When I entered high school at age 13, I had not the faintest idea that history mattered.  The people that lived and events that happened before I was born, and when I was growing up, had a tremendous impact on my life, but I had no idea.  As we grow older, we all become historians.
 I have never seen this photographic view before.  It is of personal interest because it shows the location of the high school, which I began attending as a Grade 9 student in September 1953, when I arrived in Geraldton. 

The high school building in 1953 was originally the public school, a one-storey structure of 4 classrooms.  By 1938, the board had added a second storey.  In 1940, the Town of Geraldton had appointed a high school board, which proceeded to construct  a one-storey building of 2 rooms immediately south of the public school, on the same grounds.  The new high school opened on September 3rd with 46 students, Grades 9 to 12.  When I started high school in 1953, this building was called "the annex"; it stood empty except when the girls used it for gym classes.

For September 1942, the high school board rented the Ukrainian Hall, a one-storey building which stood on the corner of Hogarth Ave. and First Street East.  It became the Junior High School.  It had two outdoor privies, and sometime later, chemical toilets.  Today it is a two-storey apartment block. 
By 1944, the high school board had to rent more space, this time in the T. Eaton Co. building (when I returned in 1970, this was the town office) on the corner of Hogarth Ave. and Main Street.  Both school boards began casting about for more classroom space.

In 1946, the school boards acquired two buildings from the Bankfield mine, no longer operating.  The smaller bunkhouse (28 by 56 feet) was relocated immediately north of the public school (as you see in the photo) and was named "the public school annex", having 2 classrooms (the original two-storey public school then had 8 classrooms).

The high school board relocated the two-storey bunkhouse (30 by 90 feet) next to the high school (see the photo), and its original one-storey building subsequently acquired the name "the high school annex" , , , 
I'm hoping some readers can share their memories of those old-time buildings now erased from the landscape.

Read the full post with photos on E.J. Lavoie's Blog > http://bit.ly/2ei2pRQ

Isn't that a marvelous title?  I have waited half a lifetime for an excuse to invent that title.  Ever since I saw the documentary film The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar. 

The latest incarnation of that title to inflict a rash of envy upon me is the TV series Lark Rise to Candleford.  Haven't watched a single episode yet, I am so green with jealousy.

So, enjoy the title of this post.  And read on, for you won't be disappointed.

In a single day I traveled from the snow-haunted woods of the world's second largest boreal forest to the shore of the world's largest and still unfrozen freshwater sea, and back again.  Wow wow wow.  I shall never forget it.

I was driving my faithful '97 Nissan Patfinder.  Yes, faithful.  I got the gas line break and the leak in the gas tank taken care of, and I would stake my life on that truck now.  Oftentimes I have.

I started at daybreak yesterday, after a centimetre of fresh snow had fallen overnight, adding to the two centimetres that had fallen a day or two before.  The Goldfield Road runs due south to the North Shore of Lake Superior, linking Hwys. 11 & 17, the two – the only two – cross-Canada road links through the boreal region.

The vehicle tracks in the freshly fallen snow told me I was not alone – that if my faithful truck broke down, I would be found within the next day or two.  Twenty minutes later, I was following only two tracks, the others having turned off.  Another twenty minutes, and I was following a single track.  Another forty minutes, and I was alone, breaking trail.  It started to snow.  Steadily.

I saw it up ahead, about three-quarters of a kilometre away on a straight stretch.  It was travelling on the northbound side of the Goldfield.  I figured at first it was human . . . [It turned out] I was looking at the largest black wolf I have ever seen . . .

ORIGINAL POST 18 November 2011 (first of 3 chapters)
Read the full post with colour photos on E.J. Lavoie's Blog > http://bit.ly/2feBvga