Personal Remarks: February 5, 2012
Having recently learned of a High School Reunion being arranged for past students of the Red Lake District High School, I reached into the distant past
and grappled with the tangled clouds of memory that come with the passage of time.
The answer came with a sudden rush like a morning sunrise burning off the mists over a northern lake in the early fall. Indistinct at first, its presence felt
but not seen, then suddenly the light, a bright image, the clarity of a reborn memory.
I attended the most northern of Ontario's high schools at the exact mid point of the last century, 1950-1951, which also marked my permanent departure from
a place I knew as home.
I have returned twice in my lifetime, once on completion of High School in 1955, to work as a Ball Mill Operator at New Dickenson Mine, managed at that time
by Mr.Ted Fell. A second visit was at the occasion of the 50th. anniversary of the opening of the McKenzie Red Lake Gold Mine in the summer of 1983.
I was accompanied on this visit nearly 30 years ago by my son and my late father, Dr 'Bud' Galway.
It would seem that this years RLDHS 2012 reunion offers the opportunity for one last visit to the place of my youth, a place that has had no other competition
for being the place that I call 'home. As they say, you can take the boy out of the Island but you cannot take the Island out of the boy.
This week marked the passing of another 'McKenzie Island' resident from that mid century time frame, Mr. Leo Goldsmith (1940-2012). His father, Leo Sr.,
was the Store Manager at the Gold Eagle Mine and remembered by my family as a talented athlete.
This notice in the Globe & Mail prompted a search for some old photos of that era. The outcome was the discovery of the 50th. Anniversary Publication of
'Island Memories' circulated at the time of the 1983 celebration of the opening of the McKenzie Mine.
What follows is a selective editing of the treasure trove of historical information contained in that publication that I hope will serve to paint a picture
of what it was like to grow up in the war and post war years in the Red Lake district. It was a unique time both for adults and children. Airplanes, Dog teams, Tractor Trains, Watercraft & Scows outnumbered cars 10:1. There was no lack of entertainment, sports or adventure.
The following material is based on the information abstracted from the material put together by the authors of that publication, Birdy Watt and Audrey Anderson. For this I deeply thank them or the spirits of their craftmanship.
Robert Galway
RLDHS 1950-51
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