Here I am upstairs in my office starting out my news. The sun is so bright I have had to pull the blinds. What a pretty day it is.
Every week our paper comes out the news are more positive with more good news. Things got a bit down with the mill fire etc. but things are looking a bit brighter and time is a wonderful healer. Of course the loss of lives take much longer to heal granted. Burns Lake will come back maybe even bigger and better.
Old pics
I was looking through some old pictures and I cam across a very special one taken in front of our old store. This must have been taken over 60 years ago. There is Mrs. Elsie Peebles (grandma Peebles) on horseback, Rosemarie Hunter (Harrison), Pat Peebles (Nourse), and Donna Ablin from Vancouver. They are gone now. I just noticed it’s got 1950 on the back. This picture is priceless. I think my mother Agness took this photo.
There is a box that I treasure that’s full of old pictures. Some are from Saskatchewan in the old homesteading and then picture of folks now long gone from Francois Lake.
When I get any time I look through the old box and wonder where has the time gone, as it leaves me with a feeling of nostalgia. I also have some pictures taken outside St. Lukes with so many family and friends. So many have left us. If anyone is interested I have them here, you are welcome.
It’s nice to see a large number of our old pictures framed and hanging in the Francois Lake Hall for all to enjoy.
Food bank
In our last paper it mentions that the food bank distribution is way up. This has been a godsend to many families. It seems to be getting bigger as times goes on. Is this because of the mill fire or is it our economy that’s causing this. It is stated more seniors have been picking up food than ever before. Food banks are on the honour system, treat the food bank with respect.
They do a great job and nobody should be hungry in our district but nobody should take advantage of it either. I like the one statement that they have.
If you have food please donate and as I see it folks have been very generous in their giving. I well understand as the cost of living gets higher as time goes on.
It’s also going to be interesting to see how our power bills will turn out with this new metre system that’s coming up in the near future months.
School days
Every morning bright and early a school bus stops below our hill for a pickup of a local student sometimes there are two. How different it all is since my school days. How very fortunate they are. Most of the school students were from farms and had to either ride horseback or drive a single horse or a team. In Saskatchewan where I went to school and the school had a big barn for the horses, it was the thing. Even our first teacher rode a horse five miles morning and night.
She never missed a day, summer or winter. I started riding to school when I was six years old. I was so small dad asked the big boys to take me off in the morning and put me on after school. It was not too long before I was able to get on and off by myself. Then when we came to B.C. lots of kids were riding horseback and all the rural schools had a barn and so did Francois Lake.
Then in the 50s the first school bus came from Burns Lake to pick up school kids for high school. As there was no high school in the south country all the high school students boarded either in town or Francois Lake.
For a number of years we had students board with us. We enjoyed them very much as they were all such nice kids. They were good times and left wonderful memories.
Horse logging
As in my last news I mentioned how important the lowley horse was in those old days. They were the backbone of the logging industry. They were used for skidding out the logs to the mills. Haul the lumber and the ties out to the railways. When the modern logging equipment came into being the horse just faded out.
During those horse years there would be carloads of big teams of horses shipped by railway. I well remember watching a carload of horses come into the stock yards to be sold by auction. They would weigh in at about 1500 - 1600 pounds. They would be sold within the hour. The big logging outfits like Saunders, Strimbold’s, Porters, Halversen’s, Andersen’s, and I could go on and on were always in the market for big teams of horses. These are memories now but they were good times too. Lots of good teamsters too and they were proud of their work as they had an art to drive and handle horses as well as care for them.
This has just hit my eye as I was sorting some stories as I was just writing about horses and this came up as an article of interest. According to the agriculture Canada 87,030 horses were slaughtered in Canada in 2010, an average of 342 horses killed each workday. The meat is mainly exported to Japan, France and Belgium. Most of these horses are what are called unwanted. I am a horse lover and have been all my life and when I read this it made me kind of heart sick. A note I just noticed kill buyers in the U.S.A. ship horses to Canada and Mexico for slaughter. Sad, sad, sad.
The ferry passage is almost a mile wide now. This strip of open water will help the lake ice to clear out.
A little story
In the olden days very often there would be an epitaph on the grave stone to remember the person. Here is one from a country grave yard. Here lies the body of A.J. Faye who died maintaining his right of way. He loved his food, he loved his God, but now he lays beneath this sod.
Thought for the day
Experience is a wonderful thing, it enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. How true.
Have a safe week and take care as God always loves you and so do I.