Allan Ritchie shares life and experience with grandson Lark in 'First Communion - Last Communion'

Allan Ritchie with pike 1954 (Ritchie collection)

Writing about his grandfather Allan Ritchie, his grandson Lark noted that he was probably the first 'High-Tech Communication Specialist' out of Moose Factory. He arrived in Chapleau in 1904.

Mr. Ritchie, who was a familiar participant in Chapleau parades, worked a large part of his life as a CPR telegraph operator at various relay points west and east of Chapleau. Allan Earland Ritchie died in may 1961.

I am delighted that through Brian Ritchie, Lark's brother, I am able to share "First Communion - Last Communion', written about time spent with his grandfather. It first appeared in www.kamazooie.com 

'First Communion - Last Communion' by Lark Ritchie

On a Thursday evening in May, in the Spring of 1961, my mother fried some pike fillets and sent me with them to the Lady Minto Hospital. I brought them to my grandfather, who lay there in the last stages of cancer. I was twelve years old, and he, sixty seven.

"Hello", I said, as I entered his room. He opened his eyes and looked up with a short reply. "Hi Boy, sit down". I sat. He arranged himself, moving a pillow under his side, facing me. We both knew his conditions, though we did not talk about it.

A silence continued. We were used to silence, we had spent my life until that point as grandfather and grandson. Walking and sitting together; few words, long periods of silence, interspersed with teachings and play that helped make me who I am today.

I handed him a small brown paper bag. "Mommy made some fish for you," I mumbled, and handed the bag to him. He accepted the bag, and pulled out two packages wrapped in white translucent waxed paper. He unwrapped one. "Ooo, Fish", he said. His expression conveyed that this was an important thing, and that somehow, I was special for bringing it to him. "Where is it from? What kind?"

"It’s Pike," I replied, "From down the river."

"Who caught it?"

"Daddy caught it. Down past the rapids, in the weedbed near the beach."

We both knew that place; we had traveled the river and each bend, each weed bed was as familiar to us as the cupboards of our homes. For others who travel the river, that spot is on the east side of Henderson Lake, a small sand beach now used by hunters in the fall as a moose hunt campground.

Again we entered a moment of silence, as he broke a fillet into two. "Have some with me," and he handed me a small piece. "I already ate," I said, "we had it for supper." He offered it again, urging the fragment towards me, "Have just a little piece with me; it’s better to eat together."

I took it and ate it.

Allan Ritchie Chapleau carnival (Ritchie collection)

For some seconds, we chewed, and swallowed. "It’s good." The short sentence trailed off, almost a whisper. I watched him break off another piece, which he handed to me. I accepted it. He broke off one for himself, and as he did, I saw tears in his eyes. The first tears I had ever seen in those eyes, and the last. My own eyes welled with the same warm water. He rolled onto his back, looked at me, and his hand motioned, "Eat." He placed his own piece into his mouth, and chewed. I did the same.

He looked up, past the hospital ceiling towards a sky he saw in his mind, "We used to camp there, on that beach, it is a good place for a break; to cook." He wiped his lips, and then his eyes; first one, and then the other. "Across the river, there is a small bay; behind the island. It’s another good place to fish." And he told me a story of a fish he had caught there, and how he had used a green line and a sucker to catch it, and how it had flopped in the canoe. He told me one more; of a bear on a rock, just down the river a bit.

Our tears had passed, and he asked me about school, and what it was like outside. I do not remember what else we talked about, or when, or how I left. But it was the last time we ate together, and talked of fishing and hunting, of canoeing and camping. I saw him one more time; two days before the end. He was unaware.

We had shared a fish. Looking back at it now, it was an act of communion. A final sharing of knowledge, and being together. A passing. The basis of that communion was the river, and the life and lifestyle it provided. Two people connecting, two adjacent generations. Two ages of humanity; one moving into the past, one into the future, bound together by memories of a river. Saying goodbye.

This little story illustrates the central significance of the environment in many Native American lives. When in the last days of life, a man remembers and shares life and experience in the context and framework of a river, we begin to understand the subtle, yet vital interweaving of ecology and being, a fundamental entity in personal and social identity.

My very best wishes for a most blessed and Happy Easter, My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Chapleau Intermediate 'A' Huskies dominated regular season in 1977-78 but failed in playoffs

Bill Scheer with Ron Larcher on his right

When the Northland Intermediate Hockey League released its 1977-78 season statistics, it showed that the Chapleau Intermediate Huskies dominated several categories, according to the Chapleau Sentinel.

But, for the third successive year, the Huskies failed to defeat their arch rival Timmins North Stars in the semi-finals losing in six games. The North Stars went on to win the league championship.

In regular season play, the Huskies won 24 games, lost four and tied two for 50 points, a first place finish 18 points ahead of the Calvert GMs.

The North Stars were in third place with 14 wins, 13 losses and three ties. The Kapuskasing As had 30 points, based on 14 wins, 14 losses and two ties for fourth place.

The expansion Cochrane Commandos and Heasrt lumberkings did not make the playoffs.

Bill Scheer of the Huskies won the league scoring title with 41 goals and 43 assists for 84 points, while Ivan Fournier of Calvert was second with 43 goals and 39 assists.

Pat Swanson was in fourth spot in league scoring with 30 goals and 45 assists.

Paul Scheer, who was named league Rookie of the Year was in fifth spot with 22 goals and 46 assists. Paul also set a league record for assists.

David McAdam and Glen Cappellani of the Huskies had the best goaltending average in the league with a combined average of 3,70 goals against.

Paul, Bill, Pat and Jamie Doyle with 25 goals and 26 assists, were the only players on the Huskies to score more than 20 goals in regular season play. But David McMillan was close with 19 goals and 30 assists.

Jamie and Dave finished in 11th and 12th spots respectively in league scoring.

Tom Laframboise of the Huskies led the team penalty parade with 65 minutes followed by Pat with 63 placing both of them in the league top ten. 

However, the Huskies coached by Doug Prusky, were the second least penalized team in the league with 485 minutes while the North Stars led with 802 minutes. Kapuskasing was least penalized with 428 minutes.

According to league statistics Ted Swanson was the only member of the Huskies to play in every game of the schedule. In fact, Ted was the only player to participate in every game over the team's four years in the Northland League.

And, with the end of the 1977-78 season, the Chapleau Memorial Community Arena closed its doors after serving the community for 27 years. It was opened in February 1951 and the A.W. Moore Arena, named after "Mrs. Hockey" Moore, part of the Chapleau Recreation Centre was officially opened 37 years ago on June 29, 1978.

And please, after all these years, don't ask me "how come" the Huskies failed in the playoffs after such a  successful regular season. Even though I was the manager, I couldn't figure it out then, and all these years later, sure can't now. 

But I can tell you, they remain the best of the best to me 37 years later. My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Photos by John Theriault

Harper prepares for his next glorious war

Perceptions by Gerry Warner
Stephen Harper is a war monger and he loves guns too! No wonder he’s preparing to send troops into Syria and telling rural Canadians to arm themselves because the Canadian countryside is unsafe.
What else can you conclude after Harper’s bizarre comments last week on the need for a rural arms race and his musing about sending our jets into Syria after what started out as a “non-combat” mission in Iraq. And he even brought his own wife into his dark discussion!
“My wife’s from a rural area and obviously gun ownership wasn’t just for the farm, but was for a certain level of security when you’re a ways away from immediate police assistance.” Harper told the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister didn’t say if Laureen kept a gun under the pillow while he’s away fighting the Taliban in Ottawa. But Harper’s remarks were troubling and ignorant on several levels not to say belligerent coming from the chief law maker of the land.
For starters, Canadian law does not give homeowners in urban or rural areas unfettered rights to blow away someone who unintentionally or intentionally happens to stumble onto your property in the dead of the night. “The suggestion that rural people have firearms in case the police cannot reach them in time is not really consistent with Canadian law on lawful use of force but smacks of American arming for self-protection.” said Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, in an email to the Ottawa Citizen.
It also smacks of taking the law into your own hands and vigilante “justice,” but this doesn’t seem to bother Harper and his core supporters, whom he was clearly playing to when he made his gun toting remarks. And with an election coming soon, there’s money to be raised for Conservative coffers as was made plain by Jenni Byrne, the party’s hard-bitten campaign manager and former deputy chief of staff in Harper’s office
“As someone who grew up in a rural part of our country, I was proud to hear what the Prime Minister had to say yesterday,” said Byrne in an email sent to Conservative supporters “Our Conservative party recognizes that guns play an important role in the livelihoods, recreation and safety of many Canadians. And we’re standing up for responsible gun-owning Canadians.”
The National Rifle Association in the US couldn’t have said it better.
And for those who bristle at Harper being called a war monger, have you ever considered how much of your tax money the Prime Minister spent on glorification of the almost forgotten War of 1812, which was actually fought on our behalf by
the British? Our spendthrift Prime Minister spent $28 million on the bicentennial celebrating the forgotten war, including such necessary adornments as a special silver coin, which cost $60-a-piece, a new national monument, funding for historical re-enactments, upgrades to historic sites and even a new mobile phone app! If you don’t think our Prime Minister enjoys a “good” war, you must think the Toronto Maple Leafs will win the Stanley Cup this year.
And then there’s Syria, a place Harper is obviously itching to go with an announcement expected in Parliament next week. The fact that Syria is not at war with us doesn’t seem to deter the Prime Minister nor the fact that the war would be illegal under International Law. But the US and its Middle East allies have been bombing ISIS in Syria since last summer and we know that legal niceties won’t
stop our Prime Minister from sucking up to Uncle Sam.
How sad! We’ve already lost one of our soldiers to “friendly fire” in Iraq and we lost 158 soldiers in 12 years of fighting in Afghanistan – and did not defeat the Taliban – while suicide took 178 Canadian Forces members over the same period.
Surely there’s a message here, but it seems to be lost on our war mongering Prime Minister.



Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who believes politicians should serve in the wars they support.