One of the guys at the Sunbury open mic was captain of the Wolfe Islander III, the "old" ferry which has supposedly been replaced by the new Wolfe Islander iV. The problem is the the IV doesn't work. It's battery powered but has the wrong batteries, or something like that. The result is interrupted service and slow crossings. When I went to the open mic on Wolfe Island Wednesday evening, the IV was out of service. So the new Amherst Island ferry, called in for emergency service, pulled up, unloaded, then waited, waited, then pulled out! Eventually the III pulled in and, after a long wait, we got to cross. Wolfe Islander III had just been towed from Hamilton, where it was supposed to have been in drydock. IV just sits at the Kingston ferry dock. It's a really nice boat (we had a nice jam in the lounge coming back from one of the open mics), but the crucial part doesn't work. They should issue oars.

From S W Sask. Oldtimers Museum and Archives  >> Facebook  >> BHO:

Caption:  "Trans Canada Highway 1926 Saskatchewan unknown location."

Nowadays, "highways" like ^^ are mainly seen as access roads to farmers' back fields.  [I think that might be the thermometer incorporated into the rad cap, but can't even hazard a guess as to make/model.]

^^^^ here’s an interesting book about the first trans-Canada motor car trip in 1912,, with a REO made in ….. wait for it… St. Catharines. 
& our BHO friend from the wilds beside Burrard Inlet had a schoolmate who wrote a book about the building of the modern TCHwy. (so he claims,,, he might be just name-dropping ;-)

I've got ^^ titles written down ..... but haven't gotten to the library yet. They're pretty good... if they don't have it, or no library in their regional system has one, they'll usually buy a copy.

This popped up on Facebook this a.m. ..... reminded me of the first couple of years of school in beautiful west-central Man-ee-toe-bah.  Horse-drawn "van" in winter and enclosed plywood box on a 1-ton farm truck in the spring/fall .... along about grade three it was all truck.

From the Western Development Museum in Moose Jaw:

Even after motor vehicles were a common sight in Saskatchewan, horse-drawn vehicles were still a necessity in the winter. Particularly in rural areas, road conditions often made automobile travel impossible. The Saskatchewan solution to this problem was the enclosed cutter, known as a "caboose". The caboose is a good example of prairie ingenuity in adapting to western conditions. The holes in the front were for the reins of the horse to pass through to the driver inside.

A closed-in vehicle could be ordered through the catalogue from Eaton's or Macleod's, but most prairie people bought them locally or made their own. Cabooses were as varied as the people who build them. Most home-made cabooses were wooden construction, containing a stove to keep the travelers warm. In many cases, neighbours would share a caboose which often served as a school bus and for delivering mail and supplies.

In 1934, Mike Buchinski, a blacksmith in the Colonsay, SK area, was granted Canadian patent number 346,438 for an enclosed cutter with runners and load-sustaining mountings designed for quietness and safety. In his farm blacksmith shop, he made over 200 cutters gears and many complete cutters. This Buchinski caboose was purchased for $200 in the late 1940s by the Grey family of Colonsay and was used until the mid-1950s. It features hinged seats for storage and buffalo hide seat coverings.

Fwiw .... I'm having difficulty "dragging" pics over .... here's the URL https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=WDM%20moose%20jaw

.
facebook.com/share/17GkZfpyC1/    Amish and Old Order Mennonites used these back in Waterloo County, Ontario.  Good thing you got to school to socialize & become a well-adjusted socialist indoctrinated with all kinds of kooky lefty ideas and pre-woke drivel rather than staying home for more isolated home-schooling from out-dated books and agribusiness manuals.  ;-)

Howjewdodat?    My computing machine has been more possessed than normal these last several weeks .... among a few other things, highlighting a passage has been a  &*T%$&$#%  "adventure."   Thanks

Edit: I did well enough academically, but intramurals/sports/etc. was  a B-I-G draw.... I've often "wondered" how those that weren't academically inclined (?) coped.   I recall one of my grade-school classmates who often had recess AND noon-hour detentions, and thinking at that time how "unfair/this is wrong" it seemed .... I've come to think he might have [probably?] had ADHD and how counterproductive the detentions likely were.  S-i-i--g--g-h!  

Owen I took a screen shot of the pic on FB, ran it through the JPEG/PNG app, and posted it here. But we’re always subject to rogue gremlins in the netherworks of internet-dom, and lately my iPad is sending me off in weird directions….
I didn’t play high school football, & we didn’t have a HS hockey league (strange , now that I think of it, St Kitts being such a hockey-fevered town)
But in elementary school lotsa scrub softball, British Bulldog, soccer, various marble (alleys) games,, and of course the occasional dustup betwixt Krauts, Polacks, Wops, Limeys, or Frogs.

I'm pretty sure I've heard of screen shots AND apps.          [It's the hit-and-miss nature of ^^ that I don't "get."]

One can always ask Al /gooooogle for instructions , as they are AL-KNOWING

.

“In September of 1928, a New York gangster named Jamie Clark arrived in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, with a very specific goal: to buy a schooner to smuggle illegal booze into the United States.

The ship he purchased — a sleek, wooden schooner called I’m Alone — would soon become the most famous rum-runner of Prohibition, and the unlikely centre of an international incident that shocked the world.

I’m Alone was 125 feet long, powered by twin diesel engines, and could outrun just about anything afloat. Clark paid $18,000 (around $300,000 today), then quietly set up a fake Canadian company to register her. As a Canadian vessel, she could legally sit just beyond American waters, waiting for thirsty buyers.

For a captain, Clark hired Thomas Randall [pictured] — a tall, stylish Newfoundland sea captain nearing 50, known for his fierce independence and impeccable wardrobe. Even at sea, Randall favoured silk shirts, dinner jackets, and top hats. He was also a decorated First World War hero, awarded medals by Canada, Britain, and France for battling German U-boats.

Randall found local rum runners too sloppy for his taste. Clark, on the other hand, was a professional. He offered Randall profit-sharing and legal protection. Randall signed on.

After loading rum in St. Pierre, the French island off Newfoundland,

Randall sailed south to a rendezvous off Louisiana. There, in the darkness, a motorboat approached. Randall pulled out a stack of $15 bills cut in half and read off a serial number.

A fat man handed over the matching half.

It was Jamie Clark himself, overseeing the deal. Randall was so insulted at being supervised that he nearly quit on the spot.

The partnership didn’t last long.

On March 20, 1929, the 'I’m Alone' sat off Louisiana with 28,000 bottles of whiskey. According to Ted R. Hennigar’s book “The Rum Running Years,” that was the moment when a U.S. Coast Guard cutter ordered her to stop.

“You have no jurisdiction over me,” Randall shouted back. “I am on the high seas outside of treaty waters.”

After hours of arguing, the cutter warned: “Heave to, or I fire.”

“I’ll see you in hell first!” Randall replied.

The Coast Guard opened fire — but with wax bullets. Randall was hit, but when he looked down at his chest and saw not blood ... but a lump of wax. When the gun jammed, he made his move, ordering full throttle toward Mexico.

For nearly two days, the two ships raced side by side, trading insults through megaphones, until another cutter arrived and opened fire with real bullets. 'I’m Alone' was riddled with holes and sank just 18 miles from safety.

Randall and his crew were imprisoned without the Canadian government being notified, sparking outrage across Canada, Britain, and France. Newspapers ran daily coverage. Some Canadians even talked openly about war.

An investigation revealed the real cause:

The Americans had mistaken the Canadian flag for that of British Honduras.

After six years of investigation, the United States formally apologized and paid a settlement of $26,666.50 — about $550,000 today.

Sounds like a deal to me!!!

Slammer!!!

My wife's parents operated a private museum as part of their "Nova Scotia Farm Vacations" enterprise.  One of the items [on loan to them] was a horse-drawn hearse.... similar to this bad boy.   It had removable boards forming a false floor over a compartment use to conceal bootleg schnapps.  I've been led to believe that it was only used locally  ... i.e. no international "incidents."

I was unaware of this ... until this a.m.   From True tales from Sask. >> Facebook >> BHO: 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1453339473257393&set=a.574463761144973

Less than 20 years after the federal govt began "training" the indigenous people to farm European style, they changed their minds. In 1889 the govt decided natives would not grow grain only root crops. Non-indigenous farmers complained that even with the poor quality seed and machinery the govt reluctantly provided the 'Indians' they had become a major producer. The equipment provided was meant for eastern farms and came from the cheapest suppliers, at times needing complete reconstruction. Communities had persevered and grown.
The farmers claimed that free land and labour gave an unfair advantage. And farmers could vote.

After World War II, the Alberta sugar beet industry had difficulty getting workers. First Nations people from reserves in northern Saskatchewan, were recruited to fill the gap. Before the war, southern Alberta farmers hired European immigrant workers to hoe, weed, and harvest sugar beet crops. By the early 1950s the flow of unskilled immigrants to Canada dwindled, and sugar beet farmers experienced severe labour shortages. The sugar beet industry, with the assistance of the Dominion-Provincial Farm Labour Committee (DPFLC) and the Department of Indian Affairs, turned to recruiting Indigenous workers.
In 1953, the Indigenous labour force consisted of only 120 workers. By 1962, 551 farmers in southern Alberta employed over 2,100 Indigenous workers. In 1966 this labour force reached its highest point when over 3,000 workers were hired on a seasonal basis to cultivate and harvest sugar beet crops. The majority were First Nations workers from reserves in northern Saskatchewan, some traveled over 1,000 km to get to southern Alberta. Many came from the Montreal Lake, Lac la Ronge, Sandy Bay and Pelican Narrows reserves. During the 1960s it was not uncommon for about 95% of the population of some northern reserves, including men, women and children, to migrate to southern Alberta during May and June for six to eight weeks, or even longer.

The DPFLC and the Department of Indian Affairs used a few tactics to recruit; letters and application forms requesting workers sent to the Chief and Band Council on reserves; chartered buses sent to northern reserves and Métis communities to transport workers to a reception centre in Lethbridge, Alberta. Social Assistance benefits were even cut off to make workers migrate.
By the mid-1970s, First Nation workers migrated to southern Alberta on their own for employment. Automation in planting and harvesting in the 1980's ended the beet movement.

The workers had a name for themselves; Grab-a-hoe Indians.  [Photo Manitoba Archives.] 

Many Six Nations fellas from the Reserve near Brantford worked the tobacco harvest in SW Ontario. I worked with some Powless’es and Hill’s in 1966-69

Before I joined this august forum I had no knowledge re Togo , even though I’d seen Ted Hampson play hockey on TV for years. So I spotted this bit of history today and rubbed my hands together with glee….

That ^^ lay-out is as I recall, 'cept for the house in the foreground [i.e. on the railway right-of-way??].   The buzz-on-the-street as a kid was that it got it's name when a relative of the proprietor of the Chinese cafe carelessly got his toe run over by a train and exclaimed, "Toe go."

One of the yocal farmers had fenced off a bit of the Pelly Trail [i.e. ruts worn into the dirt] just west of Togo. Dunno if anything more permanent got done or not.

According to my mammy, some of my extended family on her side [i.e. I never met them] played lacrosse with/against/?? some Powless'es. [Maybe this dude?? https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/gaylord-powless ]

Yep, Gaylord was a force back in the day. We had lacrosse teams in St. Catharines for years (Rex Stimers was a star player) , and Port Dalhousie (now part of the city) also did. JT I never really followed it much. John Powless brought his lacrosse sticks and ball to the tobacco farm bunkhouse one year,, he got me flingin’ th ball back & forth one day but that’s as fr I took it.  To tie it all in with,, no, not banjo, but with bluegrass , Randy and Rocky Hill were/are excellent musicians,, Randy on mandolin and Rocky on guitar and vocals. 
Randy on mando on this tune at 21:58 https://youtu.be/ZmAzjL2V09s?si=uBirdbaW7uYwLVwy

& then there was The Band's Robbie Roberson who is half Mohawk and lived at Six Nations for part of his life. 
.... Jay Silverheels who played Tonto is also from there

& Tom Longboat... etc

Robbie Robertson

....... and ... (insert drum roll) .... blues pianist Murray Porter .... from what I can recall he sounded pretty good on Holger's SNB.   

Fwiw, my mammy would periodically mention E. Pauliine Johnson's poetry. [Can't say  I recall anything other than some reference or other to "... the wild Assiniboine"  in one of her peoms.  Mom figured it must have been about some other river, or at least not about the Assiniboine meandering in our area.  But just now, I'm thinking ... isn't the Assiniboine also a FN?  Man, this is getting complicated?!?!?  Maybe time for some TIMing.

^^^^^

Lock 1 was about a mile from where I grew up ,  the closest lock to Lake Ontario at Port Weller.

Dunno whether this is Canadian [Ontario?] or Buffalo "history."  In any event .... from Retrontario >> Facebook >> BHO: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1239272898352989

Heck Chuck, maybe you even watched Irv? ............ or Tonawanda [check out the "comments"]    [Inquiring minds want to know!!]

Owen Yesiree, WKBW , channel 7…. with Irv Weinstein manning the news anchor spot,, often giving us the skinny on numerous , almost daily, fires in south Buffalo. Rick Azar te sports anchor regailing us with news re The French Connection, King Kong Korab, O.J. Simpson, and tne long defunct NBA's Buffalo Braves. 
That club manager with the NuYawk accent and chewing gum is a classic….

The channel 7 news crew

One of the comments is: "Tonawanda is still on fire."   Is << the city or the dancer?  [Inquiring minds want to know!!  ]

Only two names come to mind from my mis-spent youth ... The Dresden Doll  and Thumbelina.    [And that's all I'm sayin' 'bout that!!]