Camp Hughes Heritage Day – October 4, 2015

Reid Dickie

The picture above shows the second largest city in Manitoba in 1916. Over 30,000 men trained for WWI at Camp Hughes just west of Carberry. A town sprung up around the training base that included movie theatres, hotels, even a swimming pool. Almost 100 years after its heyday, Camp Hughes consists of some indentations where the trenches were and a cemetery housing those who died during training and local people from the area after 1920.

Camp Hughes is one of my favourite stopping spots for its solitude and subtle beauty. On Monday I happened to be power napping when two vehicles arrived carrying two Carberry men – former town mayor Wayne Blair and Brad Wells, both members of Friends of Camp Hughes. They came bearing the architect’s plan for an information kiosk on site that would expand upon the small provincial plaque that currently explains the area’s past. One of the directors of the Shilo Artillery Museum arrived and shared numerous ideas for design and information location. The aim is have the kiosk done for the site’s centenary in 2016.

The Friends of Camp Hughes hold a heritage day every fall and invite the public to visit and learn more about the base and its activities. This year the event is on Sunday October 4 starting about 11:00 til mid afternoon. There is no charge for the event. Camp Hughes is located off PR 351 about 14 km west of Carberry. Watch for signs that will direct you in via a good gravel road.

Carberry Report Spring 2015

Reid Dickie

The Carberry Heritage Festival received some good news this week. In addition to confirming several events for the festival, they were awarded $2300 in federal grant money. The grant, from Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage, a branch of  Canadian Heritage, will help the festival expand its roster of local artisans and performers as well as aid in promoting the two-day festival slated for August 7 and 8, 2015.

I’m helping out again this year acting as publicist for the festival. As more artisans, performers and events are confirmed, watch the festival website for updates. http://www.carberryheritagefestival.com You can also find them on Facebook.

As you can see in the picture above, something is afoot with the old Bank of Montreal on Carberry’s Main Street. Wooden hoarding, scaffolding and debris netting cover the facade. The old pile has fallen into severe disrepair lately and there are concerns that pieces of it have started falling off. A sad situation for a unique building. When I asked around Carberry what was happening to the bank, the responses were quite vague. Public safety is an obvious concern but something else is going on as well. Stay tuned for future reports.

Just west of Carberry, off PR #351, Camp Hughes, the World War 1 training camp, is undergoing a transformation this year. Currently all that marks the spot is a government plaque and a self-guiding walking tour. Friends of Camp Hughes have told me that plans are underway to add a kiosk to the site providing more detailed information about its history. They hope to have it completed by their annual Camp Hughes Day in late summer.

 

Look What I Found While Driving Around

Reid Dickie

“I’ll be driven, eyes always moving, riveted to the task…” 

– Gordie Downie

My list of heritage sites to visit and record all over Manitoba has largely been satisfied. More organized than ever, it was a highly productive summer of “working the list.” I just calculated my mileage for the season and the mighty Avenger and I, well, myself and three mighty Avengers, have logged almost 23,000 kms, all but 1,000 of them in Manitoba. I got to see amazing country this year, discover special places that few Manitobans know about then report them here on my blog. Thanks for reading my blog, by the way. I am grateful every day for your attention.

With my trusty, battery-sucking digital camera by my side, I’ve captured some odd, surprising and occasionally astonishing images along my path. Here are a dozen of them with brief commentary about each one.

Old Cook Stove in Abandoned Stone House

Sure, I haunt the occasional tumbledown farmhouse out in the middle of now here, sure I do. I’m not usually the first to satisfy their curiosity about what’s inside the old place. A little stone house sits atop a small rise along Hwy #21 south of Hartney. I’ve seen this old house most of my life since my grandparents homesteaded nearby. This summer I stopped at it for the first time for pictures and video. Beyond the Keep Out sign, this old wood stove was the first thing I saw through the door. I took a few shots of the interior, largely wrecked. The inset is a shot of the house. Expect more about this place on my blog and YouTube channel.

Stillborn Graves at Camp Hughes Cemetery

The little cemetery at Camp Hughes has but 26 graves in it dating from 1916. Sadly, more than half are the graves of children. Some died in infancy, others stillborn and unnamed. Several graves are simply unknown.

Strange Cloud on Prairie Horizon

No, it’s not an atomic bomb test. It’s a gigantic cloud of smoke slowly rising from a field of burning stubble. This is a common sight in late summer, ominous and beautiful at once, most are not this spectacular. I shot this traveling south out of Winnipeg along Hwy #75 in late August. I watched it for miles as the cloud grew and changed shape.

Criddle Vane in the Rain

One hot afternoon during one of my dozen visits to the Criddle Vane homestead this summer, a prairie thunderstorm came over with plenty of lightning and thunder, a little rain but no wind, just a smooth calm passing. I took this picture of the Criddle Vane house through the rain-spattered windshield of the Avenger. Percy Criddle was very wary of storms and prided himself on the lightning rods, imported from England, that adorned the roof of this house. The inset shows the house after the rain.

Wind Sculpted Formation at Spirit Sands

During a hike on Spirit Sands with my dear friend Chris Scholl, we came upon this beautifully sculpted arch on the upslope of a dune. We’d had variable winds, that is, winds from directions other than the prevailing northwesterlies, which may have accounted for this small miracle in sand.

Assessment Roll Information for Negrych Farm 1901-1930

If there was one site I visited this summer that left me in awe of how our ancestors lived and survived on the harsh prairie, it was the Negrych Homestead north of Gilbert Plains. Its ten original log buildings date from the late 1890s when the family arrived there, most of them in Ukrainian vernacular style. Each building houses materials the family improvised and used for decades. This assessment roll information traces the family’s assets for thirty years from 1901 until 1930. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Old Headstone in Wawanesa Cemetery 

Humble and plain, corroding against the weather and the years, this little stone caught my camera’s eye in the cemetery at Wawanesa. What story could this stone tell?

Gathering of the Clans Picture

Being a full-blood Scotsman, this nicely framed illustration of the Gathering of the Clans had special meaning when I discovered it in one of the buildings at the Fort la Reine Museum in Portage la Prairie. Click pic to see entire image.

Herald Angels at Immaculate Conception, Cook’s Creek 

This isn’t my photograph. My friend Kevin Uddenberg took this picture using his smart phone which has HDR (High Dynamic Range) technology. The quality of the colours and the definition of the images is almost three-dimensional. By contrast look at the inset which is my picture of the same angels taken on the same day and time as Kevin’s picture.  The difference is obvious and substantial.

The Hemp’s as High as an Elephant’s Eye and… 

Rewilding W. C. Fields for smartass purposes with bashful aplomb. During my summer travels, I noticed that the only area of the province that concentrated on growing hemp in any quantity is north of Riding Mountain around Dauphin. This verdant crop you see was growing directly behind my hotel and stretched for acres to the horizon. Besides being easy to grow and low maintenance chemicalwise, there is another sound reason why so much hemp is grown in the area: the Parkland Industrial Hemp Growers Coop is headquartered in Dauphin.

The Staircase That Killed Percy Criddle

We return to Criddle Vane homestead to wind up this odd excursion. Insufferably brilliant or brilliantly insufferable, whoever Percy Criddle was, the beginning of his exit from this life was a tumble down the stairs you see here. After moving both his families from London, England to a patch of sandy soil south of present-day Shilo in 1882, Percy spent 35 years eking out a living largely due to the true genius of his children. During a severe blinding case of Erysipelas that Percy acquired in the spring of 1918, he groped his way to the top of these stairs and tumbled the full length of them, injuring himself terribly. He died ten days later at age 73 and is buried in the family cemetery a couple hundred yards from his house. This is Percy’s headstone.

Fake Forest Along the TCH

Reid Dickie

Located on the north side of the Trans-Canada Highway about 25 kms east of Brandon, MB, Camp Hughes Rest Stop offers travelers refuge from the road, washroom and picnic facilities and a fake forest to roam in. The trees are real enough, the forest isn’t. Constructed as a make-work project during the 1930s, the rest stop’s major feature are thousands of jack pines all planted in straight symmetrical rows as you can see in my video. The pines, mature now, have foliage on the top third of the trunks forming a dark, shadowy canopy. The red bark flakes away and on hot summer days, the air is redolent with the smell of pine. Covering several acres, the pines provide a sensual and sheltered place to stroll and stretch your legs. If you stop here, exercise caution because poison ivy is very prevalent on the forest floor. Otherwise, it’s a pleasant and unique walk.

Camp Hughes – WW1 Training Site

Reid Dickie

To feed the Great Maw of Death, otherwise known as World War 1, recruiting meetings were held all over Manitoba in 1915, attracting potential soldiers by the thousand. Recruits initially had to be 5′ 5″ or taller with at least a 34-inch chest but the need for cannon fodder was so great, it wasn’t long until the requirements changed to 5′ 2″ and 33-inch chest. Farm boys and city slickers, patriots and adventurers, almost no one was rejected. In Manitoba the virgin soldiers trained at Camp Hughes just west of Carberry. Today the site is a heritage area that still resonates deeply with its past.

After spending nearly an hour at the site and filing this video report, I left Camp Hughes with a feeling similar to what I feel after visiting a sacred place. The place still possesses enormous energy that was palpable in many areas of the site.

12 SACRED PLACES

12 SACRED PLACES

DAY FOUR

ST VICTOR’S PETROGLYPHS

August 13, 1995

“To carve, to celebrate, to become”

             Above and south of the tiny village of St Victor, SK a row of sandstone outcrops protrude over Sylvan Valley. The view from the place is spectacular. To the north Montague Lake is a blue dash among yellow and green fields checked with black summer fallow. To the west is Twelve Mile Lake; in the east is Willow Bunch Lake. All three of these lakes are remnants of a wide and deep spillway filled for thousands of years with torrents of glacial meltwater. Though invisible, you are perched on the Continental Divide.

            Etched into the top of one of the sandstone promontories is a variety of petroglyphs, images hand carved in the stone. Turtles, human faces, grizzly bear paws with long claws, human hands and feet, buffalo, elk and deer prints with dewclaws are carved into the horizontal sandstone surface.

St Victors Petroglyphs, on the flat stone beyond the fence, and its incredible setting along the western side of the Missouri Coteau. The sandstone carvings are now protected by the fence. The verdant  landscape attests to the amount of rain during 2010 summer.

Near the outer edge of the stone, there are carvings of two human feet aligned so the next step would be into thin air or perhaps onto the ice. It’s possible this small site was an unglaciated area during the last Ice Age and the ice abutted this cliff.

            Usually petroglyphs are carved on vertical surfaces. This site is unusual because the images are on a horizontal surface making the petroglyphs difficult to see in broad daylight, claims the pamphlet. I’ve never had any problem seeing them no matter what time of day I visit. The technique used to create the carvings begins with a pecking tool and a hammer stone to create a rough outline. Then the carvers used a stick of wood with sand and water to grind out the centre and smooth the edges.

            Access to the petroglyphs has changed radically since my last visit. Formerly you walked up the side of the cliff on a wooden staircase, 165 steps in all. Along the way, you could marvel at the beautifully eroded sandstone chiseled, hollowed and polished by the rains. One year, in a deep crevice on the way up the cliff, I saw two turkey vulture chicks. The shiny black parent circled high and eerie above me the whole visit. Today you drive up the hill at the rear, park and follow a path to the glyphs a few hundred yards away.

            Previously you could walk onto the carvings and touch them. Their delicate nature carved into sandstone meant a wire fence had to be erected to protect them from the extra wear, tear and erosion of curious tourist hands and feet. The signage and seating you see in the picture are new as well.

Shamanic carvings on a sandstone outcrop near St Victor, SK. If you half close your eyes, other images besides the big weird head will start to appear.

               Some archeologists think hunters or maybe shamans carved these images. Often at sacred places, I can see the surrounding hillsides littered with encampments, tipis and little fires. The petroglyphs are different. Although the rolling uncultivated landscape could support it, there are no tipi rings anywhere. This is a holy place. My old vision of the place is that individuals came here on personal pursuits, loners with missions, shamans on sacred journeys. They came to grind symbols into this rock to celebrate the mysteries of life, not to explain them, to evoke the spirits, not conquer them. They returned time and again to continue their Creation.

            Although the update on changes to the site is from a visit in 2010, I will report on my first visit to St Victor’s Petroglyphs on August 13, 1995. I drove in from the north in heavy wind and rain but after a short wait at the site the clouds broke and the sun peeked through. Well bundled against the persistent cold wind, I climb the stairs.

            At first sight, I see the work of shamans, the evocative emblems of their day: grizzly bear claws, diving turtles, dewclaws of deer and human visages. I sense their peril when they returned here in high winds like today to carve, to celebrate, to become. I receive more specifics as I start to leave.

            Spirit gave me an incredible gift on that day. A shaman of indiscernible origin named Broken Fingers was a major carver on this rock. He worked here over 1500 years ago. I sense gnarled fingers and hands thick with scars. In light trance, I can hear his low voice muttering away against the scraping of stone against stone. He sings a creation song as he carves. Old Broken Fingers was not the only person to carve here though his style is distinctive. The bear claws and turtles are examples of his detailed nuance.

Replicas of the petroglyph images carved at St. Victor’s. The two large grizzly bear claws and the two turtles on the left side are Broken Fingers’ work. They have a noticeable delicacy the others don’t have.

            Broken Fingers appeared as an old man when I first met him. The next time he was accompanied by a young apprentice called Crow Bear. He was an attentive student, suffered the hardships of the work gladly and promised to be an expert carver. Some of the less defined works at the petroglyphs are by Crow Bear. He died at age 25 and was among the last people to carve here. 

            For about five years after meeting Broken Fingers, he stayed close, an active and protective spirit for me when I traveled anywhere. Although less significant in my life now, Broken Fingers looms large in my shamanic mythology.

 DAY TRIPPING

 CAMP HUGHES REST STOP

May to September

            Troop training for World War 1 in Manitoba was largely done at Camp Hughes, located between Brandon and Carberry south of the Trans Canada Highway. The railway ran nearby and delivered so much cannon fodder daily that Camp Hughes, for a time, was the second largest city in the province. Today the trenches, foxholes and bomb craters have been filled in and the prairie reverted to peaceful pastures. Only a small plaque indicates the camp’s history.

             Across the TCH, Camp Hughes Rest Stop offers travelers refuge from the road, washroom and picnic facilities and a fake forest to roam in. The trees are real enough, the forest isn’t. Constructed as a make-work project during the 1930s, the rest stop’s major feature are thousands of jack pines all planted in straight symmetrical rows. The pines, mature now, have foliage on the top third of the trunks forming a dark, shadowy canopy. The red bark flakes away and on hot summer days, the air is redolent with the smell of pine. Driving past the neat rows of straight trees gives your mind a nice spinning glow. Great movie location!

            Covering several acres, the pines provide a sensual and sheltered place to stroll and stretch your legs. If you stop here, exercise caution because poison ivy is very prevalent on the forest floor. Otherwise, it’s a pleasant and unique walk.