Community Memories

From Steve Ogrodnic

 

     Steve Oerodnic was born in The Pas, Mb.  

     Like many young northern boys, his chief form of entertainment was street hockey.  They didn't have a puck.  What they used instead was frozen horse turds. They were available all over.  In the 30's there wasn’t many cars in the Pas, it was all horses.  Grocery stores had horses for deliveries; the CNR had a team of horses.

     Steve had varied job experiences before coming to Thompson.  When Steve finished high school, he went in the army and was stationed in Winnipeg at Camp Shiloh. When the war was over in Europe, he volunteered for the Pacific.  Then he was discharged. One of the first jobs he had was up at Lynn Lake, diamond drilling.  After that, Steve went to B.C. for about ten years.  He worked six summer seasons in the Yukon.  He went back to The Pas because his dad was ill.

     In 1957, Steve got a job in Thompson.  He started to work with Foundation Construction Company and did that for three or four years.  When INCO started up in 1960, he transferred to INCO, working as a yard foreman.

     Steve's interest in photography began at an early age since 1935 when he was eight or nine years old.  He had a little bullet camera.  When he was in the Yukon he became interested in 35 mm. slides.  His favorite subjects for photography was nature - sunsets, scenery etc, as well as the INCO pictures.  A lot of people would ask what was here in Thompson before the head frame.  Steve would tell people that there was a jack pine here, a spruce over there a poplar over there.  You could see what it was like before a brand new town sprung out of the wilderness.

     Steve describes what conditions were like when he first arrived in 1957.  The site had started in '56 when they were moving all the equipment from Thicket Portage by Cat-train over the ice, to the present - day location in Thompson.  That was lumber, cement, steel, nails, bolts, groceries, all the gasoline and fuel - everything.

 

 

The kitchen and bunkhouses were already in place when Steve arrived.  He, like many others, was accommodated in a tent at first.  He worked long hours, seven days a week and a lot of overtime, especially in the summertime when the daylight hours lengthened.  Bulldozers were clearing the muskeg and clay to get to the bedrock that would serve as the main foundation for the plant site.  Steve was in charge of the construction labourers who unloaded the materials needed, and with supplying the carpenters with the necessities for their tasks.  He also worked with a surveyor for a while, and then worked on the boilers.  When they were pouring cement, we had to have steam heat to cure the concrete.  Sometimes I worked night shift, so during the day, I would walk around with my camera, taking pictures of the construction.  Steve considers himself a pioneer, observing the changes and development at the plant and town-site.

Steve spoke of how life was kind of lonely, especially for single men.  Around the year '61 Crawley McCracken, who was the official caterer, brought in girls to be waitresses, soon to be nicknamed "Crawley's Dollies."

     Steve spent 22 years in Thompson, returning to The Pas in ‘79 to retire.