A Flour and Fish Story

Remembering the big ones that rarely got away

Printed in the Kenora Enterprise May 25, 1997

Reprinted with permission

The channel that carried boaters from Lake of the Woods to the Keewatin Boat Lift once housed the water wheels that drove the Keewatin Flour Mill.

This story about that channel, from lifelong Keewatin resident George Defoort, comes from that time and has more to do with fish than flour.

As mentioned, the mill was powered by underwater wheels which were located in the channel. Once a year, mill workers had to drain the channel so they could do repair and maintenance work on those water wheels.

“My father was in charge of that so that’s why I always knew when it was going to happen,” George recalls.

Of course, the other dozen or so men working on the job had children, too. So every July or August, when the channel was drained, George and his friends would be forewarned and ready to pick up what the receding waters left behind.

As the water drained away, the muddy, dirty, slippery bottom of the channel was revealed. Certainly, a playground like that would have drawn most youngsters like moths to a flame, but young George was more interested in the small pools of water which were left behind. These pools, which often measured three or four feet across and held about a foot and a half of water, sometimes harboured a scaly treasure of their own.

The only fish we were after were pickerel, but there’d be jackfish (Northern Pike) and suckers,” says George. “There was always one big snapping turtle in there. You’d always see, he seemed to be a permanent resident in there.

And so, they would make their way through the mud, checking each pool. If they were lucky enough to find a ‘keeper’, they would scoop it up into bran bags, (these came from the mill) which they had brought along for that purpose. Usually, it would only take about an hour for the channel to be ‘fished out’ by the youngsters.

Like any other favourite spot, there were more fish some years than others. George remembers one particularly good catch. “I think Glen MacDonald and I caught 11 fish one morning. I brought three or four home and the MacDonald’s got the balance because they had a larger family.”

George remembers this yearly ritual fondly, but he also suspects his father had ulterior motives in letting him know when the channel was going to be drained.

“In hindsight, I think my dad wanted a feed of fish too.”