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'It's totally different now' Woman born on Jolliffe Island returns to visit Yellowknife after 29 years
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, July 10, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Lee Strocher, only daughter of geologist and prospector John Francis "Jack" Tibbitt, for whom Tibbitt Lake is named, was born in fine Northern fashion during a March blizzard in 1942.
Lee Strocher (born Tibbitt), who was born on Jolliffe Island in March 1941, returned to Yellowknife for a visit in the first week of July. She was last in the city in 1984 for the 50th anniversary of Yellowknife. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo |
She was born early, and the unexpected labour and blizzard had her mother Margaret stranded on Jolliffe Island without medical help. Luckily, Dr. Oliver Stanton was able to cross the ice to reach the Tibbitt homestead. Strocher was born with asthma, and weighed only two pounds, but she survived even when Dr. Stanton had his doubts.
Strocher, now retired, spent the first eight years of her life in Yellowknife. When she was two years old her father moved the family from Jolliffe so he could work at the Negus Mine, which produced more than 225,000 ounces of gold from 1939 to 1952.
She remembers having to spend all of her winters in the hospital, getting visits from friends and members of the frontier community, such as a Catholic priest named Father Gathi.
Her father moved the family once more to Calgary in 1949 at Stanton's behest, who worried about the lasting effects of Northern winters on the young girl's health.
Even though the family moved, life in the North dominates her memories.
Life in the 1940s revolved around the seasons, and Strocher can remember how it felt in the spring when the ice would begin to break up, signaling the impending arrival of the food barge.
"The food came first and the liquor barge was right behind it," she laughed. "As a kid I wasn't supposed to know about that, though."
When the barge did arrive, it was the only time Strocher was able to leave the fenced area surrounding the housing complex and go out onto the dock. All of the children gathered there, she said, waiting anxiously to collect their favourite harbinger of spring - a fresh, tasty orange.
"That was like getting candy," she said. "I remember older boys, 13 and 14 years old, crying when they didn't get an orange."
Fruit was such a treasured rarity back then she can recall her father buying a watermelon in 1946 for $30, equivalent to around $385 today.
Strocher remembers a fire that destroyed the Negus Mine bunkhouse just after Christmas in 1946. Her father and his friend, Bill McKeown, were safe in the housing complex with the Tibbitt family when the building burst into flames, but it was no less traumatic for the family.
"I remember standing in the front window and watching these men jumping from the buildings on fire," she said. "I couldn't sleep afterward, the sirens had just wailed and wailed and that sound doesn't go away."
She recalls that the water they had sprayed onto the fire had frozen, leaving a constant reminder of the incident.
"I never wanted to walk anywhere near it," she said. "It was scary."
She said it was surreal to stand at the gates of Con Mine where the Negus Mine once was during her visit in Yellowknife last week.
Strocher came with her son Blaine Holmes and his family, camping at Fred Henne Territorial Park during their stay. It was the first time they had been back since the 50th anniversary of Yellowknife gathering in 1984 where she was given a pin to honour her as a past resident, and her father was recognized as part of the frontier community.
Jack Tibbitt was a geologist who helped retired RCMP corporal Finley McInnes and two Inuit guides map Baffin Island for the Canadian Geographical Survey of 1935. He continued work as a geologist and prospector until he got the job at Negus Mine.
His stories and passion for the North carried on with Strocher and her son.
"It's been so interesting being back here with her, because she opens up about all of the stories and it puts perspective on things," said Holmes, who now works as an engineer outside of Edmonton.
The family made the trip back to Alberta on Monday.
She told Yellowknifer she was awed by how the city had changed.
"It's totally different now," she said. "When I got here I hardly knew anything because of how it had grown."
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