Chapleau becomes thriving community despite obstacles after arrival of Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly Chapleau developed into a thriving community after the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in 1885, so I decided to share some of the activities described in the Richard Brownlee Papers. 

Some of the first settlers lived in tents, which also included the community's first store opened by T.A. Austin and located near the site of the Lady Minto Hospital in what was called 'Old Chapleau'. After Mr. Brownlee arrived in February 1886, he established his barber shop in the same location.

However, an early publication says that it was a "red letter day" for the Austin brothers, T.A. and J. McN, when they opened their store on Birch Street in September 1886 with a lean to on the side for Mr. Brownlee's barber shop. The building also housed the first post office.

But it was not only the Austin brothers who were establishing stores. By the end of 1886 it appears that five stores including Austin were on the scene or about to be opened. They included Murrays and Mulligan operated by Patrick Mulligan (my great great uncle), Deland and Kellett, P. Manion and the Hudson Bay Company relocated from what is now referred to as the "Memegos Property" on the Nebskwashi River.

Many  of the early settlers lived in tents, others lived in two rows of boxcars on Godlin and Stovepipe Avenues.

In my 1984 book 'Sons of Thunder... Apostles of Love' I noted that the winter of 1885-86 was extremely cold and disease was rampant. Chapleau had about 450 citizens, 90 percent of them men. Fire was also a great threat.

Boarding houses were built quickly  and the Queen's Hotel was opened in 1887, and the Algoma Hotel about 1890, but it burned down and was later rebuilt.

By 1886, three churches had been established -- Roman Catholic, Church of England (Anglican) and Methodist (later United).

The first public library opened in 1888, first in a boxcar then in the Mechanics Institute where it became the "centre of the social and intellectual life" of the community. It burned down in 1906 and at the time had 2000 volumes on its shelves. 

A school was also established, the first in a tent,  and moved locations until settling on Pine Street.

A street plan was completed and streets were named after Governors General of Canada, trees and King and Queen. Residential areas were established.

An open air  arena was established on Lorne Street by J. Gill by 1888 and a Chapleau hockey team made its first road trip to Sudbury in 1893. It lost. Curling had also been introduced. Other sports were also being played.

The Chapleau Brass band was founded in 1888.

Fast Forward to 1915.  An article notes that "In December 1915 they (the CPR) were moving over 450 cars a day through Chapleau -- there were 56 crews needed to handle the work -- they had fifty engines to handle the freight alone,with six passenger and two yard engines: there were three sets of despatchers and new offices all along the line were opened up, employing some thirty extra operators".

Chapleau citizens started going to Mulligan's Bay (named after Patrick Mulligan) early in its history and apparently the very first boat was a sail boat owned by J.B. Dexter, who helped found the Chapleau Brass Band, was a council member and fire chief.

This has just been a gimpse at some of the happenings in Chapleau mostly before 1900. Despite many obstacles the early citizens established a thriving community in the wilderness of Northern Ontario. 

Once again thanks to Margaret Rose (Payette) and Bobby Fortin -- both members of Chapleau pioneer families -- for loaning me the Richard Brownlee Papers. My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Director Steve Schmidt announces award winning Chapleau movie The Road to Tophet available February 26 on iTunes and VOD

Brian Edwards, Steve Schmidt

As the award winning  Chapleau centred movie The Road to Tophet moves to availability on iTunes and VOD on February 26, another step in its wider distribution, director Steven Schmidt provided an insight into the movie's history. What a fascinating story!!!  MJM

By Steve Schmidt, Director, The Road to Tophet

The Origins

Axel (Alex) Green and I had always talked about how great it would be to shoot a film set in our home town of Chapleau.  For me it was a realization that my home town had a distinct cultural impact on me.  The intersection of French, English and First Nations, the isolation of the town that inspired a certain joie de vivre and an outlaw spirit. It was something I wanted to see represented on film.

I also thought if we were going to make a movie in Chapleau, it would be cool to make a winter movie with snow and snowmobiles -  to really capture the essence of the north.

Steve, Axel Green

At a certain point Axel and I were both in Vancouver working in the film industry.  We had done a few short films together and were ready to try our hand at a feature.

Writing the Script
I had met Samuel Thivierge - who would go on to play Charlie - on some of those short films I had made with Axel.  He was a young, up and coming actor.  Very ambitious.  A very hard working guy.  Sam and I worked out the basic story for The Road to Tophet.  In the process of doing that we also wrote ‘Dead Simple’ - a short version of the type of feature film we wanted to make.  We shot Dead Simple on weekends.  After a few months it was done and, pleased with our effort, felt ready to take on a full length feature.

We set our sights on Chapeau and I began working with with Jeremy Beal (another ex-Chapleauite) on the script for the feature.  We wrote in English but decided we would shoot the film in English and in French where possible.

The Budget
We began raising money through friends and family.  We ran a ‘crowd funding’ campaign.  On a trip to Chapleau, we decided to screen Dead Simple and let the community know what we were up to.

Brian Edwards attended that screening.  He was the band administrator for Chapeau Cree First Nation and he put us in touch with the Band Council who made a very generous contribution to our budget and became our producing partner.

Casting
We began planning for production:  we put the word out and traveled to Sudbury to audition actors.  We moved on to Toronto.  We were looking for actors who were bilingual. I felt strongly that the show's success would hinge on casting.  Despite auditioning many many actors - nobody felt ‘right’.  We had cast some of the smaller characters but our lead actors - apart from Axel and Sam - remained uncast.  

We decided to do something unorthodox:  we turned to the internet.  We began auditioning people on Skype.  In this way we found Alika Autran in Vancouver, Soroush Saeidi in Toronto, Christine Teixiera in Montreal and Matt Connors in Sault Ste Marie - all of whom did ‘virtual’ auditions.  We hired them without ever being in the same room.

The Shoot
After a series of scheduling delays we finally assembled our team in Chapleau in March - ready to make our glorious winter movie.  The weather turned warm.  The snow began to melt.  At first slowly - then more quickly.  I despaired.  My winter movie was melting before my eyes.  But we had no choice.  We simply had to continue and play the hand that fate had dealt us.  I re-wrote the script as we filmed to accommodate the thaw.  We replaced snowmobiles with ATVs and then with motor bikes as the snow receded.  We re-shot scenes as needed.  It was never clear that we would be able to shoot the script in the few days that were available to us.

The community rallied to our cause providing locations for us to shoot, feeding our cast and crew and generally pitching in to help wherever and however they could.  Locals also appear in cameo roles throughout the movie - most notably Orville Robinson who regularly gets the biggest laugh as a foul-mouth bartender.


Post Production
After filming, I returned to Vancouver exhausted both physically and emotionally.  It had been a hard shoot.  In between my regular job of editing other people's projects, I edited The Road to Tophet.  

We held another ‘crowd funding’ campaign to finance post production and once again went to friends and family for the funds to complete the film.  We did the colour grading of the film and our sound mix at Technicolor in Toronto.

Festivals
With the finished show in hand we submitted to all the major film festivals - and were quickly ignored.  Even Sudbury Cinefest, whose mandate was to foster filmmaking in northern Ontario, passed.  It was a huge blow to our confidence.  But at the very same time, the Toronto Independent Film Festival said ‘yes’.  And we were thrilled.  We would have our world premiere in Toronto in September of 2014.  The day was almost unbearably hot and humid.  

We went into the screening - a full house at one of my favourite Toronto cinemas, The Carlton at Yonge and College.  When the movie ended, we emerged from the cinema to find the skies had opened and torrential rains poured down.  It felt in that moment that the years of work, the hopes and the dreams, the pent up emotions - all were released.  The audience had loved the show. At the reception that followed, we were treated like celebrities.  The flash bulbs popped!  We were in a daze.  The festival requested and added a second screening.  A few days later we learned we had won the award for Best Micro-Budget Feature. We were redeemed.

It took some time, being unknown filmmakers with no track record but we persisted and in the intervening years, the film played across Canada and the US - winning Best Director at the Greenbay Film Festival and Runner Up for People’s Choice at the Soo Film Festival in Michigan.

It played across Europe winning Best Screenplay at the International Filmmakers Festival in Berlin and receiving a Special Commendation for Direction from the Scottish Independent Film Festival.

In Montreal in February 2018 we won Best Canadian Feature at the Canada Film Festival.  It was at this time that we began to entertain the idea of a distribution deal with TVA Films.  The negotiations were lengthy and the deal required some formatting changes to the film in order to comply with broadcast specifications.

The BIG MOMENT

And now the moment we have worked towards for so long will soon arrive:  the film will be available on iTunes and VOD (Video-On-Demand) through your cable and dish providers on Tuesday, February 26th. 

TVA will also begin shopping the film to other platforms:  to broadcasters, cable  and other internet content providers.  Hopefully we will soon see our big screen movie on the little screen!

Pride in fledgling cast

We are proud especially of the work our fledgling cast have gone on to achieve.  Samuel Thivierge has had great success with his films la fille du Martin and Identite - both of which he wrote, directed and starred in.  Alike Autran recently starred in the massive futuristic Netflix series Altered Carbon.  Matt Connors has racked up a profusion of credits, most recently appearing in a multiple episodes of CityTV’s Mafia crime drama Bad Blood starring Kim Coates.  Chapleau’s own, Steve Gagne has gone on to appear in Star Trek: Discovery, Dark Matter and The Handmaid’s Tale to mention only a few of his credits. 

We hope that the people of Chapleau may take some pride in seeing our little town represented in a movie and we hope they will support us and download the film .  With the success of the this first film, the next Chapleau movie may be closer than you think! 

LORNE RILEY

I forgot one important thing:   One more Chapleau connection:  Lorne Riley saw the movie and wanted to make a music video.  We decided to use footage from The Road to Tophet with his song TWENTY YEARS which is a song he wrote about Chapleau.  The video will be released this week in connection with the release of the movie.  People can find the video on YouTube or on The Road to Tophet Facebook page

And...

Thanks Steve!!! Here is a comment about the movie from Lynne Brown in her review of it on saultonline.com: "The movie is awesome. The soundtrack is mesmerizing. The acting is superb. The writing is wickedly clever. ‘The Road to Tophet’ is an exhilarating journey to The Top of the World." My email is mj.morris@live.ca

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Reeve George Fife presents Chapleau key to Carnival King Dan Jessup at 1939 Winter Carnival

George Fife, Marie Perpete, Dan Jessup

The weather and the crowd at "the shrine of snow sports combined for a perfect opening" to the 1939 Chapleau Winter Carnival, according to an article in the Chapleau Post.

"Bright, brazing weather made more vivid the colourful costumes of spectators and competitors," the article said, but as an aside I could only find some black and white photos.

At the official opening where Reeve George Fife, the grandfather of Robert Fife, now Ottawa Bureau Chief of The Globe and Mail, presented the key to Chapleau to 1939 Carnival King Dan Jessup, the mayor of Sudbury, everything had been closed "lock, stock and barrel" and it seemed everyone was on hand. The article noted there were 225 visitors on hand with more coming on the trains. 

Arthur Grout the general manager of the "snow show" predicted 500 visitors would be there and the carnival would show a profit of $500. This was incredible remembering that the Great Depression was just ending. 

In 1939 Chapleau was 10 years away from having highway access.

A major feature as the carnival got underway was a figure skating show. The Chapleau skaters who only had nine weeks training as there was only natural ice in the old old arena on Lorne Street were instructed by C. Baker from Fort William who had been presuaded  to take the job.

Back: Rita Payette, Shirley Matheson, Freda Depew. Front: Evelyn Sheahan, Rhonda McQuaig, Shirley Nixon

Back: Rita Payette, Shirley Matheson, Freda Depew. Front: Evelyn Sheahan, Rhonda McQuaig, Shirley Nixon

Among those skaters appearing in their first show were Frank Block, Lorne Block, Helen Morin, Juliette Morin, Charles Corks, Shirley Nixon, Freda Depew, Rhonda McCuaig, Evelyn Sheahan, Rita Payette, Selma 'Sally' Uugo, Alice Depew, Marion Morris (my aunt), Shirley Matheson,  Cecelia St. Amand and Vivian Vizena.   Another article states that 25 members of the new Chapleau Figure Skating Club were involved along with skaters from Copper Cliff and Toronto.

The article noted that the skaters were nicely attired in costumes made in Chapleau but it does not tell us who made them.

Mr. Jessup was crowned after the parade in a ceremony at the ski hill. He received his diadem and sceptre from Fred Depew, secretary of the YMCA who had been the King of the first carnival in 1937. C.J McGregor, CPR superintendent was King in 1938.

From photos it looks like everyone in Chapleau attended the carnival parade. The population was over 2,500 in 1939.

Looks like everyone in Chapleau at parade

After the coronation of the King, the selection of the Snow Queen took place. The contestants were Rita Crichton, Mae Blackburn, Angelina Riley and Violet Therrien. Rita Crichton was named the 1939 Queen,

In his remarks Mr. Jessup complimented Chapleau on its carnival commenting that a lot of hard work had made the vision of a carnival come true. 

The old old rink had been recently "rebuilt" inside and a crowd of close to 1000 people were there for carnival activities which filled it almost to capacity. 

Skiing was another major attraction and the Koski brothers, Walter and Taunor of Nemegos ran almost a dead heat in the five mile senior skiing test. Walter just beat his brother to the finish line. 

The ski hill in 1939 was located at what I call "Dr. Young's Hill" but that was not its name in 1939. There was also a toboggan slide.

In the young skiers race honours were taken by Yvon Morin in first place with his brother Romeo in second over a half mile course.

There were many other activities during the three day carnival. 

Thanks again to Margaret Rose (Payette) and Bobby Fortin for kindly loaning me the Richard Brownlee papers. Happy Valentine's Day!!!!! I hope you are also enjoying the 2019 Chapleau Winter Carnival!!