Manitoba Hunter Safety Instructor

I have vague memories of watching Mom and Dad using rifles to shoot tin cans in the forests of Leaf Rapids. This would have been before Sean was born, and might have only happened once, possibly twice. Mom and Dad had those two rifles for decades (along with Granddad's shotgun), and that's the only time I can recall them ever being used. Mom and Dad finally got rid of the rifles sometime in the 2000s. I think they probably only had them in case of bears or wolves; I certainly don't remember them being hunting enthusiasts, despite Dad being a safety instructor through the 1970s. 

Another bit of family history I wish I'd asked about or written down before it was too late. 

Lead Mallet

Someone made this by burying a styrofoam ball in sand, digging a hole, and then pouring molten lead into the hole, dissolving the styrofoam and filling the hole. When the lead cooled, the unknown creator got...this. Gemini thinks it was probably intended to be used as some kind of fishing tackle or a hammer. I have my doubts. Why Mom and Dad had this, I don't remember. Why I'm keeping it, despite being a bit worried about lead poisoning, well...I guess I feel like Mom and Dad would want me to. Or maybe not. 
 

Special High Grade Zinc Ingots from Flin Flon

Sometime during the 1970s, a representative of Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting in Flin Flon gave Mom and Dad two 99.99% pure zinc ingots. COME BACK, ZINC! Oh wait, it's right here. 
 

84

Mom would have been 84 today. Here she is with Dad, on the road to Leaf Rapids in 1974. 
 

Sad Times for Leaf Rapids

Mom, Dad, and Sean, summer of 1976 or possibly 1977
at the Suwanee River campground near Leaf Rapids

I only lived in Leaf Rapids for seven years or so, but they were foundational years. In the 1970s, Leaf Rapids was a thriving community of great natural beauty, built on the Canadian Shield's bedrock and wound through several acres of thick evergreen forest. It was a place not just for humans, but birds, bears, wolves, and--alas--thick clouds of mosquitoes and sandflies. Fortunately, dragonflies the size of sparrows hunted the pests down to manageable levels. 

Once the Ruttan Mine closed down, though Leaf Rapids has been in steady decline. Population, services, amenities, even local government--all the essentials are in short supply, and as CBC reports, things are getting worse. 

Part of me realizes that with no base for an economy, it's probably pragmatic to move the remaining residents to Lynn Lake or Thompson. But neither of those places ever captured my imagination, nor, in my view, have the natural beauty and ineffable mystery of Leaf Rapids. It was a great place to be a kid. 

 I hope that Manitobans can find a way to save Leaf Rapids. 

Eyes off the Prize

I'm pretty sure that's my cousin Darwin scarfing down some treats while I gaze seriously into the distance. I wonder what thoughts were running through my tiny brain at the time. Probably "I want a pastry, but I don't want people to know that, so I'll just stare the other way." 

I'm pretty sure this happened in Manitoba, but it's hard to be sure. One wonder's why there's a painting on the bed. Oh, there's wrapping paper in the background--it might have been someone's birthday. Not Christmas, I don't think, because associated photos appear to be set during summer. 

I still had blonde hair. Not for much longer, I don't think...
 

Uncle Gordon and Me

Among other Woods/Etsell losses in 2026, our Uncle Gordon Newton passed away earlier this year, and I just realized I haven't written anything about it until now. 

Here's Uncle Gordon with me in Leaf Rapids in the mid-1970s; this visit might have been the first time I met him and possibly Aunt Margaret, though I'm not sure if she came on this trip; she's not in any of the photos I have from this set. We doubtless spent some time fishing and camping, since that was the number one leisure activity in Leaf Rapids. 

Here he is with Mom and Dad, likely on the same day--all of them younger then than I am now. Time laughs at us, doesn't it? 

I was very fond of Uncle Gordon. He was superintendent of schools in Winnipeg for quite some time; he was very smart, erudite, and informed, and he had a voice I thought was quite captivating. Unfortunately, I probably only interacted with him in person perhaps a dozen or so times in my life, since for most of our time on Earth he lived in Manitoba and we lived in Alberta. Nonetheless, I'm glad that I was able to spend time with Uncle Gordon and Aunt Margaret; they were both very cool people. 

Rest in peace, Uncle Gordon. I hope my cousins Kathy, Barbara, and David are coping with their father's loss. 

Burntwood River at the Golden Hour

 

A Little Person with Some Little People

I found this just now while going through the folder of Mom's photos that I copied over from her iPad. I don't remember seeing this one before, but I definitely remember playing with the Fisher Price Little People Airport I'm seen unwrapping here. I can't say for certain, but based on my apparent age, the carpet, and the curtains, I'm guessing this was at our house in Thompson. 
 

Chair Buddies

 

First-Grade Outfit

 

This is my official grade one class photo, taken at the Leaf Rapids Education Centre. Mom made the vest and the pants that went with it. Nice job, Mom! 

Kindergarten Earl

Young Earl was a much less casual dresser than Old Earl. Does that outfit scream 1970s? I think it does. 
 

An Organic Interlude

Sometime in the mid-1970s, we travelled from Leaf Rapids to Thompson to buy an electronic organ. Mom or Dad shot a Polaroid of us playing with it in the spring of 1977. 

As a built-in teaching aid, the keys on this organ would light up to display the notes. Once you'd learned them, you could turn off the feature and play like a real organist. Mom and Dad got pretty good at it, as I recall, and the organ came with us to Alberta. I think Mom and Dad finally tired of it in the late 80s, or maybe it stopped working. 

The organ's brief presence in our lives is something of an anomaly, as neither Sean nor I play an instrument, nor did Mom and Dad seem to have much interest in doing so aside from this organic interlude. (Pun intended.) Maybe they hoped Sean or I would pursue music. Sean plays the harmonica, but me, well . . . I still have the recorder from the one music class I had in grade four or five, but I was and am pretty terrible. 

This is the our first Mother's Day without Mom, and it feels weird to say it, but I think they might have gotten a kick out of some of the stuff Sean and I have been doing with generative AI tools--taking old photos of fishing trips and turning them into movie clips and so on. Or this: 
 

Sean and Earl as painted by da Vinci. I think Mom would have gotten a chuckle out of this. Dad probably would have shaken his head, but I think he'd like the motorboat animations from our fishing trips. 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. 

Coffee Table Crash Landing

I tried to get Gemini to create a photo of the time infant Sean jumped off our couch in Leaf Rapids into a glass-topped coffee table, shattering it. Sean suffered no harm, and happily played with the shards of glass for the span of nanoseconds it took for Mom to rush over and grab him to inspect him for wounds. 

Gemini refused my initial prompt, which was something like "a one-year old baby jumps off a green couch and through a green glass-topped coffee table without being hurt." Gemini's safeguards prevented the tool from embracing my vision (phooey), so I changed the prompt to something like "a bald, very small male person..." before the stuff about the accident. The action and 1970s decor are captured fairly well, but the "baby" is a bit uncanny. Cute duck, though. 
 

Beyond Mortal Kenner, Part One: Star Wars

Ever since Sylvia and I moved to our current residence, I've been decluttering and sorting all my stuff into compact storage. During that decluttering, I threw away the many old toys that had been damaged over the years. 

This is what remains of the Kenner Star Wars figures I had in Leaf Rapids. I'm missing Princess Leia, R2-D2 (a real bummer, since that was the very first figure Mom and Dad bought for me at the Town Centre; plus, R2 remains my favourite character), the Death Squad Commander, Death Star Droid, all the droids from the Droid Factory (and the Droid Factory itself), my X-Wing Fighter, and my TIE Fighter. But I don't mourn their loss; all those toys were well-loved and played with often through my childhood, times shared with good friends weaving nonsense adventures in back yards and sand pits. 

At some point, I'll donate the least worn of these figures and discard what remains. But not quite yet. 
 

Mom and Me at the Etsell Farm

Here's another new-to-me image from Aunt Jean and Uncle John's collection. I'm back at the Etsell farm with Mom and Smokey the "don't pull his tail, he'll put your eye out" cat. This image brings me peace. 
 

Earl in the Hay

Aunt Jean and Uncle John recently took a large collection of their old slides to get scanned, and there are some beautiful shots in there--some that I honestly think could have been used in Life or National Geographic. 

I wouldn't consider the (cropped) photo above one of those truly outstanding shots, but it has a young me in it--one I'd never seen until my aunt and uncle gave me access to their new digital collection. I believe this was shot on the Gray farm, near the Etsell farm in southern Manitoba, sometime in the early 1970s. I'm terrible at guessing ages; do I look, say, two here? If so, this would have been summer of 1971. 

 

Snapshot of a Dream

 

50 Years Ago...

Mom, me, her parents, my grandparents; the summer of 1975. I need to go back there again, just to smell the grass and the trees. I hope there will be sunflowers. 

Six year old Earl has a cute, jaunty hat. Looks kind of like one of the Little Rascals. 

Short Pants

Here I am with Mom sometime in the early 1970s. Green short pants and a yellow shirt--a juvenile supervillain in the making.