ital Bi2 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 23, 1994 FLOYD FRANK Memories of winters past HE WEEKEND’s heavy blanket of snow brings back memories of winters past for many old- timers. And ils perhaps a good time to present some of the reminis- cences of Terrace pioneer, Flayd Frank; who turmed 90 this fall. Every one of his winters have been spent here on the Skeena, He's written one baok on focal history already and a second one is now inthe works. He’s hoping to have it published in the spring of 1995, So now, here are some memories of winters gone by from Floyd Frank.... By Floyd Frank WINTER IS WINTER, no mat- ter where you find it, and the first fall. of snow sends the kids sear- ching for-their sleds. It wasa’t much different in the early days in the Kitsumkalum Valley, except that to begin with, kids were few and far between and in. most cases, rather than searching for their sleds, they were asking Dad to build them | Those with creative ability built their own. A great variety of sleds were produced by the youngsters, some good, and some that couldn’t stand the stress of coast- ing. But even the fancy bought sleds often had to take second place to the wide-runnercd home-made variety under certain snow condi- tions. - As there was no snowplowing of roads in those days, we had to” wait after a heavy snowfall until the horses and their heavy sleighs had tramped down the snow .on the roads up the hills before we were able to navigate with our sleds. Some coasting and sliding took place by the younger kids on. smaller. slopes, but the older kids headed, for a long steep hill that starts at the north end of Frank Road at the foot of the bench, then tums right to climb and meet up with Kalum Lake Drive at the top of the bench, _ This road is still open and at times is used by tobagganists and coasters. ‘In the early 1920s, my younger brother built a heavy bobsleigh about the size and shape of a modera snowmobile but with two sets of runners — the front set and the back set. Three. of us, aged about 17, hauled the bobsled and a store bought steel-runnered sled up to the hill for some fun. The idea was to make a sleigh train, with two of us sitting on the bobsled, the front one holding the rope tight. The third member of our crew Jay flat on the store bought. sled, hitching his toes through the ropes of the bob sled. By swinging his feet to one side or the other, the could steer the whole train around comers, quite handily. The first trip down all went well and we made the turn at the bot- tom of the hill without any trouble. Qn the second tip down — with another one doing the steer- ing —-we. again made the tum. But the speed was a lot faster than the first, Maybe the track was getting better. Maybe the rust was wear- ing off the stec] shod runners of the bobsled. The third tip was my tum to pilot the train. This time we were really. flying as we approached the boltom and I doubted we could make the turn, I decided to bold straight ahead, figuring that with the speed we were going, the sled would climb the 10 inch bank of hard snow at the side of the road and we would go up a path feading up the hill to the left. Instead, the sled hit the snow- bank and stopped abruptly, as did the bobsled. The two bobsledders, however, sailed through the air and landed under a clump of willows more than 10 {cet in front of my head, a flight of at least 20 feet. No one was hurt, but we de- cided we had had enough for one day, Then, as now, skating on natu- ral ice outdoors was a | hit and miss affair, Some winters with lots of skat- ing, and olhers with little or none. leather boots. The clamp-on paris were ad- justable and so would fit to dié- ferent sized boots, so several of us would go skating and take turns using one set of skates, Cold feet were the order of the day as our leather shocs were cold. As the years passed, some kids got skates they could screw onto the soles of their shoes, but it was hard to get them on straight or make them stay on. Skiing never got popular, we couldn’t afford a good outfit and the heavy snows discouraged their general use. But almost everyone had snow- shoes, and we did a lot of snow- shoeing. Many of us were able to run on them at 2 pretty good clip without taking too many nose dives into the snow. At school, we would tramp out a large circle in the snow, with a tramped down cross within the circle and play fox and geese. , There were snowball fights and snow forts with the ensuing battles, ; At home we built snowmen when the snow was favourable. Lack of roads and fast trans- portation limited ouz range. We never got out to any of the lakes in winter, they were just too far away to walk there or go by horse and sleigh, In the early days, there were HERE ‘N: THERE) YVONNE MOEN two clay tennis courts just across from Railway Avenue south of the Terrace Hotel and facing on Kalum Street, These were en- closed by a three foot board fence plus about ten feet of chicken wire above the boards. One fall in about 1920, a group of citizens decided to flood these tennis courts when it turned cold for a small outdoor skating rink. One of the group was put in charge and was paid to keep the rink free of snow. Dry powdery snow fell and that Terrace wind began to blow. The board fence acted as a windbreak, and it seemed that all the passing snow ended up on the ice rink, The man kept shovelling it to the sides, piling it higher and higher. But the higher the piles of snow surrounding it got, the decper the drifts on the ice scemed to get, At last, with the cleared ice sur- face down to about the size of a small room, and no place to pile more snow, the idea of an out- door rink was abandoned. Tn the fall of 1932, an active group of young peopel formed a ski club, got busy and cleared off the bush on a ski run on Terrace Mountain, above the North Kalum trailer court. They didn’t bother to cut off the stumps, figuring th snow would cover them. They got their skiing equipment all in order and waited for ‘the snow, It was a-wet winter, however, with just a bit of wet snow ail winter, and there was simply no chance to try out the ski run, By spring the ski club had fal- len apart and was never revived. Speeding Costs Almost 8,000 Injuries A Year. Please, Slow Down. RoadFi ’ Baby’s Name: Gideon Bryson Joseph ‘Tanner Drawn Jr, Date & Time of Birth: October 27/94 at 1:39 p.m. Weight: 8 lbs 5 oz Sex: Male Parents: Gideon Brown Sr. & | Luanne Marsden Prince Rupert BUNDLES OF JOY Baby’s Name: Melissa Margary Paige Date & Time of Birth: November 3/94 at 10:03 p.m. Weight: ibs 4 oz Sex: Female Parents: Henry & Diane Adams Little sister for Jordan, Henry Jr. & Michael. Baby's Name: Taran Ashtin Richard Douth Date & Time of Birth: Nov. 1/94 at 11:22 a.m. Weight: 6 Ibs 2 0z Sex: Male Parent: Darryl & Rae Booth, Baby brather for Tory Baby's Name: Gregory Terrance Stevens Date & Time of Birth: November 5 at 7:05 p.m, Weight: 7 lbs 15.0% Sex: Male Parents: Lorne Stevens & Korinna Morven, a little brother for Tara Baby’s Name: David Mackenzie Byng Date & Time of Birth: November 2/94 at 06:03 a.m. Weight: 8 lbs 15 oz Sex: Male Parents: David & Cheryl-Ann Byng, brather for Tyler Alan Byng Hahy's Name: Nathan James Rinsma Date & ‘Time of Birth: November 19/94 at 8:30 am. Weight: 9 Ibs 5 oz Sex: Male Parents: Rita Rinsma. 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