Senior planning memoir of life and times in La Ronge
The town was a much different place when long-time resident Anne Hryniuk was born in her family’s home along the shores of Lac La Ronge in 1936.
“People lived far apart and there were only a couple of stores,” she said, noting the permanent population at the time was around 50. “It was a small community and there are very few of those original people my age. They’re all gone or moved away.”
Born to businessman Chris Olsen and his wife, Ida McKay, Hryniuk started attended class at the All Saints Day School when she was five years old, while the First Nations children went to the nearby All Saints Residential School. With Grade 9 being the highest education she could receive in La Ronge at the time, her parents paid for Hryniuk and her siblings to complete high school in Prince Albert.
By the time Hryniuk moved back to La Ronge in 1964, she noted there had already been big changes since the 1930s. The highway linking the town with southern Saskatchewan was completed, although mostly in a gravel state, in 1948, then electricity came to La Ronge via a private business in the 1950s. When the Anglo-Rouyn Mine opened northeast of La Ronge in 1966, water and sewer followed not long after. Hryniuk said during this time, mining exploration was a major employer for the local workforce.