They’re found along the highways and back roads of Manitoba: pillars of stone and mortar or boulders, each fronted by a metal plate inlaid with text. If it’s one of the more travelled sites, there might be a parking area or flagpole.
In many cases, that’s all that is left of rural schoolhouses that used to dot the Prairies, besides old photos that may hide in municipal records, the local library or are preserved by a historical society.
One group in west-central Manitoba wants to add another tie to that history. Those rural school markers are the star of a calendar project spearheaded by the North Norfolk Rural Cairn Committee.
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Why it matters: The two-year calendar will spotlight the history and stories of rural one-room schools and help raise money for preservation.
The calendar is the project of four North Norfolk Rural Cairn Committee members: Ramona Blythe, Arlene Jarema, Mary Kalberg and Elsie Wright.
The goal is two-fold. The calendar will help memorialize those schools and the money raised from sale of the calendars will feed into the perpetual fund that finances grounds maintenance at the 25 cairns under the committee’s purview.
Alumni from the schools, or their families, helped kick off the project, sponsoring pages to provide seed capital.
The pages of the two-year calendar are peppered with pictures and information on all the local schools, although the municipality’s 25 one-room schools are the main focus. Each one-room school has a page devoted to it and its cairn. The consolidated schools in MacGregor, Austin and Sidney, which opened their doors once smaller schools began to close, are also featured.
Each such page includes specific information, such as when and where the school was built, if it ever burned or was replaced and any other aspects that made it unique.
Thumbing through the calendar is a journey through regional history. Several pages provide general information about one-room schools and how they were set up and run. Information on the era’s teacher training, school inspector visits, Christmas concerts and ‘field days’ (the old term for today’s track and field, but usually including school marching competitions and softball games) also feature.
At Path Head School north of MacGregor, the calendar notes, “three billy goats gruff” was a game of choice among students, the rules of which are largely lost to the annals of playground history. Other mentioned games included “anti-I-over” and “stealing sticks.”
At other schools, such as Beaver Creek School northeast of MacGregor, noon activities included trapping gophers, since tails could earn the enterprising trapper two pennies each from the municipal bounty.
For those interested in touring the cairns, the calendar includes a municipal map marking the sites, including Chipping Hill, one of few where the building still stands, is kept in good condition and is used for community events.
Others who want to relive their own school days can take the quiz published at the back of the calendar.
Funding preservation
The perpetual fund was established in the early 1990s under the North Norfolk Foundation and was designed to establish resources for the care of 25 cairn sites. The original money was raised through a placemat fundraiser. That was followed by a much bigger project, a book titled “Schoolhouse Memories,” published in 2005.
That book formed a base for the details, pictures and stories now featured in the calendar, along with the North Norfolk Archives and “Through Fields and Dreams,” a book covering the general history of North Norfolk and MacGregor.
Revenues from the book raised enough to cover site maintenance costs up to the present day. It is hoped new sales from the calendar will help top off the fund.
The committee held a line of launches in MacGregor, Austin and Sidney in late October to present their work to the public.
Anyone interested in the calendar project can contact Arlene Jarema at 204-466-2838 or Mary Kalberg at 204-685-2270 or visit the North Norfolk-MacGregor Library during the committee’s weekly Thursday meetings.
