Google Street View Goes Up Manitoba 391

At long last, you can drive virtually to all the way to Lynn Lake on Manitoba 391 using Google Street View. This route takes you through Leaf Rapids, where I spent a memorable childhood; it's also where Sean was born. 

You can even explore certain parts of Leaf Rapids itself, though why Google didn't map the whole town while they were up there is beyond me--they didn't even capture the Town Centre, the community's primary infrastructure. 

But I did notice this: 

We moved to Leaf Rapids so that Dad (with Mom's help) could set up and manage the new Acklands store, seen here on the right. To the left of the old Acklands building is the former Midi Mart, the town convenience store, home of the Wigwag candy bar and Pink Elephant popcorn, among many other treats. All abandoned now. 

Life is a Highway in Northern Manitoba

Canadian rock musician Tom Cochrane and Lynn Lake native is being honoured by the Manitoba government; Manitoba Highway 391 is being named after him.

I'm familiar with Lynn Lake, of course, having visited a few times during our family's time in Leaf Rapids, the closet community to Lynn Lake. I didn't realize that Cochrane hailed from there. As the CBC story notes, he'll actually be playing Lynn Lake next year. I'm trying to imagine what venue will be available for the show...northern Manitoba is not exactly overflowing with decent infrastructure.

Here's Highway 391:

For the record, I'm not really a fan of "Life is a Highway," but I still think the honour is pretty cool, and I do really love "Boy Inside the Man" and "Lunatic Fringe."

Here's an image of Sean and me on Highway 391. Perhaps we're dancing to "Life is a Highway." 

The 391 Shuffle

Manitoba Provincial Road 391 connects Thompson to Lynn Lake, and passes through Leaf Rapids on the way. In 2009, Sean and I stopped to indicate our direction of travel, north by northwest, an imaginary bearing for an almost-imaginary place...

A Bird on the Head

On the Labour Day weekend of 1974 or '75, my parents and I, along with Dad's mother and her friend Val Head, embarked on a fishing trip well north of the 57th parallel: to be precise, Mile 35 out of Lynn Lake, Manitoba on the road to Co-op Point near Vandekerckhove Lake. There we met Dad's friend Sheldon LeBlanc and LeBlanc's father-in-law. Dad met LeBlanc through Acklands, Limited; Dad set up and managed the branch in Leaf Rapids, while LeBlanc managed the store in Lynn Lake.

Before my recent trip to Alaska,this surely must have been my farthest trip north, a bumpy, desolate drive on barely-maintained gravel or dirt roads. I remember very little about the drive or the fishing (which Dad reports as "excellent;" apparently we caught plenty of great pickerel), but I recall with perfect clarity the unwanted guest that intruded upon our campfire.

Night had fallen, and it was terribly cold. The stars shone down through a clear black sky and the silhouettes of the tall pines, providing light but no warmth. For that,  the seven of us huddled around the campfire as steaks sizzled on the Hibachi. (It was so cold, in fact, that Mom put her feet right in the campfire and melted the soles of her shoes.)

Then, from out of the darkness came the rapid flutter of beating wings. A whiskeyjack landed right on the grill, attempting to steal a piece of steak. It managed only to burn its talons, leaping back into the night, circling the fire, twittering in annoyance. A moment later it landed again...right on the top of my head.

I yelled in pain as the bird's claws sank into my skull. The adults were astounded, and Mom ran into our tent trailer, searching frantically for the camera.

"Don't move!" everyone said. "It'll fly away!"

"Ow!" I responded pitifully, enduring the pain.

And so I stood there, stoic, my face scrunched up, trying not to cry. The whiskeyjack twittered arrogantly, and at last Mom emerged from the tent trailer. She got into position, raised the camera...and the bird launched itself back into the night the instant before she could trigger the shutter.

I grumbled a little and rubbed my head, having endured the pain for nothing, but now that I'm grown I certainly understand everyone's desire to capture the image; it would have been one for the books.