Chapter 4: The Empty Nest : Page 1 /  The Attic Apartment




In the fall of 1998, we sold the house on 2nd St. and moved to the top floor of this building. The next year I returned to teaching (High School English) at Souris School.


 In the late 90's I played with two Bands : Billy and Armadillo
  I also jammed regularly with friends at The Cantina


 Jonah instigated the family trip to Florida - Christmas 99




One of our many hikes along the Souris River Valley



Trips to Calgary

Geoff was living in Calgary. 

One of the best things about this was that we got to visit him many times and we always had a great time.

On one of our trips Jonah came along and we went to a football game.

Bev and I made several other trips. We went skiing a few times.

Skiing at Fortress


Social Events

Here we are dressed up for Cynthia and Wayne's wedding.


Birthdays
For Bev's fiftieth birthday I took her to Misty Lake Lodge. A few years earlier Bev had taken me to The Russell Inn. That trip was supposed to be a ski trip but the new ski hill wasn't open yet.
 
Career Path

In the mid 1990's I developed an interest in Local History.  That interest and the activities it prompted, has changed our lives in some unlikely ways in that my early writings on the subject led directly (and unexpectedly)  to the Heritage Project work I do today. I can trace my interest in the following way:

In the 1990 Dave August and I began a series of canoe trips down the Brandon area rivers. In planning those trips I began stumbling upon information about some early settlements that had been established along the rivers then abandonned as the railway created new transportation routes. As we were exploring the rives I began documenting our routes in a booklet and website I called River Journeys in Southwestern Manitoba. Catchy title eh?

I learned about Millford. First as a name on an old map, then as the name on a graveyard and cairn. I found that it's history as a community was well documented in both the Wawanesa and Glenboro Local History Books. I learned that Nellie McLung spent her formative years there... and it went on and on..

That sparked a memory .. or two...

In 1989 I took a Journalism  course from Fred McGuiness. Fred, a prolific writer,  was the Godfather of Local Historians. He told the class  the story of the Criddles, and unconventional and accomplished family who settled in the Treesbank area in 1882.

Another memory was of finding the story of the Alpha in the Cypress River History and the revelation that a 70 metre steamboat, one of a substantial fleet that had provided crucial transportation services to the first settlers,  lay buried in the sandy riverbank not far from where I grew up.

And I wondered why I hadn't learned this stuff in History class.

Interesting things happened  here - and everywhere, that didn't get reported in the Pre-Packaged versions of Canadian History our teachers had presented in our school days.

And so, in thew late 1990's,  I wrote False Starts...a project which continues to this day


In May of 2001, Paul took Dave, Jonah and I on a flight down the Assiniboine River to the mouth of the Souris and up the Souris to the Souris Bend and the town of Souris.

A few weeks later we travelled north along the Little Sask River.




The first Storie Family Reunion was held in 1999 at Kenosee Lake Saskatchewan. This photo from the 2000 celebration captures the enthusiams generated. As of 2016 we're partying on.



Interior of the 11th St Apartment. Of all of our many homes I think we enjoyed this one the most. Perhaps it was that I was only working part time, and at home!