Curling on the Slip, Port McNicoll, 1932

Canadians are great improvisers and have always found ways to pass the long, cold winter.  Sports like hockey and curling make for a good diversion from the icy winds and piles of snow of the Canadian winter.  Before indoor rinks, people would curl on the frozen surfaces of bays and rivers, like the men in the photo above, curling on the slip in Port McNicoll.  In the background, the giant elevator stands quietly, with the freight ships sitting across from it, halted for the season by ice.  It is quite likely that some of these men would have worked at the elevator or on the ships in the summer, as the CPR was the village’s main employer for many years.  In the winter months, when the ships were dormant, ice was harvested out of the bay and stored in large sheds behind the station house to be used the next summer in the dining cars and as air-conditioning for the passenger cars for the CPR trains.             The villages of Tay Township have battled each other on the ice for years.  When equipment wasn’t available, players would improvise by using old catalogues as pads and the brass school bell as a referee’s whistle.  On the curling rink, teams competed for trophies such as the locally prestigious Canadian Steamship Lines Bonspiel.  As populations grew, outdoor rinks were built, followed by indoor rinks.  Port McNicoll got its first curling rink in 1928.  Shares were sold for $25.00 to finance the construction of the rink, which was built at the end of the main street.