Brodie Thomas
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, January 30, 2008
YELLOWKNIFE - Friends, relatives, and even people who had never met Ed Baker gathered at the building that is named for him to learn of his amazing life on Saturday.
Last year was the Baker Centre's 10th anniversary, although members of the Baker family were unable to come to Yellowknife until this year.
It was an especially moving day for Don Baker, Ed's second cousin. Don lost his son, also named Edwin Baker, last July in an automobile accident.
Don described his cousin as a quiet, easy-going man.
"He was a great family man," he said. "He always kept in close touch with us."
Baker's niece, Isabell McDorman, delivered a slide show presentation about Ed's service in the Second World War, and how he came to settle in Yellowknife.
Born in 1907, Edwin Baker grew up on a farm near Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. One of 10 children, Ed found farm work tedious but he discovered his calling when he started work at INCO's Frood Mine in Ontario in 1933.
When war broke out in 1939, Baker and his brother Clifford went straight into town to sign up for the army. Both brothers ended up in the Toronto Scottish Regiment.
Ed wasn't in England long before the military singled him out for his expertise in mining the hard rock of the Canadian shield.
He ended up stationed on the Rock of Gibraltar, helping the British tunnel into the monolith, and blast its surface in order to create longer runways for the ever-growing fleet of planes and bombers needed for the war effort.
Isabell recounted how Ed would send cryptic messages home to his relatives in order to bypass the military censors.
When he was stationed in Gibraltar, Ed casually mentioned the "familiar territory" he was working in and even sent a small chunk of the granite of Gibraltar home in his letter.
Isabell said as soon as her father examined the rock and thought for a moment, his eyes lit up and he knew right away where Ed was stationed.
"They discussed blasting techniques as a part of our dinner table conversation," said Isabell, referring to Ed and his many brothers in Ontario. "The Canadians taught the Brits all about drilling on angles, drilling holes of different diameters, and using different strengths of charges in order to make the rock fall where they wanted."
Before leaving England at the end of the war, Ed volunteered with a land mine-destroying contingent.
When he returned to Canada, Ed followed a major from his division to the Northwest Territories and in 1946 he settled in Yellowknife to work in the mines.
While in the United Kingdom, he had been introduced to a Scottish girl named Margaret. He left her behind in 1945 but they continued to correspond and finally Ed proposed marriage by mail.
In 1951 the two wed in a small church outside of Toronto.
Ed and Margaret didn't have any children. Margaret died in 1965.
Coming from a tight-knit family in his youth, Ed turned to the Yellowknife community as a surrogate family. He was active in the Legion and the Elks Club.
Ed worked in the mines at Yellowknife until 1972, when he retired. In 1976 he was asked to come out of retirement to work as a safety inspector for the Con mine.
He stayed on another three years, and during that time there were no lost-time accidents at the mine.
Before coming out of retirement, Ed established a woodworking centre at Northern United Place.
"He had noticed the men were sitting around and twiddling their thumbs," said Isabell. "The woodworking shop gave them something to do."
Isabell said after establishing the woodworking centre, Ed was always concerned about the people in the seniors home.
There was talk of creating a building where seniors could gather, although nobody was stepping forward with the money.
"He often said to me that he had made his money in Yellowknife, and he wanted his money to stay in Yellowknife," said Isabell.
Ed donated $100,000 for the construction of what would later become the Ed Baker Centre.
Ed never lived to see his building completed. He died in 1996. The centre opened in 1997.
