By: L.M. “Buzz” Lein
When Buzz wrote this
sometime in the early 1980’s (likely 1983) , George Nicholson was alive,
therefore the title:
GEORGE NICHOLSON – LIVING HISTORY
‘Someone once asked me how we found all these stories that
we share with our readers. The answer is simply that we don’t – the stories
find us. As is the case with the one you
are about to read.”
“If you recall, we wrote about a shipwreck on Lake Nipigon in 1910. This sparked a special interest in a Red Rock
resident. We were invited to communicate
with him because he said that he knew quite a bit about those old boats that
steamed up and down Lake Nipigon.”
“We did just that.
Not only did we meet an extremely nice gentleman but we added immensely
to our Nipigon story. You are reminded
that we had no idea who we were going to
meet, and a vague idea of what we were going to talk about.”
“Meet George Nicholson of Red Rock. This grey haired gentleman in his 88th
year (as near as we can tell) is fluently bilingual. He has spent his life in the Nipigon
dIstrict; has done everything he had to
do to survive and while he may have some
regrets about some of the things that happened to him he is not bitter about the
way life has treated him. He has an
excellent memory for bygone days and speaks about the past with an easy flow of
language that would put many a university student to shame.”
“George Nicholson was born on the south end of Ignace Island
at a place called by him “Burnt Harbour”.
We cannot find this spot on any of our maps. Since George’s birth was
not recorded, he has only hearsay to go on when asked how old he is. But backtracking in time from some things he
told us, it was either 1895 or 1896.”
“While in Burnt Harbour, his mother died and his father
presumably, decided tomove into Nipigon where there would be someone that could
look after the baby better than he could.
But on the way in to Nipigon, the boat that was carrying them piled up
on a rock and sank. No lives were lost but they had to row all the back to Burnt Harbour to get some help.”
“Our guess is that Burnt Harbour was the headquarters for a
group of commercial fishermen who abounded throughout this area about this
point in time. They arrived in Nipigon
finally – at Red Rock as it was known in those days. They disembarked at Nicholson’s Landing. We think this is the place where John Dampier built his little cabin. On the East bank opposite the Red Rock Post.
But the Nicholson family were burnt out and had to move again.”
“ By this time George’s father was working on construction
of the Revilllon Bros. post in Ombabika Bay at the north end of Lake
Nipigon. Taking a guess we would say
this was about 1907 or 1908. The
Nicholson family then moved into this post and lived there while George’s
father worked on the steamer Ombabika.”
“This boat was a steamboat and was fired with wood at the
start – switched over to coal as the Nipigon Tramway came into service and
could haul coal into South Bay. This Ombabika, by the way, was built at South
Bay about 1906 from a kit that was made up and hauled into South Bay over
winter roads. This also was a
Revillon Boart.”
Revillon also built a motorized Scow, powered by steam. It
was a big brute and had a shallow draught for getting heavy loads close to
shore. This one was the real workhorse
of the Lake carrying hay, oats, horses, men and anything else that could be
loaded on board.”
“It carried the material needed by the North
Transcontinental to build their railroad across the top of Lake Nipigon. Today it is part of the C.N.R. from Winnipeg
to Montreal.”
“It was the Minewa that attracted George’s attention when he
heard about the article we wrote on the 1910 shipwreck at Scherburn
Island. And we were wondering where the
heck this Island was because we had never heard of it.”
By the way, in Ojibway, Minewa means “going back and forth.”
Somewhat irreverently, we like the word “Yo-yo” better.”
“Anyway, the reason that Nicholson knew why the 1910
newspaper reported got the name of the boat wrong; why the name of the Island was wrong; why the location was incorrectly reported –
was that George Nicholson himself was on
board the Minewa when the Captain piled it up on Flatlands Is..”
“This latter is north westerly from the mouth of the
Sturgeon River about nine miles. It well deserves its name. George, at the time was 14 or 15 years old
and was sort of a roustabout on the scow. His father was also working on the
craft at the same time.”
“Anyway, that Minewa was grossly overloaded with so much hay
piled up in the front of the craft that visibility was much curtailed. It
wouldn’t have mattered if that day had been calm and sunny – but it
wasn’t. It was snowing to beat hell the
way it can do on Lake Nipigon and you couldn’t see 50 feet in any direction.”
“Now the Minewa had a shallow draught and was darn close to
shore when they crunched on the bottom.
Probably sprang a small leak and since they couldn’t move, the scow just
sat there and filled up. There were a couple of yawl boats and a whole crew of
men on board so they scrambled off; un-loaded all the food they needed and just
waited out the weather.”
“Sure enough as soon as the weather cleared – probably the
next day – the Ombabika on her way north spotted the disabled craft and came to
the rescue. The Ombabika probably took most
of the men back to South Bay, along with the Minewa Captain, Nicholson Sr. was
left in charge.”
“By the time the Insurance investigation was complete – and
by the way, that long ago reporter got the adjuster’s name right at least.
George Rapsy. When all this was cleared up, the water transport was over for
the year and George’s father took him to Ombabika Bay; ran
in as far as the ice would let him and dumped
the young fellow off and told him
to hike home to the Revillon Post.
Obviously he made it all right.”
“George spent the winter of 1910-1911 freighting over the
ice from South Bay to the Tramway terminus in Ombabika Bay. With freighting
from South Bay to the Tramway terminus in Ombabika Bay complete; the Nicholsons moved again, this time to South
Bay where Nicholson Sr. became the Captain on another little steamer called the “Pewabic” (iron) and moved freight from
South Bay to MacDiarmid for the construction of the Canadian Northern.”
“George’s father worked for the Ontario Forestry Branch out of
MacDiarmid for 36 years, mostly running the boat “Ogima” – (‘chief’ in Ojibway)
- . Abitibi had a boat by this name on
Lake Nipigon, but it wasn’t this one – theirs was the Ogima II. It’s at Oscar Styffe’s dock in Port Arthur.”
“George was now living at Sand Point which was the
settlement that preceded MacDiarmid. He
worked for a while fishing on Lake Nipigon; worked for the railway as a section
man and did whatever he had to do to
make a living.”
“ In those days there was no unemployment insurance and if
you didn’t work, you didn’t get any money. Since work on the railway and
fishing was seasonal employment a guy had to be nimble footed indeed to remain
gainfully employed. Especially in and around Lake Nipigon.”
“We think that Nicholson freighted on the construction of
the C.N.R. from MacDiarmid to Longlac but we have to talk to him about this. We
were amused at one remark that George made about the time he was living and
freighting out of South Bay and that was about the presence of a “whiskey” policeman
there. He knew the guy’s name – it was Van Norman. Ring a bell? Van Norman
Street in Port Arthur? His job was to check all northbound people for the
possession of alcohol. Van Norman must
have confiscated dozens of bottles. We
often wonder where all those old whiskey bottles around Lake Nipigon came from.
– Van Norman sure as heck didn’t get them all.”
“We also note A. M. Lower in his short description of going
north on Lake Nipigon in 1909 mentions provincial policemen at South Bay
checking one and all for the presence of liquor.”
