Category: Blogs I recommend

Celebrating Winnipeg’s Past

On By Sandi Krawchenko AltnerIn Blogs I recommend, History, Storytellers, Ukrainians in Canada, Uncategorized, Winnipeg, Writing1 Comment

Ravenscraig,  The Blog

This blog celebrates the history of Winnipeg, my hometown, and occasionally allows me to indulge in some wider observations of the world that catch my interest.

Here you will find stories about Winnipeg at the turn of the 20th century when the Manitoba capital declared her glory as one of the fastest growing cities in North America.  The research behind the stories you will find on this site was done over many years and became the basis for the storyline for my novel, Ravenscraig.  I welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.  Email me at:  sandi.altner@gmail.com

Boomtown Winnipeg:

The early years in Manitoba were very exciting, with Winnipeg recognized as the gateway city for people and goods traveling west to the new frontier. From these years of rapid growth in Winnipeg, 1874-1914, there developed a large group of millionaires and the crop of mansions they built to impress each other.

Historian, Dr. Alan Artibise, referred to these captains of industry as “the commercial elite” and truly Winnipeg was seen by those “down east” in Ontario, as the place to be for those seeking to make or increase their fortunes at the dawn of the 20th century.

Dufferin, corner of King c. 1904 N7962 Courtesy Manitoba Archives

But not everyone had a shot at the big money in Winnipeg.

On the other side of the tracks, newly arrived immigrants struggled to overcome the horrors of poverty, disease and anti-foreigner sentiments as they fought to put down roots in the New Country. It is from this determination of the newcomers to survive and prosper that the famed Winnipeg North End came to be.

To help understand the rich mosaic in this colourful history, I’ve included a selection of films, featuring such topics as Jews in Winnipeg, life in a Ted Baryluk’s store in the North End, and a terrific NFB film about a man whose job was to keep the tracks clean for the Winnipeg street cars.

You will also find that I indulge in some nostalgic remembrances of my childhood  on Gallagher Avenue and at Principal Sparling School, and share stories about my family history.  I am very proud to have descended from the first group of Ukrainian settlers in Manitoba.  The first 27 families  arrived in the summer of 1896 and settled in the southeastern corner of the province.  My family farmed near Vita.

Titanic, I must say, is my true love in research topics so you will find a number of postings about Winnipeg’s Titanic connection, and Titanic in general. In all there were more than thirty passengers on the ship who were on their way to Winnipeg to return home, stay for a visit, or like survivor Eva Hart’s family, to settle in Manitoba as immigrants.

I was a child when I first learned about the Titanic. My dad took us for a drive to point out Mark Fortune’s house on Wellington Crescent and told us about the six people from the Fortune family who were on their way home to Winnipeg when the great ship struck an iceberg and sank.  I was horrified, and instantly hooked.

Years later, the Fortune family and Winnipeg’s connection to the Titanic came to occupy a significant part of my imagination, and the Fortunes found their way into my novel, Ravenscraig, which has recently been published in Canada by Heartland Associates.

Thanks for visiting.

About the name Ravenscraig:

Ravenscraig, the blog, (and title of my novel) is taken from the name of a fictitious home, Ravenscraig Hall, in Winnipeg’s Armstrong’s Point and owned by Rupert Willows, the lead character in the book.

About the novel:

Ravenscraig is about two families: the Willows—wealthy, powerful and anti-Semitic, and the Zigmans—newly arrived Jews, struggling to put down roots in Winnipeg’s North End.

Click on the image below to see the book trailer for Ravenscraig.

Storytellers: Patrick Howse — Baghdad, Bombs, Trauma and Poetry

On By Sandi Krawchenko AltnerIn Blogs I recommend, StorytellersLeave a comment

I’m just starting to get the hang of Twitter. I’m not interested in what you had for breakfast or how cute your dog is, and I don’t want a new car, house paint, face paint or a bunch of new chatterbox friends.  No thanks.

But if you worked in Baghdad as a rotating bureau chief and turned to writing poetry to regain your emotional stability in the wake of bombs dropping on your work place, you’ll get my attention.  So it is that I happened across Patrick Howse, of the BBC on Twitter.  I worked in television news for a long time, but the greatest risks I faced were primarily limited to getting through traffic.  The people in news who volunteer to go into war zones are a special breed.

Patrick’s poetry is at times gentle and moving, yet also stark and harrowing.  Through it we get a glimpse of what it means when the journalist needs a flak jacket to go to work.  Even more important, we get a sense of the story that can’t be told on air.

Here is Patrick Howse reading his poem ‘Hostile Environments Refresher Course’.

RG: Putting a face on a century-old disaster

On By Sandi Krawchenko AltnerIn Blogs I recommend, History, Research Gems, Titanic, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today’s research gem is from Digs and Docs by John R. Roby. An anthropologist explains his interest in an obscure document connected to the Titanic.

I  could quite happily spend an entire day traipsing from one blog to the next reading stories about Titanic and other topics, discovering writers and researchers who share my passion for historical research.  Alas, with work assignments to complete,  I rarely find  large enough blocks of time to indulge in such delicious, and time consuming meanderings.  Yet, when I do, I am almost always rewarded.

Truth be told, you have to find your way through so much junk and regurgitation before you hit the true gems.  But the gems are there, and they must be shared.

This prompts to me start a new category on this blog, which I will call “Research Gems”  to recognize thoughtful and interesting work.  All of the reposted work will have RG:  in the title so it can be easily found.

Today’s link Putting a face on a century-old disaster is from John R. Roby, an anthropologist whose blog is called Digs and Docs.  Here’s how he describes his blog:

About Digs and Docs 

I decided to launch Digs and Docs for a very simple reason: To cover topics that I want to read about. I follow a good number of blogs, including more than a few on archaeology and history.  But none of them are focused on the many and fascinating ways that material culture, historical documents, culture, and the past and present, intersect. A fundamental premise of mine, one that is widely held in my field, is that the objects (material culture) and writings (documents, archives) of people in the past are not merely of the past, but in a very real sense, are part of the present. They influence the ways we think and act today, and are part of our understanding of who we are as contemporary people living as part of a contemporary society. Too often, though, we seem to forget this. We imagine that our cultural landscape is something new and unique to us, without precedent in human history. We fail to realize that our present is merely a point in the grand sweep of history, and the past has exerted a strong influence on the makeup of that present.