Summerfest Canada Week activities ranged from toddler races to pipe smoking contest to indoor tennis tournament in 1978

Recreation director Terry Bryson reported that "Summerfest Canada Week" in 1978 was a success.. Terry wrote a weekly column in the Chapleau Sentinel.

Terry thanked the Summerfest committee -- Chair Peter Bernier (also chair of the Chapleau Recreation Committee); Denis Desbois (Township Clerk-administrator); Graham Bertrand (recration committee member), and Earle Freeborn (manager of the A.W Moore Arena).

Summerfest got underway after the Chapleau Civic Centre was officially opened on June 28, with the Chapleau Recreation Centre and Cedar Grove Lodge ceremonies held on June 29 and 30, respectively.

Then the activities got underway ranging from toddlers races to pipe smoking to ball tournaments, to an indoor tennis tournament,and of course a parade.

Here are some of the winners and highlights.

In the Toddlers races, Paul Bernier and Heather Lewis were the winners while Alexandra Boucher and Christine Tremblay emerged victorious.

In the 3 to 4 year old race mixed, Shannon Hatfield won. Christine Bujold won the Kick-the-Hoe race, and Connie Bujold was first in the Potato Sack race.

Rene Serre, Wiilliam Memegos

In the Kiddies races, 5 to 6, Glen Harvey (two races), Dana Vaughan, Connie Picody, Dean Harvey (three), Shelly Hughes, all were winners

Michel Babin was the big winner in the 9-10 year old races  with three wins, and Ken Groves won in the 11-12 year old race.

In the Gitls Three Legged race Pam May and Johanna Black won while Dean Harvey and Derek Hatfield took first place.

In the Carling O'Keefe pipe smoking contest George Basylec was first with Guy Martel and Gerald Bernier as runner sup. In horsehoe throwing Chapleau Intermediate A Huskies players dominated with David McMillan and Ted Swanson in first and J.C. Cyr and Doug Prusky in second.

The fire department won the bed race. Team members included Robert Moreau, Harvey Turcotte, Jacques Lafreniere, Ghislain Lafreniere, Richard St Amand, Wally Leigh and Raoul Lemieux.

The first Chapleau indoor tennis tournament was played on the floor of the new A.W. Moore Arena with Heather "Bubby" Hong winning the Ladies title with Carol Telik as runner-up. Tim Morin defeated his brother Allan for the men's title. 

In mixed doubles Fred Welch and Bubby Hong were the winners. 

As I was typing away, out of the mothballs of memory I recalled that I had played the first set of tennis on the indoor court against Carlo Cattarello, president of the Northern Ontario Hockey Association, during the activities with equipment borrowed from Tim Morin. Carlo won!

The very next weekend the Good Brothers with their "joyful music" appeared at the new recreation centre. At the time they were one of Canada's most popular bands. They played packed houses from the Maritimes to British Columbia and the United States.

But they almost didn't make it. The day they were to arrive in Chapleau, it was pouring rain with lots of thunder and lightning. For a time it looked like they would be able to land at the Chapleau Municipal Airport, but late in the afternoon it started to clear up, and the show went on as scheduled. 

Now I think I may go to YouTube and listen to some Good Brothers just for old times sake!  My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Happiness is a Choice

By Rev. Yme Woensdregt

I loved reading comics in the paper such as “Peanuts” and “Calvin and Hobbes” and “Doonesbury”. The authors have died or retired, or the Townsman (the local newspaper)  doesn’t carry them; I miss their trenchant and accurate observations about life.
One Peanuts cartoon has Lucy asking Charlie Brown, “Why do you think we were put on earth?”
Charlie answers, “To make others happy.”
Lucy replies, “I don’t think I’m making anyone happy.” Then she adds, “But nobody’s making me very happy either. Somebody’s not doing his job!”
People like Lucy are so sure they will be happy once they get something—a new “this” or an improved “that” or the “other thing” with all the bells and whistles. If only they could get one of them, they’d be happy.
They don’t ask what they can do for others; their concern is to make sure that others do for them whatever they want. They often feel shortchanged or cheated. They become so preoccupied with what they don’t have that they can’t enjoy what they do have.
What’s more, they don’t realize one of the best ways to be happy is to experience the joy and self-worth of making others happy.
In his book “Happiness Is a Serious Problem”, Dennis Prager argues that it’s human nature to want more, to feel that we need more. The problem he notes is that there’s no end to the quest for more. We always want more—if only we had another 128MB of RAM … or the newest 2015 model instead of our ancient 2013 model … or the latest video game … or the latest hit by a favourite singer.
Gabor Maté is a staff physician at a clinic in the downtown eastside of Vancouver. For 12 years, he has worked with patients challenged by hard–core drug addiction, HIV, and mental illness. In a radio interview a few years ago, he said that we are all addicted to something. “For many of my patients, the pain of life is so great they mask it with alcohol or drugs.” He went on to say, “I’m addicted to CD’s. I can’t resist getting the latest one.”
In the preface to his book from 2009, “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction”, he defines addiction as the domain “where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment.”
The trouble with addiction of any kind is that it never meets that yearning. “The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need.”
Like Lucy, we keep looking for new ways, new toys, new distractions, new ways of trying to amuse ourselves because deep in our hearts and souls, we are not happy. As a result, the Lucys of the world often live in an “if only” world that keeps them one step away from happiness: “If only I get this raise, if only I make this sale, if only I pay off my debts, or if only I win this game, I’ll be happy.”
Abraham Lincoln understood that happiness is essentially a way of looking at one’s life: “A person is generally about as happy as he’s willing to be.”
Christian faith ought to be about helping us find this deep happiness, this deep contentment, this deep satisfaction with the goodness in life. Unfortunately, too often it’s not so. Too many times, faith is used as a way to make people insiders and outsiders. Too often, faith is used as a battering ram.
I refuse to participate in that exercise. I want to experience the joy of living in community with all of creation. I want, as a result of my faith, to be one who joins with others in healing creation, in forming community with other people and all other creatures, in reaching out with love and compassion and grace to help those I can help.
I choose to be happy, giving myself in joy to work with God for the healing of the world. I want to give myself, and in giving myself, find my best self.

Rev Yme Woensdregt is Incumbent at Christ Church Anglican in Cranbrook BC

Unique moment in Chapleau railroading occurred as Robert Faught and Wilfred Muske arrive on The Dominion to retire in 1950

When Robert Faught and Wilfred C. Muske stepped off the "Dominion Limited", the Canadian Pacific Railways crack passenger train at the Chapleau station in August, 1950, "something unique in local railroading" was happening, according to the Chapleau Post.

In the case of Mr. Muske, the engineer of the train, "climbed down off the engine to be greeted by a large circle of friends, he was culminating 43 years railroading with the CPR." 

The Chapleau Post reported that a similar scene was being enacted on the station platform where a group of relatives and friends gathered to greet Mr. Faught, an ex-Chapleauite conductor who was now living in North Bay.

In the case of Mr. Faught he set a record in Canadian railroading at the time, according to the Chapleau Post. He was completing 55 years service with the CPR. (I wonder if anyone ever equalled or matched Mr. Faught's 55 years.)

Mr. Muske was completing his service when Number 7 arrived but Mr. Faught left Chapleau on Number 4 that evening for North Bay as the conductor, arriving in the early morning hours.

However, the press was at the Chapleau station for the "double retirement" which was called unique in CPR history -- two on the same run retiring essentially at the same time. Bteween them they had 98 years of service on the CPR.

The newspaper report by Ben Ward in the North Bay Nugget described Mr. Faught's arrival in North Bay. "... just after midnight, the CPR's fast eastbound passenger train roared into the North Bay station. Down off an end car stepped a small, brisk man. clad in the neat blue serge of a train conductor. He waved farewell to a group on the coach platform, turned and entered the station office to report his trip.

"A few minutes later he emerged to to watch the train move off into the darkness."

Mr. Faught had finished his last run.

Here are details of his 55-year career with the CPR. He started as a boy by lighting the switch lamps for the railway at a place called Thorncliffe, a few miles east of North Bay. "A boy of ten and still going to school, he was required to rise at dawn to extinguish the lamps and  to re-light them at dusk. For that he was paid the handsome salary of $3.00 a month."

In the following years he worked as a timekeeper, hatch boy on coal boats, coach lamp lighter, brakeman and conductor all with the CPR.

He liked to recall those occasions when the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII; the Emperor of Japan and Prime Minister Lloyd George of England travelled on his trains.

By 1904, Mr. Faught was working as a brakeman at Chapleau, and by 1908 was a conductor. For the next 26 years, he took freight trains east and west out of Chapleau, "sometimes in winter storms that sent temperatures down to 60 and 70 below (F)"

He reached the "top rung" when he became a passenger train conductor, and for six years worked on trains from Chapleau to Fort William, now Thunder Bay. In 1940 he was transferred to North Bay and by 1947 his runs were to Chapleau on the Dominion Limited.

The Chapleau Post noted that "in his wallet he carries the prize possession of Canadian railroading - a 50-year service pass honoured as passage on Canadian pacific trains and steamships. With him too, are memories of more than half a century of Railroading across Northern Ontario." My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Names in photo: Work train at Ridout in October 1920. 1 Mr. Dumont from Cartier, 2 Fred Charbonneau section foreman from Roberts, 3 a son of Mr. Dumont (No. 1), 4 unknown, 5 Joe Dionne extra gang foreman from Cartier, 6 Tom Burns C.P.R. brakeman, 7 Robert (Bob) Faught C.P.R. conductor, 8 Hill Gagnon C.P.R. engineer, 9 Walter Steed C.P.R. fireman, 10 Hiram Paul C.P.R. brakeman. (Vince Crichton collection)