane had a sweet and very distinctive voice that people recognized on the street and on the phone,” says Pa.
Filed under Carberry, Heritage Buildings, Manitoba Heritage
Reid Dickie
Phantom heritage along Main Street
Now just a local memory and a post on a history blog, Rex Cafe served Carberry and area for many decades at the corner of Main and Third. Built about 1900, the one-storey building featured a facade sporting numerous brickwork details including ornate corner pilasters, elaborate cornice and a row of stepped corbelling. Large display windows and a recessed entrance with sidelights and transom completed the front view.
In this vintage picture you can see the Rex Cafe was an anchor on its corner site and how well it fit in with the neighbouring brick structures that complete the block.
Over the years the cafe had a number of different owners, including
Lee Low. The cafe provided Chinese food to the Carberry community. This ad is from the 75th anniversary local history book which came out in 1959.
The Rex Cafe is gone now. In its place at the prominent corner is the 125th Commemorative Park marking the town’s 125 anniversary in 2007. The park features plaques, benches, trellises, lamps and landscaping.
Once a month Pa Tuckett took his family out for Chinese food at the Rex Cafe. “It was a big change from our meat and potatoes and the closest any of us ever got to China. Very exotic,” Pa told me.
Filed under Carberry, Heritage Buildings, Manitoba Heritage
