This month’s Coffee and Conversation at the Prince Albert Historical Museum was a little bit different.
The focus was the history of La Ronge but it was through the eyes of an author.
Anne Hryniuk, the author of ‘Builders, Movers, Shakers, Scoundrels, Scamps and Just Plain Good People- and some of the Things they got up to! History and Memories of My home town; La Ronge Saskatchewan 1900-1979′ discussed, her book on Sunday.
She said the book started as a small project on the history of her parents, but that quickly changed.
“I was writing a book on my parents because they were so radically different,” Hryniuk explained. “He was from Denmark…. He arrived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and he was from the Balkan Sea area.”
Her father initially came to Viking, Alta., but wanted to go fishing and be by the lake so he ended up working in La Ronge.
“That’s how Dad came, and my mom, her mother was a local treaty Indian and her father was a MacKay,” Hryniuk said. Her father is related to the Prince Albert MacKay family.
She said she had been chipping away at the book for a few years and then received a visit from her friend Gill Gracie, the former owner of the La Ronge Northerner. Gracie was also on hand on Sunday and sat next to Hryniuk to offer any assistance she could.
Gracie asked Hryniuk why she was not writing a more complete history because she knew so much about La Ronge.
“I have quite a good memory at that time. But nowadays at 88-years-old things just go by,” she said.
The two had been friends since Gracie came to La Ronge in 1960.
“She was determined that she would help me in every way, shape or form, which she did,” Hryniuk said.
The history is from 1900 to 1979 and Hryniuk said it took some work to find items from the 1900s to 1920s. Another problem that arose was that she thought she had friends she knew in La Ronge who could remember. They then asked her how she remembered all of these parts that they could not.
“But they lived on the trap line, so they wouldn’t know it. They wouldn’t know, they go away in the fall. Maybe come in for a week at Christmas,” Hryniuk said.
During the interview, she used a refrain which she used throughout the presentation on Sunday.
“It’s in the book, I have to sell you the book,” she said.
Gracie owned the La Ronge Northerner and also operated a magazine called Opportunities North.
“She knows more about mining and the things happening in that age,” Gracie said.
The book is a point of pride for both Hryniuk and Gracie.
“We’re very proud of the book. We’ve had a lot of people (who) said, ‘I can’t believe you dug and found out all that information’,” Hryniuk said.
In addition to her long memory, Hryniuk said her other advantage was being able to understand Cree. Her dad was learning Cree from his mother, but she passed away before Hryniuk was born. Instead, Hryniuk learned it at school.
“That’s the way it was, and I didn’t go to the boarding school. My older sister and two brothers went there,” Hryniuk said.
“When I started, they had a little wee building and there was about 10 or 12 of us kids.”
During the presentation, she told stories about spy planes, Johnny Cash coming to La Ronge, and meeting Jacque Cousteau when her husband rescued his sunglasses from the bottom of the lake.
The book has already been popular.
“We had 500 books come in in June. They were sold in two and a half weeks. I had to order another 300 which arrived three weeks ago and I’ve sold about 60 right now and we’re getting phone calls from people,” Hryniuk said.
“I’ve had reports from various people what a fantastic book that was for $40 you should have charged twice as much. But I did it for the people of the north, if anything is way too big reading, it gets boring and they probably wouldn’t be interested,”
The book is not too long because it only covers up to 1979 and includes many historical photos throughout. Hryniuk tried to include everything except politics.
“I didn’t want any part of any politics,” she said. “I wrote some silly things that happened in La Ronge by young pilots, they did crazy things when they could get away with them.”
Hryniuk said that Gracie helped her in any way that she could and was better on computers.
The next Coffee and Conversation is on Sunday, Nov. 17 with the subject to be determined. Coffee and Conversation begins at 2 p.m.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
