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Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 - 14:44:03

 

Since 1999, Kaireen Morrison has made it her goal to record the memories and tales of over 150 people who call Wawa, Ontario their home. Whether their tale is solo or covers the entire family, whether they were born and bred a Wawa-ite or whether they left for greener pastures, or whether in fact they came for “just a couple of years” and have been here since, Kaireen has talked to them all. And all of them have given her permission to publish their stories in one of 10 volumes of her booklets titled Through Our Eyes.

In 1999, the Province of Ontario provided funds to community groups to commemorate the International Year of the Older Person. The Wawa Senior Citizens Goose Club asked Kaireen and the local Michipicoten Heritage Committee to help them come up with a worthy project. With the help of seniors in the Goose Club, squeaky tape recorders and dusty typewriters, Kaireen and the Michipicoten Heritage Committee printed 27 individual stories in Through Our Eyes – Volume 1.

Each story is as diverse as the residents who make up this remote Northern Ontario town.

A Slovenian citizen during World War II, Zivko Kneisel was declared a Displaced Person and was recruited to work underground in the Belgian coal mines. He has vivid memories of cheating death after a slab of stone trapped him during one of his many shifts. He managed to earn enough money to pay for passage to Toronto in 1951. A telegram from Wawa promised a job at the Algoma Ore Properties iron mine operations. He worked there until his retirement 30 years later and enjoyed 48 years of marriage to his Yugoslavian sweetheart Mima.

Vicki Switzer recalls her first impressions of Wawa. “I remember stepping off the train in September, 1948…As we drove along I thought, “My oh my, a one horse town”, only to find out it was actually a two horse town! They were owned by Mr. A.M. George, a dark-colored one and a white. They had the run of the town and were found in many backyards eating or trampling kitchen gardens. On a dark and foggy night, upon rounding a corner, it was quite startling to suddenly be confronted by an eerie spectre rising through the mist. What a relief to find it was only the white horse.”

Helen Devon remembers the good old days from the 1920’s. “We travelled to Wawa by train and moved into a tall house of squared timbers set on a hill above Wawa Lake…The floors were unvarnished hardwood and had to be scrubbed every week. Many’s the patch I scrubbed over again because it didn’t come up white…Dad bought a cow so we would have fresh milk as we had a young baby in the house. The alternative was something called Klim or powdered milk. People from the mine often asked to buy a quart of the fresh milk, and before we knew it Dad bought another cow, and another, and another. The cows were shipped by boat to Michipicoten Harbour on Lake Superior, and soon we found ourselves delivering milk to residences at the Minto as well as the Parkhill Mine a few miles beyond the Minto. Summers weren’t so bad, but winter found us running around from house to house in the early starry darkness, running as much to keep warm as to get the job done.”

The stories offer invaluable snapshots of Wawa’s colourful archive of families and individuals who helped carve the foundation for a unique northern town in our rugged Northern Ontario landscape. A number of the contributors have since passed on and as a result their chapters in Kaireen’s booklets have become that much more treasured.

After 10 years, this project is still going strong. Kaireen shares credit with her husband who helps with the transcription of a growing collection of tapes. Hearing challenged since the age of 5, Kaireen requires husband John to listen to the interviews and repeat each sentence while she transcribes the memories into her laptop. Much of the stories are left in the exact words of the individual story-tellers. For the readers who remember the faces and the names, it is easy to hear the actual voice and idiosyncrasies captured in the neatly edited chapters complete with black and white photos.

Kaireen states in the Foreword to Volume 9 “It has been an interesting exercise, delving into the past from so many different perspectives, and putting into print what amounts to oral history, all of which is worthy of preservation.”

Kaireen just received Through Our Eyes Volume 10 hot off the press and is preparing herself for Through Our Eyes Volume 11. Originally maintained as an ongoing project with the Wawa Seniors’ Club, she is now the sole volunteer. Any monies realized from the book sales are used to pay for printing costs for future volumes. The books are far from being on the Chapters best sellers list. They are, however, priceless in the eyes of the families, friends and residents who now have a permanent record of the “good old days” through the eyes of those who actually lived it.

A young woman in her early 70’s, Kaireen is far from running out of story-tellers. She recently came to the startling conclusion that she is actually eligible to include her own unique story of 48 years as an active Wawa resident. As her daughter, the time may come where I will take up the pen and continue where her capable hands eventually come to rest.
 

 

Wawa’s “Through Our Eyes” Story-tellers

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