By Derek Cornet

Lois Dalby recalls six decades of northern life

Mar 23, 2018 | 8:00 AM

Arriving in La Ronge from Winnipeg in the spring of 1955, long-time resident Lois Dalby has witnessed a lot of changes since that time.

“There weren’t many buildings on Main Street,” she said. “I remember there were big deep ruts in the road, and it was a very small place.”

After she moved to northern Saskatchewan with her late husband Bob, Dalby said the couple first worked for Red’s Camps at a site about 25 miles from town at Black Bear Island Lake. At the time, Dalby said, there were eight fishing camps in the area which brought in a large number of tourists. The highway also came to an end in La Ronge during the 1950s, so people and supplies had to be transported either by boat or plane.

In 1957, an opportunity arose for Dalby to teach in Stanley Mission as the teachers who were there left in the middle of the year. She accepted the position, which is around the time she began developing artwork to assist in her teaching. Because she was trying to teach English to local First Nations children, Dalby noted creating effective materials was crucial.

“If they were going to learn English as a second language, you needed to illustrate the words for them because they didn’t have the experience to know what you were talking about,” she said.

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Dalby was only destined to work in Stanley Mission for a year-and-a-half, however, as she later took a job as the art teacher at Gateway School in the mid-1960s. The principal there had noticed an attendance problem because students were only showing up on the days music, art and physical education were offered, so he expanded the programs. Dalby said she continued creating artwork during the time and she used a Gestetner machine to make copies of the material.

In the 1970s, Dalby said she left her job in front of a chalkboard to do curriculum development work for the province’s Department of Northern Saskatchewan. Throughout her career she amassed 20,000 slides of educational material, much of it containing her original artwork of traditional Cree and Dene scenes. Dalby officially retired in 1987, and called the work she did exciting and a lot of fun.

“I started that in Stanley because it seemed the readers provided were just ridiculous for kids who were living in the bush,” she said.

With more involvement with the Department of Northern Saskatchewan and an increase in mining activity, Dalby said the 1970s and 80s were a time of growth in La Ronge. She said a building boom occurred as houses, schools, roads, and airstrips were constructed. A municipal government structure was also put in place at that time, Dalby added, as much of the decision making before then was done by the province.

In 1981 Dalby moved to English Bay where she remains to this day. She still likes to create artwork and said northern landscapes are one of her favourite subjects to paint. Her career was also highlighted last month, as much of her artwork was displayed during Archive Day at Air Ronge’s Pahkisimon Nuye?áh Library. When she first arrived in the North in 1955, Dalby said she fell in love with it and she still has those feelings today.

“I’ve had a very good life here and I’ve enjoyed it,” she said. “The North gave me opportunities that I probably wouldn’t have had.”

derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno