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Spotlight
feature:
Pioneer Quest-
Going back in time
Charles Amy in front of the barn at the ‘Pioneer
Quest’ homestead.
Did you
ever wonder what life was like in the 1800’s? You can
see for yourself at the former site of the reality-based television
series, “Pioneer Quest: A Year in The Real West”
on Charles Amy’s property near Argyle, Manitoba. The
show aired in 2002 on Life Network and History Television
and featured two couples - Frank & Alana Logie and
Tim & Deanna Treadway – who experienced first-hand
what it was like to live like pioneers in the 1870’s
for 11 months. In the end, each couple received $100,000.00.
One day
in early May, 2000, Charles heard some coffee shop gossip
in a neighbouring town, that a producer was scouting out a
location and some people for a show about pioneer living.
After a little digging, Charles Amy of Argyle, MB—
a short distance from Stonewall and Warren—got the name
of producer Michael Scott of Credo Entertainment, and gave
him a call to find out more. It turned out that Michael and
producer Jamie Brown of Frantic Films needed virgin property
with no electricity and no 20th century noises for their production.
After Charles described his land, the producers arranged to
come the next morning to have a look. A month almost passed
before Charles heard from them again. They had narrowed it
down to two properties—Charles’ and one near Oak
Hammock Marsh—out of about 5,000 applications, and they
finally chose Charles’ land. One of the reasons his land
was chosen is that it is located on Faith Trail, a main Red
River Cart trail that pioneers travelled on from Winnipeg
to Shoal Lake in the 1800’s.
Charles
and his wife, Marjorie, who live nearby on the Amy homestead
that goes back five generations, hadn’t planned on turning
the Pioneer Quest site into a tourist attraction, although,
it became a natural progression as people around the world
were curious. Charles and his wife obliged and allowed people
to come and visit. For the first couple of years after the
tv series aired, 2000-2500 tourists came each year. And even
today, about 500 people still come. The largest group to visit
consisted of about 200 hutterite colony members who had come
on the Prairie Dog Central steam locomotive, owned by The
Vintage Locomotive Society, Inc., on a tourist trip from Winnipeg
to Warren, MB along No. 6 highway.
Today,
Charles is happy to take you on a tour where the cabins and
barn still stand intact, any time of the year. He has had
school groups come even in the winter time using snowshoes.
He offers
90-minute walking tours or specialized custom tours, by appointment
only. He will explain how two modern day couples stepped back
in time, constructing their homes from turn-of-the-century
lumber, hand-digging wells and simply living like pioneers.
But, as
Charles will explain, pioneer living for these couples was
not simple by any means. There was no electricity, telephones,
running water or indoor plumbing of any kind! They did have
a cell phone, only for emergencies though. Much of the equipment
used to work the land belonged to Charles’ grandfather.
Other items were borrowed from museums.
Charles
always was a bit of a history buff. He helped compile and
write a history book for the Brant and Argyle areas called
“Hands Across the Meridian.” His farm is only a
half mile from the Prime Meridian Trail. Charles also serves
as the President of the West Interlake Trading Centre located
in Warren, MB beside the Warren grain elevator, one of the
last standing in Manitoba.
It’s
important to Charles to preserve the history of the area,
pointing out a landmark in the town of Argyle. The Argyle
School is the last of its kind still operating. It had consolidated
several one-room schools and is now declared a heritage building,
yet, it still teaches K-8 in its four rooms.
If that’s
not enough to keep Charles busy, he also drives a school bus
and raises some livestock on his farm.
For more
information on tours of the Pioneer Quest homestead, call
204-467-2637.
(Read
more in the Oct. 9/09
issue of Senior Scope)
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William J. Thomas
I
Am Not Aging.
I’m Accumulating Longevity Status
Aging
is okay, given the alternative. But adding years should not
mean subtracting words. I’m sure I’m not the only
man who has this problem and please, don’t get ahead
of me here.
She: “Ah,
Dave called and he wants us to . . . .”
At this
point the way, way overused rolodex in my brain starts spinning
like the back wheels of a light pickup truck in a field of
fresh goose poop.
From a
dead stop at A, my cerebral scanner hits top speed at C and
over runs D by a full letter. Extraneous. Exhaustive, backing
up now . . . beep, beep, beep . . . . Egregious, Expletive
deleted, Egads—here we go again.
Me: “Okay,
Dave my nephew, Dave your brother, Dave Barnard, Doctor Dave,
Dave No Relation Thomas, Super Dave, Die Hard Bill’s
Fan Dave, Dave Patterson, Dave Miller, Dave Nicholson, Dave
Sathmary, Dave Barlow or Dave my former brother-in-law?”
She: “Oh,
sorry, did I say Dave? I meant Dan.”
Oh, boy.
I hit the brain button. The rolodex surges ahead to Excruciating.
Backing up . . . beep, beep, beep . . . to Dan.
Me: “Okay,
Dan my current brother-in-law, Dan Sunday, Dan Patterson,
Dan Kozar, Dan Augustine, Dan The Man, Dan Dee Dan Dan the
guy from Dragnet, Dan Rather or Dan Fogelberg?” (Sorry,
my rolodex hasn’t been updated in months.)
She: “Anyway,
Dan wants us to go and see a movie at that theatre. You know
the one.”
Me: “Niagara
Square, North Park, Seaway Mall, Pen Centre 6, Carleton, Cumberland,
Amherst 3, Maple Ridge 8, Superplex 12 or The Elmwood 16 also
known as the Adam Sandler Museum?”
She: “We’ve
never been to the Superplex! Anyway it’s the movie about
the war.”
I smell
rubber burning as my mental directory races through the alphabet
all the way to Y, Yikes, stops, pulls back one letter to X
for a quick X-ray that shows some damaged cells and a few
overworked fissures. For no apparent reason my rolodex, overwrought
and no doubt delirious, stops at Xerox, drops its pants, jumps
up on the machine and makes a photocopy of its own bum.
Me: “The
war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Darfur, East
Timor, Tibet, Kurdistan, Burma, Columbia, Gaza Strip, Kashmir,
Waziristan, Nigeria or Dick Cheney’s shorts?”
She: “It’s
the diamond war in that country
in Africa.”
Driving
at breakneck speed, backwards to Noise where it hears a squeaky
sound when it hits the brakes. It then proceeds cautiously
to K-Mart where it gets a cheap lube job and while waiting,
buys a couple of K-Tel Sounds Of The Sixties CD’s for
the return trip to A.
Me: “Africa,North
Africa, West Africa, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Angola,
Zambia, Namibia, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea . . . ?”
Due to
recent flooding, my rolodex gets mired up to its axles in
G. Too far to walk all the way to T for a to a tow truck,
it begins to hitchhike when a bunch of Herdsmen walk across
the border from Burkina Faso and push it out of the muck.
I start
again.
Me: “Angola,
Cameroon, Botswana, Rhodesia. Rhodesia!?! Hey, there’s
Ian Smith in a burka!”
She: “I
think it’s set in the diamond mines of Sierra Leone and
it stars that actor you really like.”
A warning
light appears on the dashboard of my scanner.
Me: “Chris
Cooper, Gary Sinise, Toby McQuire, Ryan Gossling, Tom Wilkinson,
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dan Cheadle, Ralph Fiennes, Colm Meaney,
Colm Feore, Eric Bana, Daniel Day-Lewis, Chris Wilton, Philippe
Noiret, Terrence Howard, Nick Nolte when he’s sober?”
She: “No.
Leonardo DiCaprio.”
Me: “I
don’t like Leonardo DiCaprio.”
She: “Whatever.
Anyway, they want to go to that restaurant first.”
My rolodex
runs out of gas trying to get from A for Actors to R for Restaurants
before they stop serving. Fortunately at P it’s able
to coast into a Petro-Canada station.
Me: “Lucy’s,
Sugars II, San Marco, On the Waterfront, J.C.’s, Casa
Mia, Mama Mia’s, Casa D’Ora, Noir 27, Yukiguni’s,
Chiado, McLaughlins, EastDell Estates, The Rex, Hoovers’
Marina?”
She: “No,
not like a formal restaurant, just a pub like that place beside
the canal.”
My rolodex,
which is now over-heating, losing power and running on two
flat tires boards a laker at Lock 3 for a trip up the Welland
Canal. For some reason they make it wear a life jacket.
Me: “The
Galley, Lotus Garden, Walter’s Neptune, The Smokin’
Budda, Harbour Inn, Deed’s Place, The Bridge Pub, The
Dainer, The Galley?”
She: “No.
You know. The Canalside Pub.”
Me: “Wait.
Wait. Wait. The name of the pub beside the canal you were
trying to come up with was . . . The Canalside Pub?!!!”
She: “Yeah,
that’s it. It’s right beside that shop.”
I can’t
go there. A late-breaking bulletin flashing across my brain
claims my mental rolodex jumped ship near the train bridge
in Dain City. Witnesses said it just stripped down naked and
went straight off the bow clutching the anchor with both arms.
Me: “I
can’t go.”
She: “Why
not?”
Me: “I
have to go lie down on the . . . .”
She: “On
the bed?”
Me: “On
the highway.”
She: “On
the shoulder?”
Me: “The
centre line.”
Unlike
oil, we are not running out of words. People who don’t
use enough words are like drivers who refuse to use their
blinker because they believe it drains the battery. It doesn’t.
I swear. Remember: as we shrink, our vocabularies need not.
_______________________________________
William Thomas is the author of nine books of humour including
Margaret and Me about his wee Irish mother. www.williamthomas.ca
(Read
more in the Oct. 9/09
issue of Senior Scope)
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Excerpted from the Manitoba Book of Everything (MacIntyre
Purcell Publishing Inc., 2008), available at most Manitoba
bookstores and online at