Bill McLeod reflects on going to the Old Fort on a Wednesday afternoon, down the road for a washtub full of raspberries, Highway 129 and Turk Broda and the triple play

Turk Brod

After Bill McLeod read my piece about going down the lake by two rivers to reach Mulligan's Bay, he was in touch with his memories, and also shared his family's trips 'down the road' generally meaning Highway 129 and some side roads. Bill had also earlier shared an anecdote with me about the time Turk Broda brought his ball team to Chapleau in the Fifties for Beach Day, celebrated on the Civic Holiday weekend in August. It is all here!

I invited Bill, who has written three books on Chapleau and area, and has been a good friend since our childhoods -- in fact, Bill lived just down the Grey Street lane from me, although he may tell you that I lived up the Aberdeen Street lane from him -- to be a guest columnist. Bill agreed, and here he is with his memories of down the lake, down the road and the visit by Turk Broda. And thanks Bill too for giving me a vacation -- first week off in two years!!!

Also, as special bonus, see Paul Carson's great video on Mulligan's Bay. Scroll down!

By William E. "Bill McLeod

GOING DOWN THE LAKE

There was another bunch, including us, who also have a bit of "down the lake" history. Like some other families, we didn't have a camp. But we did have what was for the time, a state of the art boat and motor which my dad (Borden "Bordie" McLeod) inherited from John Hun. The motor was a Johnson outboard with the flywheel on top. The boat was a big Hudson's Bay square sterned freighter canoe. We used to go down the lake to picnic and swim at the "Old Fort". Usually it was on Wednesday afternoons but I have no idea why. There were often other Chapleau folks there too. My dad eventually sold the motor to Gussie Evans and the boat to George Corston, mainly because my mother didn't like either boats or the water. (Note: I think it was Wednesday afternoon because stores in Chapleau closed..mj)

DOWN THE ROAD

Going down the road was another matter. We did it often. On Sundays we would go as far as what is now Unegam Lake. Fred and Rose Primeau had a little lunch bar and some cabins, some of which are still there and are called "Sunset View". Mrs. Primeau who was a sister of Joe Steen's mother was a fabulous cook. 

During berry season we would go to about mileage eight for blueberries and on the Nemegos road for raspberries. There was a little nameless lake off the Nemegos Road on the right before you got to the Kennedy Lake road. There were some abandoned lumber camps there and we would have our lunch in a little screened in building that had been the meathouse. I'm sure I could find the exact spot today. One time we picked a wash tub full of wild raspberries.

If we went anywhere on Saturdays we had to get off the Nemegos Road and on to 129 shortly after four in the afternoon. My dad was paranoid about the mad rush from Sultan to Chapleau on Saturdays. They blew the whistle at the mill in Sultan at five on Saturdays (six other days). The guys would dash to their cars and drive like maniacs to get to the liquor store in Chapleau before it closed at six. Sometimes they didn't make it and had to go back to Sultan and pay bootlegger prices for a week.

In the summer we would often go fishing for little brook trout at Poulin Creek. Sometimes, usually with Charlie Swanson, we would canoe up Poulin Creek to what they called the "spring hole". On one of those excursions we saw a cow moose teaching two newborn calves how to eat water lillies. When she realized we were watching she tried to chase the calves into the bush but one was too small and became stuck. So the mother crouched down on her haunches, the calf climbed on her back and away they went.

In the fall we would go partridge hunting almost every weekend. Some times we would take the Nemegos Shortcut from about Mileage 12, drop in to Mike Koski's place for coffee and come back via what was called 118. Perhaps on the same day we would walk in to Five Mile Lake where the Provincial Park would eventually locate. Sometimes we would go to Island Lake and hunt the network of lumber roads near the mill. And, late in October, we would go dip netting for whitefish on the Nebsqwashi River where it narrows near Gravel Lake. To get there you had to go first to Island Lake.

MORE ON THE ROAD

There is so much more to write about "going down the road". The dramatic change in the type of road at Horton Lake just before the road up to the fire tower in Township 9 E. That corner at Horton lake is where Tom Godfrey's efforts ended and the new piece of road built by McGuinty Construction began. The 12 miles of pavement in the middle of nowhere was built by Storm Construction under the supervision of Grant "Grizz" Henderson.

Then there was the section of road on that steep hill down to the Mississaugi River. There were a number of wrecks at the bottom of the hill where drivers had lost control and had a choice of taking the bush or the river. You can still see the "hole in the hill" where that old road started down. There was a Bailey Bridge over the Mississaugi with giant white pine logs for safety barriers. How about that flue where the logs were diverted around Aubrey Falls? And also the hairpin curves around the Mississaugi River. And the Rainer (sp?) dam that backed up the Mississaugi to form Tunnel Lake. They used the same engineering techniques used on the Hoover Dam.

The Griggs from Iron Bridge were distantly related to my mother, I think by marriage. I remember Dougall Grigg, the store and hotel owner One time I asked my dad why he was always so happy to see us. My dad laughed and told me that when we stayed at the Grigg Hotel he always had a bottle of Canadian Club in his suitcase. Mrs. Grigg wouldn't let Dougall drink. So one time they polished off the bottle of Canadian Club and decided to go to the bootlegger in Blind River to get another one. On the way back the fog rolled in and my dad had to get in the back seat, stick his head out the window, watch for the white line and keep Dougall on the right side of it. And they think we were crazy!!

TURK BRODA AND TRIPLE PLAY

(According to Greatest Hockey Legends, regarded as perhaps the best clutch goaltender of all time, Walter "Turk" Broda was "Mr. Maple Leaf" for 16 seasons, with two years lost to Canadian armed forces duty in World War II.)

My Dad was chairman of the Recreation Commission (in the 1950s) and in those days "Beach Day" was a big deal, celebrated on the Civic Holiday weekend. One year they brought in a real bunch of entertainers including some boxers from Toronto. But the highlight was Turk Broda and his Allstar softball team - sponsored by Labatts. They arrived on Train No. 3 which came in around noon.

Broda had ordered a large number of cases of beer and told my dad to have them available at the station as soon as the train pulled in. All clearly illegal of course. (Chapleau did not have licensed premises at that time.) My dad and Bubs (B.W. Zufelt, then the reeve of Chapleau) showed up in our car with the beer in the trunk and me in the back seat. The first guy they ran into was the single O.P.P. Constable in Chapleau at the time. Anyway, nothing happened and the team headed to the Boston Cafe for lunch. I was one of the lucky ones who got in for autographs.

Of course I can't tell you the names of all the players but Broda, Flem Mackell, Leo Labine and Joe Klukay were among them. I shared bat boy duties with Johnny Thornton and can distinctly remember what good ballplayers those hockey players were. They could have really beaten Chapleau but realized they were there to entertain and entertain they did! All I remember of the game was one inning when Broda's gang had a couple of guys on base and one of them hit into a double play. One of the hockey players, I think it was MacKell, jumped off second base in a phony attempt to steal third and Tommy Godfrey tagged him out. TRIPLE PLAY CHAPLEAU!! It was the only triple play I ever saw.

HIGHWAY 129 BETWEEN CHAPLEAU and THESSALON 'GOING DOWN THE ROAD'

Highway 129, connecting Chapleau and Thessalon, Ontario, was officially opened on a cold winter day on January 28,1949, after years of being a political football. It may not have been much more than a "turkey trail" through the bush, but a highway was a highway, and Chapleau's now had a highway connection to the wider world.

The opening, however, was marred by tragedy when T.J. Godfrey, whose great passion was the building of the highway, died of a heart attack while participating in the first drive over the highway.

But Mr. Godfrey saw his dream become a reality.

Like everyone, I have so many memories of trips over Highway 129, and each was an adventure unto itself. I am sure you do too. Please feel free to share them. My email is mj.morris@live.ca

When I was a kid, when someone said they were going for a "down the road" it meant Highway 129, not to be confused with railroaders saying they were going "out on the road".HIGHWAY 129 OPENED ON COLD WINTER DAY Click on Link for related story with more details.

Here is an incredible collection of photos on the highway sent to me. They bring back many memories too.

Hugh McMullen and George Crichton circa 1935  'down the road'

Enjoy a trip on Highway 129!

Reflections on the familiar sound of trains on a warm summer night in Chapleau and going 'down the lake' to Mulligan's Bay by two rivers

Lil Morris, Edith Hunt (my grandmothers), Beth Goldstein, Mom and Anne Marie, Merrick, Dawn and me at camp

As I reflected on the past two years 9now three) of writing Chapleau Moments, for the Chapleau Express, recent emails from two Chapleau High School graduates came to mind, and let me start with them to mark the occasion.

In one of my email conversations with Larry Martel he mentioned reporters writing the first draft at history, and immediately it sounded familiar but I could not recall who had originally said it.

A Google search revealed that many journalists give former Washington Post President and Publisher the late Philip L. Graham credit for being the first to describe journalism as "the first rough draft of history," but as in most things, there is disagreement.

Yes, perhaps Chapleau Moments is a very rough draft of some of Chapleau's history. My sources have been many others who have started the story by writing about the community over the years and those who have shared their rough drafts with me during the past two years. Hardly a day has gone by that I do not hear from someone who adds to the stories that I have shared, and so often gives me an idea for a new one.

Thanks to the hundreds of people who have been in touch since Mario Lafreniere invited me to write the column in the Chapleau Express.

Shawn Russell who was in touch recently bringing me up to date on his life, and making some suggestions for future stories, commented that "It is difficult being the keeper of the history of Chapleau. There are so many good stories of people from that fine town...."

Indeed there are, but I am really not the keeper of Chapleau's history. All of us who call ourselves Chapleauites are, with stories we have told or are waiting to be told.

Although Shawn said he has not been back too often for visits, he noted that "I guess I have always been and always be a 'small town boy'. Even though it has been many years since I lived in Chapleau, I, like many others, consider it home. Our house is not there any more, but the memories cannot be erased. I still long for the familiar sound of the trains loading up on a warm August night. No one will know what I'm talking about except for a Chapleauite, or perhaps a railroad town person".

As an aside, Shawn's house was located at the Ministry of Natural Resources base at 'The Point'.

Out here in Cranbrook BC where I have now lived for 23 years, people ask me why I write about Chapleau and not the community where I live. I have done a few articles about Cranbrook, but the answer is really quite simple. I came here to work, and enjoyed every moment I spent on the faculty of College of the Rockies where I was even able to introduce students to digital storyelling starting way back in 1994 when I taught a course called Writing for New Media.

But I am not a part of Cranbrook, like I am Chapleau. For example, I wrote an anecdotal history of St. John's Church 'Sons of Thunder... Apostles of Love' to mark its 100th anniversary in 1985. When the good people of Christ Church here asked me to write their history, I declined but agreed to edit it instead and it was put together by my students in the New Media Lab at COTR.

It was their story not mine and they told it well.

Really though, I am a reporter, a teller mostly of the stories of other people and their life and times. I started doing it in Chapleau in 1957 when I wrote a high school column with Joy (Evans) Heft for the long gone Mid North News, and had a television show on CHAP TV owned by Arthur Grout. The rest is really history as I am still doing it some 54 (now 55) years later.

And as I mark the second (now third)  anniversary of Chapleau Moments, let me touch on some moments from my life and times there that made it an awesome place to grow up.

From left Ted Demers, me, Dave McMillan, Jim Ennis

I was very active in the Wolf Cubs and could hardly wait to turn eight so I could join.

Summers in Chapleau were always great, and camping was part of the agenda. We had a camp at Healy some 17 CPR miles west of Chapleau on the CPR, (no road when I was a kid), and we would spend part of the summer there along with friends who would join us.

But Mulligan's Bay was also part of vacation time, and no roads there either, in those days. Mom (Muriel E (Hunt) Morris) and I would spend time there at the camps of friends. And, as I have previously written about bridging Chapleau because I went from Grey Street to Elgin Street to visit my grandparents, Lil (Mulligan) and Harry Morris, such an analogy could also be drawn about "going down the lake".

We always went down the lake even though it was by one of two rivers.

Anyway, when we went to visit the Goldstein family, we travelled by boat down the "back river' to their camp at Mulligan's Bay because their boathouse was located on the Nebskwashi River.

When we spent time with the Pellow or the Zufelt (my aunt and uncle) families, we would travel down the 'front river' or Kebsquasheshing from where their boathouses were located.

Not particularly important in the grand scheme of things perhaps, but it was to a little boy who could travel both rivers to visit with his friends by going down the lake. I have used the two rivers and lake story in Geography courses.

Butch Pellow and me all ready to ride!!

We also loved to play and replaying scenes from the Saturday afternoon western at the Regent (later Fox) theatre was common. And we dressed for the parts as you will see from photo of me with my buddy Harry "Butch" Pellow as we take on the bad guys.

July 16, is a day that has special significance in my life, as my father Flying Officer James E. Morris, born in Chapleau, in 1914, was killed while on active service in the RCAF in Wold War II. Had he returned home, it was not likely that we would have remained in Chapleau, and my story would assuredly  be quite different.

In 1969, my grandmother Lil (Mulligan) Morris was the Silver Cross Mother at the Remembrance Day service in Chapleau.

Thanks so much to all of you, and a special thanks to Larry and Shawn. My email is mj.morris@live.ca

MINOR UPDATES ON AUGUST 18, 2012