WJW in the Octagon

Another artifact from Mom and Dad's effects--a photo of Dad's dad in a frame made of orange and blue thread wrapped around a metal octagon, presumably made by Hope Woods. 
 

Sawing Logs with Logs

Asleep on the job, eh? I'll capture it in black and white. 

These are the words my grandmother or grandfather might have thought in 1940 when they snapped this photo. 
 

Reddit Glimpses Cranberry Portage

 

I came upon this post on r/1980s on Reddit just now, and I thought "Wow, this looks just like Grandma's place did in the 1980s. Hey...that looks like Mom and Dad's green Ford station wagon. And that looks like an Alberta plate. HEY...wait a minute..." 

I searched my own blog for the keywords "Cranberry Portage," and here's the source of the Reddit photo.

Pilfered from my own blog! But I'm not angry. How many images have I used from the web? Plenty. I think this is kind of neat. 

Hope at the Ridge

Grandma Hope at "the Ridge," according to the back of the photo, 1941. 
 

Grandma and the Snowman

Here's our paternal grandmother, Hope Woods, with a short-statured, fully clothed snowman. Or is it a snowman? The head looks more like paper with a face drawn onto it. Another strange mystery from the Woods family tree. OHO pun not intended, but I'll keep it. 
 

National Cafe Rooms

 Based on some Internet sleuthing, it's possible that this photo of Grandma was shot in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. 

Thumbs and Suspenders

I like Grandad's pose and grin here. Grandma seems appreciative, too. 
 

Grandma at Prince Albert National Park

Here's a picture of my paternal grandmother standing on a car at the entrance to Prince Albert National Park in June, 1941. Can anyone identify the make and model of the car? 

I've been to Prince Albert a few times, but I'm not sure if I've ever been to its namesake national park. Something to add to the list . . . 
 

Hope Woods in a Log House

This log house features in several photos of Dad's parents, so I feel as though they may have lived here for a time. 
 

Cranberry Portage Evacuated

Cranberry Portage has been evacuated as a wildfire closes in on the tiny community. My paternal grandmother and her partner Val lived in Cranberry Portage for as long as I knew them; it lies just a few kilometers south of Flin Flon, my birthplace. 

Cranberry Portage is barely a blip on the highway, home to just a handful of businesses and some dozens of homes; it's a peaceful, quiet, lovely corner of northern Manitoba. I hope it survives this latest crisis. 

Grandma and Val's house in 2006, demolished after their deaths a few years back. Warm memories. 

Faculty of ENG

Electronic News Gathering, that is. Well, not really; I'm simply lugging around the VHS camcorder that Grandma and Val gave the family back in the late 80s or early 90s. Here I am in 1990 or 1991, caught in the act of preparing to videotape some Lister Hall shenanigans at the University of Alberta. Behind me stands Iain Getty, who I reconnected with decades later during the brief period we were both working at ATCO Electric at the same time. 

The Fading Stones

Old photographs fascinate me. Here we have what appears to be a stone fence connected to a round stone building. Who shot this? Where did they shoot it, and when? What's the significance of the building?

Based on the other negatives on the strip, I can  limit the "who" to my parents or Dad's parents. "When" could be anytime between the 1950s to the 1960s. Beyond that...a mystery captured in silver nitrate. Or, since this is a scan, in photons, inconstant as memory.

UPDATE: Mom says this could be Upper Fort Garry, north of Winnipeg, sometime in the late 1960s. 

Hope and William

Yesterday I scanned some very old black and white negatives for Mom, and among them was this photo of my paternal grandparents, Hope and William Woods. They both look quite young here, perhaps the youngest I've seen them; I have no idea where or when this photo might have been taken. 

Grandma's Birthday, 1986

I found this in an envelope of some of the photos Mom and Dad salvaged from Grandma's home after she and Val died - tragically, many were missing. Nice to have this one, even with Mom and Sean closing their eyes. 

Money Spent in 1941

While helping Dad with some stuff a couple of weekends ago, we came across this old record of the money his parents spent in 1941, a year before Dad was born. It looks like most of the spending supported their farm; they bought $55 worth of lumber, a $25 plough, a team of horses for $117, $23 for wages (a farm hand, perhaps?), two harnesses for $30, $15 in oats, $5 worth of nails, a $25 cow, and a $20 trip to Prince Albert, among other fascinating items. 

The House that Jack Built

During the 1970s, we drove to Cranberry Portage many times to visit my paternal grandmother. Grandma had an old Singer sewing machine with a drawer filled with fun toys and knick-knacks for my brother and me to amuse ourselves with. Naught survives but this Wade Whimsies ceramic model of the house that Jack built, of nursery rhyme fame. Grandma had this Wade Whimsy, and others, because they came packaged with Red Rose tea. How I managed to come into the possession of this lone survivor, I don't recall. 

I was surprised to learn just now that Red Rose still distributes Wade Whimsies with its tea. 

Hope and Bill

Here are my paternal grandparents, Hope and Bill Woods, near the house they rented in Dauphin, Manitoba, sometime in the late 1950s. I don't have a lot of photos of Dad's side of the family, so each image like this one is precious, particularly since Bill Woods passed away before my brother or I were born. 

Grandma, Granddad and Dad

Here's a partially restored photo of Dad and Grandma and Grandad. It looks like this was a professional portrait shot in a studio of some kind. I'm terrible at guessing the age of toddlers, but I think Dad can't be more than one or two years old in this photo, which would mean it was taken in 1943 or 1944.

I scanned this using Google's PhotoScan app, since my proper scanner is broken. Once I have a new scanner, I'll be able to capture a cleaner image. Still, this isn't bad for a handheld scan! 

No Unsharp Mask Can Save Thee

While scanning the family collection of negatives, I came across an entire roll of film shot out of focus. I have no idea how this could happen. And it's a shame, because the photos capture an early 1980s trip back to Cranberry Portage. I tried re-scanning the roll to see if it was some weird scanner configuration problem, but no dice. And the blur is so bad that tools like unsharp mask can't fix it.

Quelle dommage, as they say in France! 

A Dog in the Shadows

By now everyone knows that I'm not a dog person, but I find this image strangely evocative. This would be the dog of my paternal grandparents, shot sometime in the early 1960s.