Rail lines of Manitoba's Interlake

Manitoba’s Interlake is unique in many ways, but few regions of 88,000 people can boast that they once supported four separate rail lines in a geographic area that is less than 70 mile wide. The four lines – Gypsumville, Fisher Branch, Arborg and Riverton – closely approximated the four main highways running north and south along the length of the Interlake – Highways 6, 7, 8 and 9, but each served a different purpose and a different ethnic community. All are now decommissioned, with only a portion of the Riverton line still operating (CPR operates from Winnipeg to Selkirk, while a private group operates the leg from Selkirk to Gimli), and a small length of the Gypsumville line (to Warren) owned and operated seasonally by the vintage tour rail line, Prairie Dog Central. Portions of the Arborg line, to Stonewall, as well as the PDC portion, have recently served as storage lines for grain and oil cars not in use. While the population has grown from under 15,000 in 1900 to just over 88,000 in 2016, changes in demand, transportation options, demographics and location trends have resulted in rail transportation companies seeing no rationale for maintaining the old lines.

For several years, locals fought to hold onto “their” rail spur lines, some because of nostalgia, while others looked for new uses for old routes and resources.

From east to west, change overtook the old steam engines and diesels. The Gimli/Riverton line had been constructed on two footings: the Riverton area provided fish to be transported and even some fish and limestone from the Hecla Island area found its way into the cargo being hauled. But the mainstay was the Gimli/Winnipeg Beach portion. In the early 1900s, both beaches were prime destination points for Winnipeggers seeking reprieve from hot summers at two of the sandiest beaches in the province. Private cars and buses killed the demand for the rail service by the 1960s. In the early 2000s, Riverton began working on its rail station museum, while the RMs of Bifrost and Gimli joined with them to develop a walking path from the Diego (Crown Royal) brewery stop to the Riverton museum.

Arborg’s rail line stopped operating in 2002, but was only decommissioned around 2009-10. There are no major structures remaining of that line, which had served the Icelandic, Polish and Ukrainian farming communities in the area.

The Fisher Branch line attempted the most ambitious projects. Also known as the “Prime Meridian Line,” because it ran almost exactly along the prime meridian, or centre, of the province, it had been built to bring timber (mostly poplar) from the aptly named Poplarwood area south of Fisher Branch to Winnipeg. It served a mostly Ukrainian and Metis or First Nations population.  Throughout the late 1990s, into the mid-2000s, a local group attempted to maintain a pristine nature trail along the route, passing close to the Narcisse and Inwood snake dens from Grosse Isle to Fisher Branch. Mostly recently, the trail has been fragmented into a walking trail, motorized sports vehicle trail as well as abandoned segments. The Chatfield Dairy Museum, operating for decades just south of Poplarwood, now has closed.

The Gypsumville line, too, faded away, except for the Prairie Dog Central portion. It had been built to haul gypsum rock from Gypsumville to Winnipeg, until the quarry was depleted. The Canadian Armed Forces Services operated a base at Gypsumville from 1962 until 1987, throughout the Cold War era. Now, the hamlet has fewer than 290 residents.

Remnants of the old rail lines are still evident, but, like animal tracks in the wilderness, these tracks, too, will disappear. Only the ghosts of the old rail lines will remain.

The Moosehorn Statues of Armand Lemiez

Manitobans have a penchant for constructing statues and monuments to mark their community, but none reach the levels of obsession, and, often, creativity, of those in the Interlake.

From a giant curling rock in Arborg to a massive concrete Viking in the Icelandic community of Gimli, we do them odd and we do them large. Komarno, a community of fewer than 100 people, boasts the largest mosquito in the world. Nearby, Inwood brags about its hundreds of thousands of red-sided garter snakes with a stone and mortar creation of intertwined snakes. Petersfield has the newest statue – a twenty-foot mallard duck on the wing, while Poplarfield features a giant “King Buck” deer. Selkirk’s catfish, Ashern’s sharptail grouse, Lundar’s Canada Goose and Stonewall’s stone quarry edifice are among others in this microcosm of the province. But Armand Lemiez, a lifelong bachelor farmer in the Moosehorn area in the mid 1900s, outdoes them all.

A prolific oils painter in his spare time, Armand turned his attention to concrete statue building in the 1960s and 1970s, hoping to immortalize himself and his community with his innovative statues. The statues were formed on rough metal frames constructed of scrap material, then the concrete was mixed, poured and shaped by hand. Over a decade, he produced approximately two figures per year. One approaches fifty feet in size. They consisted of lifesize (or larger than life-sized) human, mythological and prehistoric creatures.

In 1980, at the age of eighty-five, Armand began attempting to have his art memoralized, and approached the Canadian and provincial governments to have his works officially recognized. He failed, being told that his works had no significant cultural value. While it is true that they do not appear artistically refined, his statues reflect a unique cultural take on rural living and speak of the imagination of this solitary farmer from the Interlake. Ironically, after his death, a few of the remaining relatives attempted to keep people from visiting the remote farm to view the statues, as they feared both lawsuits and damage to the property.  While the frequent school outings to visit the site were terminated, the community did make an effort to restore some of the decaying art, but were unsuccessful.

Armand Lemiez died in 1984, and his legacy, too, is returning to dust. Vandals and nature have undone much of what he had attempted to achieve, but evidence of his spirit still remains. He may be the pioneer of the Interlake’s statue building zeal, and Moosehorn can lay claim to being the birthplace of the region’s explosion of concrete memorials and markers.

Wild Greens, Morels & Woodticks

In Manitoba, it is morel season. Unlike the Midwest USA, in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, morel season starts a little later in the spring.

Conventional understanding of morel growth is that they require almost even sunlight and darkness – spring and the third week of March -- to poke through the woodland mulch. In Manitoba’s Interlake, the picking season doesn’t begin until the frost is out of the ground and the overnight air is above freezing. That generally does not occur until late April (at the earliest) to  late May. And in the short distance of a hundred miles, the season can be delayed by a further three weeks. Hecla Island, for example, sees morel picking commence in early June and end at the end of the month, while for the Oak Point to Gimli area, picking starts in early May and ends in late May to early June. By that time, we are at nearly twelve hours of sunlight, but the frost has only retreated from the forest soil by early May.

Morels are finicky, closer to their cousins, truffles, than to their other relatives like summer or fall mushrooms. Without the right timing of good moisture, warm air and enough sunlight, the season may be lost. But in the Interlake, good seasons are more common than bad ones for these tasty side dishes, and bountiful seasons are occurring with regularity. Yet, finding them can be tricky.

Long-time area residents have dozens of personal theories as to where morels can be found, and they should know. In fact, so popular is morel hunting for locals that they have erected a statue to the brown delicacy in Meleb, on Highway 8. Some swear that they grow where areas have experienced a recent fire. And it is true that morels do grow there often, and are easier to spot. Others claim that the shady side of rotted logs are the best places, and, like other fungi & mushrooms, morels can be found there. Many claim that mushrooms grow best in areas where leaf mulch has decayed. Many of my best finds are precisely in those locations, but because the morel blends in so well with a dry or decaying leaf patch, it often is very tough to locate.

One thing is certain: the timing of the season coincides with other great picking seasons and some not so great. Fiddlehead greens, burdock, dandelion greens and a host of other edible plants (including cattail shoots) are in their finest condition for eating just at the same time as the morel season is peaking or closing out. Indeed, it is the proliferation of new greenery that ensures the demise of morel season, as sunlight is blocked from reaching them.  

However, as the song states, “along with the sunshine comes a little rain.” In the Interlake, wood ticks are one of our most aggressive “wildlife.” Just as is the case with our famous non-venomous red-sided garter snake, we can count on our ticks to be the non-poisonous black-legged or dog ticks, rather than the lyme-disease carrying deer tick (that is changing, however). Wood ticks are everywhere, and, contrary to their usual name are not usually found on trees. Instead, these ticks hang out on “blood trails” where other wildlife has passed by. Rabbit trails, deer runs or human pathways are common buffet stops. Look closely at taller blades of grass and you can see ticks hanging on to a leaf of grass with a couple of legs, waving the others like a hitchhiker thumbing a ride. That is exactly what they are doing: hitching a ride. As soon as a warm-blooded animal brushes by, the tick releases from the blade of grass and latches on to the ride. The hairier the better. Fur is great and easy to grasp, but so is the bare hairy leg of a morel-hunter foolish enough to wear shorts in the bush before early summer heat beats back these pests.

How prolific are wood ticks? If a lawn is maintained in short-grass condition, they rarely are found, unless you have a wandering dog or cat. But wherever grass grows taller, they lurk. While working on our yurt, my son and I often worked in and around taller meadow grass near the bush line. In one particularly brutal day, I had sixty-one wood ticks while my son had fifty-three. That got our competitive juices flowing, and the count was on. Over the next three weeks, I accumulated six hundred and one ticks, of which only five had bitten into their lunch – my skin.

In fairness, though, the tick haul was well worth it, since the morel haul that spring far exceeded the tick catch. By season’s end, we had picked, cleaned and preserved more than twelve shopping bags of morels, and had left far more behind than we picked, for future seasons. On balance, we got to eat far more, and far better than the half-dozen dog ticks who munched on us.