My wife, Beverly, and I moved to Spray from Seebe in 1952 when I joined Keith Cole’s crew on the Spray Hydro Development. Canmore was a typical mining town, rather dusty, but a friendly place and we soon became part of the community.
During the initial testing, great quantities of water had to be spilled from the Spray canal. The water entered town at a culvert under the main road to the mines, just south of Rundle Mountain Trading Company. A dragline was dispatched to control the debris which had soon piled up so much it was called Mt. Eckinfelder in honour of our chief engineer. If there was ever a colourful personality, it had to be the Poole Construction superintendent, Fred Hooper. They used to say he didn’t need a walkie-talkie; he could stand outside the powerhouse door and beller his instructions to the crew up in Whiteman’s Gap. One evening, Fred roared his truck up an incline to the cookhouse door and went charging in to raise heck about something. When he came out, his truck was gone. Then we discovered the two headlights still blazing beneath the water in the Spray canal!
Our new house at Spray had coal furnaces. For ten dollars, a chit was obtained from the mine office and in the evening, Stu Baker and I would drive the Calgary Power Ltd. power wagon down to the tipple for a load of briquettes. Those fellows at the tipple would fill that truck up to overflowing. Stu and I thought it was wasteful so we put two-foot sideboards on the truck box. On our next trip down, darned if they didn’t fill us up to overflowing again. We liked those fellows at the tipple!
After construction, we settled into the routine of getting the kids to and from school, the post office and general store. We joined the curling club and oh!, I must mention the golf course. Have you ever whacked the ball, had it strike the mine track and bounce back farther than where it started? And the spring blossoms – thousands of them on the fairway and all white and round. Such a place to find a ball!
On a family visit, my sister-in-law, Kit, was nabbed by a local forestry officer for attempting to net suckers out of the tailrace at the Spray Lakes plant. She lost her fishing tackle and was told she would be arrested. Kit was devastated – she, the mother of a known Anglican minister! Such a scandal! However, the forestry officer thought better of it and returned her tackle to her, much to the amusement of the rest of us.
We left Canmore in 1963, moving to the Calgary Power plant at Brazeau. Our son, John, was born in 1967. After I retired, we moved to Powell River, B.C., where we enjoyed many years of sailing along the coast. John married Kelly and they live in Vancouver. Bev passed away in 1999 but I am still in Powell River.
I have been back to Canmore many times and each time am astounded at the many changes in that dusty little mining town, but were I ever to live in Alberta again, Canmore would be the place for me.
Bill and Beverly Maxwell
In Canmore Seniors at the Summit, ed. Canmore Seniors Association, 2000, p.188-189.
