Photo-Finish Friday -- Wagon Wheel at Fort Assiniboine

Fort Assiniboine constructed a fort many long years ago. It includes a community meeting centre and a museum. Outside it the worlds largest wagon wheel and pick has been put up as a tourist attraction. The photo looks toward the north and west toward the school and the edge of town.
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And a very happy Friday the 13th to all my blog guests.

Photo-Finish Friday -- The Old Home Town

Part of Main Street Fort Assiniboine, Alberta. We're heading east down the street to the store.

Gratitude Monday -- Ahh, Malarkey

Lamb Malarkey

Yesterday was the first day of autumn and it felt like it.
I've always loved and appreciated the change of season. Each has its own charms and reminds us to be grateful for the weather we have because it is going to change whether we like it or not.
A wee bit of fall feeling hiding underneath a reasonably sunny day made me think of comfort food for colder weather.
I chose lamb and decided it was time to dust off my mental recipe file and see about making a one-pot meal, thus the above.
I am grateful for the change of seasons, the cooler weather, and the chance to make comfort foods to warm us and fill us.
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Why the name?
Glad you asked!
It was the Harvest Supper in Fort Assiniboine circa 1968. Plenty of turkey and the trimmings and other foods as well, I think there were even cabbage rolls. I hope so because whoever made the cabbage rolls at those suppers was truly gifted.
One dish was a rice and tomato mixture. It may have had hamburger in it, too. I don't know because I didn't take any of it.
But Randy Brong did. He was a year ahead of me in school and right in my line of vision as I sat down to eat.
He'd taken the rice dish. He looked at his heaped plate, eyes focused on its deep red goodness, and said, "What is this...malarkey?"
From that day forward I associated the dish with the term.
When I started making one pot meals like the above I couldn't help myself: It's all malarkey to me.

Gratitude Monday -- Bus Kids

I barely recognized many of the people I saw back home in Fort Assinboine on Saturday, but many of them recognized me. That's just one of the many things for which I am grateful.
People who rode a particular school bus driven by a particular gentleman decided to have a bus kids reunion. The fellow, Clyde Evernden, drove from 1951 to the 1965/66 school year.
That's a lot of former kids. As the main organizer noted some of those former kids are gone.
He drove me for Gr. 1 and 2. That's 48 and 49 years ago and my excuse for having to look at name tags and then ask the bearers of those tags for further details.

Bus kids and others

Organizers opened up the reunion for other locals who wanted to drop in and visit. That was a grand thing to do and I am grateful for it.
I saw people I hadn't seen for decades. We ate. We talked. We laughed.
Someone organized horse and wagon rides for touring the hamlet. I went. I am glad.
A fellow I went to school with gave a fine commentary. He's on county council and the fire department and knows a great deal about the area. He's also the grandson of the above-noted bus driver. I hadn't known that until I asked him why he was there. In fairness I may have known once and forgotten, but that's as good as not knowing at all.
I spoke to the woman who taught me in Gr. 4 and a bit of Gr. 6. She told me I was sharp in those days and noted how I'd  come at things in a different way than others,  but I was right. It was good to hear and I am grateful for it.
It was a wonderful day and one of the finest reasons ever for a reunion.

Fort Assiniboine

It's a three hour drive from here to there and the same again back. It was long day, but a good one and for it I am grateful.

ETA: By popular demand here are the names of some of the people in the photo.
Front going clockwise Dorothy Utas, ?, Bob Janssen, Jean (Utas) Janssen.
Second row from left: ?, Dorene (Stauffer) Williams, Louise Borg Patrick.
Third row from left: Gary Davidson(?), Hilda Storseth Froese, not sure but possible her mother Florence Storseth.
Fourth row from left: Orriel (Olson)Vobeyda, not sure but could be Ruby(Olson) Schmaus or Avis(Olson). Far right between Dorene and Louise may be either Bev (Evernden) Kluin or Shirley (Evernden) Ashby.
In the kitchen on the left is Laurie (Graham) Budney.
If anyone can supply missing names or can correct my mistakes please do so and there's no need to be gentle about it.

A View from a Hill

This is the hill above Fort Assiniboine, Alberta. It's been cut down some over the years and the bottom curve's been smoothed out, but those are minor changes.
It's still the hill I rode down every morning when I went to school and the hill we took to get anywhere that requited going through the Fort.

Something about this descent calms me. I look out over the vast green forest, gaze at the sure steady flow of the Athabasca River, and let my eyes rest on the faraway rise to the south and it could be any year, any season.
Time has ceased.
I am any age and every age, but mostly I am young again. As I look out over this scene and into the village I am reminded that anything is possible.

Photo-Finish Friday - - United Still Stands

The United Church in Fort Assiniboine, Alberta, has been around a long time.
I was baptized in it and I attended services until I stopped going to church at age nine.
If memory serves the year Fort Assiniboine celebrated it's 150th anniversary the church celebrated it's 25th year.
By extrapolation, I'll suggest that turns 62 years old this year.
It's looking pretty good.

Gratitude Monday -- A Nice, Fresh Year to Play With

Athabasca Lookout in the Sandhills east of Ft. Assiniboine, Alberta.

Here it is, 2010, a nice fresh year to play with. A whole year with no mistakes in it, to paraphrase the title character of Anne of Green Gables.
Resolutions? Nah. Not as such, anyway.
Rather than resolve to do anything concrete or set any goals or give myself things to achieve I decided instead to go about it like this:
I'll take the year as it comes and try not to mess up too badly.
If I do mess up too badly, then I'll take the consequences as they come.
Whatever comes down the pike, I'll be grateful for the experience of it.
And you?

Photo-Finish Friday - Ferry Across The Athabasca

The Klondike Ferry across the Athabasca River east of Fort Assiniboine.

I've crossed the river by ferry here many times. It is one of my fondest memories of growing up. Ferry rides were free in daylight, but I am sure there was a sign that said night crossings were 50 cents.

My dad knew the ferryman well enough to go fishing at the Vega Ferry. It was called that as after you crossed the river you were in the district of Vega. I recall once he borrowed the boat attached to it, though it's been so long most of the details are lost to time. I know we didn't stay out too long as the Athabasca was teeming with whitefish in those days. Catching the limit took only a few minutes.

They are, or at least were, a tasty fish. Dad took care of frying them as mom always said she couldn't cook fish. I never knew if she meant she couldn't do it the way dad liked it, or she simply had sense enough to see a break from cooking and took it.

It didn't matter. Dad caught them, cleaned them, and fried them, and we ate well.

A closer look at the ferry.

Photo-Finish Friday -- Welcome Home Edition

This is the house my Granddad Utas built in the mid-1920s. My dad was about six when they moved to the Fort Assiniboine area from the Bashaw area. Dad said they lived for six months in a covered wagon until the house was ready.
My parents lived in it for a few years and I spent my first year here.
It's a bit worse for wear these days and the trees have reclaimed most of it, but the door is open and it's still my first home.

Photo-Finish Friday --The Old Home Town Edition

This is Fort Assiniboine, Alberta.

It's where I'm from and this is the sight that greeted me every school day morning of my life. I never tired of it in the 12 years I went to school and I haven't tired of this sight in the 50 years and change I've walked the Earth.
The Athabasca River makes a bend here. It's obscured by the trees on the hillside in the foreground in this photo, but it is there.
The Fort was a hamlet, then it became a village, then it reverted to hamlet in the mid-1990s.
I like that it's a hamlet simply because the title suits the scenery.

Still Burning Over Book Banning

Bastard Toadflax

I don’t like being told what I can and can’t read. My parents knew this so they commonly let me read almost anything when I was growing up. This was a good decision.
Generally speaking my sister didn’t care what I read either.
Except there was this one time, more than 40 years ago, and to this day it galls me.
We were coming back from visiting relatives in Salmon Arm, B.C., a trip that took a day and a half from Fort Assiniboine, Alberta, back then. My Uncle in Salmon Arm had given us some books to take home. He was a voracious reader and had hundreds of books, many of which were wonderful pulp science fiction.
On the car ride home I picked up a double novel, “Our Man in Space,” by Bruce W. Ronald and “Ultimatum in 2050 A.D.” by Jack Sharkey (Ace Double, copyright 1965). I still have this book in my bookcase.
My sister, four years older than me, started in on something called “The Parasite.”
I finished mine and wanted to read hers. She wasn’t reading it and what she had read of it scared her. Because of this, she told mom I shouldn’t read it.
Even then at age nine the unfairness of it burned me. What I read is my choice mine alone.
Now, before this gets any further, please understand. This has nothing to do with my sister looking out for me. This is my sister’s fear being so unreasonable that she couldn’t handle anyone else reading this book.
So mom took the book into the front seat of the car. I fussed a bit then decided I’d dig it out when we got home.
I never saw that book again.
I still have the one I read plus many hundreds of others. My parents had probably every other book ever given to them.
Within about a year a radio play came on that started with some guy telling his doctor about a growth on his shoulder. That’s as far as it got because my sister started screaming,“That’s ‘The Parasite’ I know it.”

Off went the radio.
I’ve tried to find this book through the Internet. I’ve found something by Arthur Conan Doyle with the same name, but I have no idea if it’s the same story.
It’s been more than 40 years since this happened. Whenever I search through used books there’s the small spark of hope that I’ll find it.
Maybe I’ll hate the story. Maybe it’ll scare me. But that’s for me to find out, not for anyone else to dictate.
Maybe this is why I hate book banning so much. It goes beyond being wrong, stupid, reprehensible, offensive, and inexcusable. For me, it’s personal.

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As for the picture of Bastard Toadflax, it's not really related to the post other than it's parasitic, but it's name fits my mood.