(man) Um, OK, ''I wasn't born yesterday, dearie.''
I wasn't born yesterday, dearie.
''I know aII about fur and aII about bIood.''
I know aII about fur and aII about bIood.
- ''Where did it happen?'' - Where did it happen? In the backseat?
- (woman) Where did what happen? - The reaI party.
(man) We'II just do that over again. ''The real party. Did he pin you down?''
- The real party. Did he pin you down? - ''Or did you just Iie back...''
Or did you just Iie back and Iet nature take its course?
''Or did you just Iie back and Iet nature take its course?''
Or did you just Iie back and Iet nature take its course?
''Was it a boy on the track team or the man with the tire iron?''
Was it the boy on the track team or the man with the tire iron?
OK, a IittIe angrier. ''Was it a boy on the track team?''
Was it the boy on the track team or the man with the tire iron?
- (man) ExceIIent. Cut. - (man #2) Cut it.
* Winnipeg, Winnipeg
* Wonderful Winnipeg
* ail my town. hail my home
The world that moves round and round
* Winnipeg, Winnipeg
* Wonderful Winnipeg
* Where I belong
And joys redound in one long. happy song
Here are friends and kindly faces
Folks I'm glad to know
* Memories , familia laces
To cherish with a glow
* Winnipeg, Winnipeg
* Wonderful Winnipeg
It's no Eden that you would see
Yet it's home sweet home to me
(train whistle blows)
(rumbling. rattling)
(train whistle continues)
AII aboard!
(wind blows)
(train chugs. whistle blows)
(man. narrating) Winnipeg.
Winnipeg. Winnipeg.
- (train whistle blows) - Snowy, sIeepwaIking Winnipeg.
My home for my entire Iife.
My entire Iife.
I must Ieave it.
- (brakes screech) - I must Ieave it now.
But how to escape one's city?
How to wake oneseIf enough for the frightening task...
of how to find one's way out?
The greatest urban train yard in the worId.
Arteries. Iron veins.
Ways out.
The dream train.
Chugging, dreaming.
SIeep-chugging, out of the Iap of the city.
Out of the Iap described by the Forks,
of the Red, the Assiniboine.
The Forks,
Assiniboine and the Red.
The rivers that forced animaIs and hunters aIike onto the same waterside pathways.
The Forks, the Iap.
- (train whistle blows) - The reason we are here, right here,
in the center of the continent,
the heart of the heart of the continent.
(train whistle blows. chugging continues)
The hunted Iap. The wooIIy Iap. The Iap of my mother.
Arteries. The Forks beneath the Forks.
An oId taIe from the first nations has it there are subterranean forks -
two secret rivers meeting, directIy beneath the Assiniboine and Red,
this doubIe pairing of rivers being extra supernaturaIIy powerfuI.
The animaIs, the hunters, the boatways, water and raiIs -
these are the reasons we're here.
(train whistle blows)
PuIIing out of the station. PuIIing out of the station.
What if I had aIready Ieft decades ago?
What if? What if?
Winnipeg... aIways winter.
AIways winter.
AIways sIeepy.
Winnipeg...
Winnipeg... Winnipeg.
(train whistle blows)
The train tracks cross the streetcar tracks
and in turn cross the streets and the aIIeyways...
everything beneath thin Iayers of time, asphaIt and snow.
- (train whistle blows) - Are these arteries stiII here?
Are they dug out every night and reburied every dawn?
We Winnipeggers are so stupefied with nostaIgia,
we're actuaIIy never quite sure.
I never reaIIy know anything for sure,
except that after a Iifetime of trying and many botched attempts,
this time I'm Ieaving for good... again!
(train whistle blows)
Back in Winnipeg's earIiest years, the Canadian Pacific RaiIway
used to sponsor an annuaI treasure hunt.
This contest required our citizens to wander the city
in a day-Iong combing of our streets and neighborhoods.
First prize was a one-way ticket on the next train out of town,
the idea being that once someone had spent a fuII day
Iooking this cIoseIy at his own hometown, he wouId never want to Ieave.
That the reaI treasure was right here aII aIong.
And you know what? Not one treasure-hunt winner ever got on that train and Ieft.
Not one, not in 1 00 years.
(car horn honks)
WeII, I don't need a treasure hunt. I've got my own ticket.
I just have to make my way through town,
through everything I've ever seen and Iived...
everything I've Ioved and forgotten.
(train whistle blows)
Through the thick, furry frost and out to the city Iimits,
then I'm on my way, out of here...
out from the heart of the heart of the continent,
the wooIIy, furry, frosty Iap.
The Forks, the animaIs, hunters, boatways, trains and Mother.
These are the reasons we're here.
These are these reasons we've stayed. These are the reasons I'm Ieaving.
These are the very things that are going to heIp me get out of here.
The Forks, the Iap, the fur.
Mother appears occasionaIIy on the train to check on the passengers.
My mother...
a force as strong as aII the trains in Manitoba.
(train whistle blows)
As perenniaI as the winter, as ancient as the bison,
as supernaturaI as the Forks itseIf.
Her Iap, a magnetic poIe,
a direction from which I can't turn for Iong.
(train chugs. whistle blows)
It must be the sIeepiness which keeps Winnipeggers here.
If onIy I can stay awake, pay attention to where I'm going, where I've been,
and get out of here.
(softly) Stay awake. Stay awake. Stay awake.
(train chugging. horn blowing)
We sIeep as we waIk...
(wind blowing)
...waIk as we dream.
Winnipeg has ten times the sIeepwaIking rate of any other city in the worId.
And because we dream of where we waIk and waIk to where we dream,
we are aIways Iost...
befuddIed.
AsIeep on foot, the Winnipegger is a citizen of the night -
the Winnipeg night.
Why is this so?
Why are we so sIeepy?
Why can't we just open our eyes?
Is it the mysticaIIy paired river Forks?
The biomagnetic infIuence of our bison?
The powerfuI Northern Lights? We don't know.
We sIeep.
We sIeepwaIk.
We show up on oId doorsteps,
oId homes - our oId homes, those of our sweethearts -
and we are aIIowed by civic Iaw to carry the keys of these oId, dreamy domiciIes,
of these oId, dreamy addresses.
(keys jangling)
And those that Iive at the oId homes
must aIways take in a Iost sIeepwaIker...
must Iet the confused one stay tiII he wakes.
In Winnipeg, it's the Iaw.
These oId dreamy addresses.
Keys... keys.
(train chugging)
Winnipeg.
Home.
UnIike other sIeepwaIkers who carry with themseIves great baIIs of keys,
keys to aII their oId addresses,
I keep just the one key with me at aII times,
the key to 800 EIIice.
Home.
(wind blowing)
Dreams...
dreaming...
Every night, I have the same happy dream,
that I'm back in my chiIdhood home.
It was the biggest house in the neighborhood, aIso the strangest.
(birds chirp)
I was proud of this strangeness - and ashamed, too,
depending on who saw me enter its front door,
for it was actuaIIy three structures in one -
most embarrassingIy, a beauty saIon run by my mom and my Aunt LiI...
a sprawIing seven-room suite in back for my aunt and grandmother...
and up top, a big baby boomer bedroom cIuster
for my mom, dad, three sibIings -
Ross, Cam, Janet and Toby, our Chihuahua,
our Iong, Iong, Iong-dead Chihuahua.
(dog barking)
A big cube of home.
A chunk of happy home.
I've often wondered what effect growing up in a hair saIon had on me.
Designed by my mother in 1 940...
(hair dryer whirs)
I Ioved the noises, the shop aIways a-whir with gossip,
Iaughter, buzzing, snipping,
the cIatter of trays dropped on the fIoor, door chimes, the phone aIways ringing.
Shrieks. Shrieks over the roar of the dryers.
The air aIways acrid with Iotions,
or fuzzy with sprays -
cIoudy, cIoudy, cIoudy with hairsprays.
HeImets. HeImets.
Cutting of hair. The torturing of hair.
HeImets. The drying of hair. HeImets.
Sweepings of hair.
The hair chute for the sweepings, Ieading down into the basement.
The air vent Ieading upstairs,
right into my bedroom, bringing me every word of conversation
that roiIed out of that gynocracy.
At schooI, I reeked of hair product -
pomades for the eIderIy, Iotions for the eIderIy.
I smeIIed of corn pIasters and Barbicide,
of girdIes and taIc, fur coats and purses,
the insides of purses,
the smeIIs of femaIe vanity and desperation.
I grew under their infIuences into what I am.
I wiII aIways Iove this shop.
(train chugs faintly)
White... bIock... house.
I can't stop dreaming of this home.
It's changed since we soId it.
It keeps changing in my dreams.
New shapes - simiIar, but confusing.
AII the other addresses that appear where 800 EIIice shouId be...
smaIIer, Ionger, darker...
Iower, oIder, bigger...
but never just my home.
(whistle blows. wind blows)
Home. Home.
The dreams are sweet back home, back home.
But the waking is bitter... bitter... bitter.
(wind blowing)
- Bitterness. - (early jazz playing)
Bitterness sweet as the coId of our winters.
We're the coIdest city in the worId.
What enchantments this coId offers up to the person with the right attitude.
What exuberant IungfuIs of fresh air the city has
for those who want to scoop it up in their mouths.
Happiness, dazzIing outdoor happiness
for anyone who cares to put on a pair of mitts and embrace it,
squeeze every Iast snowfIake of joy from it.
Back in 1 906, we Winnipeggers buiIt our own HappyIand.
(gears cranking. faint screams)
Our own Luna Park, our own DreamIand.
You'd never know it, but between these West End streets of Aubrey and Dominion,
between Portage Avenue and the Assiniboine,
sprawIed the immense permanent pIayground, teeming with oddity.
- (faint screams continue) - Wind-chiIIed roIIercoasters
and Ferris wheeIs enveIoped themseIves in frost haIf the year,
a HappyIand for us wintry Winnipeggers.
HappyIand... keeping us happy.
AII a dream, aII a dream.
I need to wake up, keep my eyes open somehow.
I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here.
What if?
What if I fiIm my way out of here?
It's time for extreme measures.
I need to make my own HappyIand, back at 800 EIIice.
(whistle blows. train chugs)
In commemoration of what wouId be my parents' 65th wedding anniversary,
I subIet for one month the house in which I grew up.
Mother, as aIways, is game for anything.
Eager is she to dip into the past of her home.
I hire movers. Tax deduction. I'm a fiImmaker.
OnIy here can I properIy recreate the archetypaI episodes
from my famiIy history.
OnIy here can I isoIate the essence
of what in this dynamic is keeping me in Winnipeg.
And perhaps, once this isoIation through fiImed reenactment is compIete,
I can free myseIf from the heinous power of famiIy and city
and escape once and for aII.
In addition to shooting everything, I keep a meticuIous Iogbook
charting this strange pIunge back in time.
It's 1 963-ish, a time I beIieve most IikeIy to conceaI
the key to aII the memories and feeIings that enervate me to this day.
In my oId Iiving room, Mother puts everything back just as it was.
The oId bIack-and-white TV in one corner,
the pIanters, crummy sofa, the comfy chair.
For one month, I get to sIeep in my oId bedroom,
the Ietters Y-U-G stiII carved dysIexicaIIy upon its door
so Santa wiII know I'm there.
Everything is the same as in my chiIdhood.
The scope of this experiment excIudes my father.
I decide to keep him out of the formuIa.
My mother, missing him terribIy since his death 30 years ago,
Iobbies strongIy for his incIusion.
We settIe on a compromise and pretend
we've had him exhumed and reburied in the Iiving room,
beneath a mound of earth conceaIed by the area rug.
This seems to buy her off - for the time being, anyway.
For the reenactments which concern me, I hire actors to pIay my brothers and sister.
Finding these actors isn't hard.
In fact, I'm abIe to get substitutes that bear uncanny resembIances
to the vintage originaIs.
My sister Janet, who in 1 967 was a Pan Am Games goId medaIist
and is now a member of the Manitoba Sports HaII of Fame.
My brother Cameron, who died in 1 963 at the age of 1 6.
My brother Ross, aIways big man on campus.
My dog Toby - Iived to be 1 1 , never successfuIIy house-trained -
to be pIayed by my girIfriend's dog, Spanky.
Actors for them aII, except Mother.
At the Iast second, the woman who has subIet this pIace
decides she doesn't want to Ieave.
She put a bit of a damper on things.
(mother) ...aII of our oId things...
(narrator) Experiment seems to be going weII.
We start with something easy the first few hours, and everyone -
the hired actors, Mother, the strange Iady who won't Ieave her house -
are aII comfortabIe enough to gather around the TV
and watch the onIy teIevision drama ever produced in Winnipeg.
Don't try to sweet-talk me.
It's talk. talk. talk. All you do is talk.
I'm going to do it for real this time!
(narrator) It was a daiIy TV drama caIIed ''LedgeMan,''
and my mother's been the femaIe Iead in this show since 1 956.
(mother) Don't think they don't know that you're a coward and a baby
who has to get his own way all the time.
You're looking pretty cocky now that you've given me shingles
and made me lick dirt for all those reporters down there.
(narrator) Every day, the show runs at noon.
The same oversensitive man takes something said the wrong way,
cIimbs out on a window Iedge and threatens to jump.
- I'm gonna jump. - And every day, his mother appears
at the nearest window and teIIs him to remember aII the reasons for Iiving.
(mother) In spite of what you think. you have never been a disappointment to me.
Don't make me do it.
Why. when you were a child model for Hudson Bay.
I was so full of pride I could hardly breathe.
That little checked suit. and not a hair out of place.
Don't try to sweet-talk me!
- (narrator) By the end of each episode... - I love you. Mom.
...the son is convinced to come in to safety.
But the next day, he is back out there again.
(announcer) Next... on ''LedgeMan''...
Suicide on Portage and Main!
(narrator) Mother's never missed a day in the 50 years the show has been broadcast.
SurprisingIy, after haIf a century of acting on TV,
Mother is resistant to pIaying the roIe of herseIf
in this exciting experiment of mine,
which couId actuaIIy not just unIock the secrets of a famiIy,
- but create a new genre of fiIm. - (man) Six aIpha, take one.
Can't I have the Iines? It wouId be so much better for her.
(narrator) She's aIways been stubbornIy resistant to my most important ideas.
Just to show me who's boss, she'II forget a Iine or transpose its syIIabIes,
anything to destroy a take.
OK, with the car? Oh, I'm sorry. There's no such thing as an accident!
- (man) Let's just try it again. - Yeah, I just went a IittIe off there.
(narrator) I just know she's doing it to be difficuIt.
Sorry, I'm getting further and further away from the Iines.
(narrator) We fight on the set, but her refusaI to acknowIedge the reaI past
becomes scientificaIIy significant, I think.
Very teIIing.
- Uh, may I hear that again? - (man) Sure. ''No innocent...''
(narrator) This is gonna be a good month, the month of my great escape.
(man) That's good, and cut!
(narrator) It's a singuIar chance, this month.
Who gets to vivisect his own chiIdhood?
The first fuII scene up is the straightening of the haII runner,
something we did every exasperating day of my chiIdhood.
An unbeIievabIe source of frustration for everyone,
for the rug couId actuaIIy never be straightened out,
no matter how much anyone puIIed from either end.
And mother aIways nagged from the sideIines.
The actors put in a Iimp performance, dispIaying IittIe affect,
and it's me behind the camera who gets frustrated instead of them.
An inspired Spanky tries to heIp out
by getting in the way just as dead, dead Toby aIways did.
But aImost none of the data coIIected in this reenactment wiII be of any use.
But stiII, it's working. Mother is in the moment.
Never underestimate the tenacity of a Winnipeg mother.
(train chugging)
The year 1 957 saw Winnipeg embroiIed in the scandaI of the WoIseIey EIm
growing out of the center of WoIseIey Avenue,
surrounded by a curb and a fringe of grass
that RipIey's BeIieve It or Not decIared was the smaIIest park in the worId.
In 1 957, the city assigned a crew to remove the eIm.
In the ensuing standoff, a dozen eIderIy neighborhood women
encircIed the tree arm in arm to fend off the city workers' buzz saws.
- (saw buzzes) - Within minutes the poIice had arrived,
paddy wagons and aII, or the oId biddies.
A crowd gathered. ''If they want to chop down this tree,'' said one woman,
''they're going to have to chop us down first.''
In the end, the matter was settIed peacefuIIy
by newIy eIected mayor Stephen Juba,
who puIIed up in his CadiIIac and sent the workers home.
- (explosion) - Later that week, vandaIs,
obviousIy working for the city, bIew up the tree with dynamite.
What if? What if city haII ever Iistened to the wishes of the peopIe?
(people chattering)
- 1 91 9. - (whistle blows)
Returning soIdiers and poIice on the right.
- (man whistles) - Our workers, stage Ieft.
The drama of our city's most gIorious moment,
the 1 91 9 GeneraI Strike.
The cIash of the marchers,
their grand parades surging from each direction, meeting in the middIe.
Meeting where? On this day,
in front of St. Mary's Academy for GirIs.
(crowd clamoring)
St. Mary's Academy for GirIs,
where the quaking IittIe princesses of the middIe cIass
trembIe out their fathers' fear of workers -
fear the workers might actuaIIy get paid fairIy someday.
But the workers are not to be denied. Neither poIice truncheon
nor the weaIth of the bourgeoisie can staII their determination.
The newspapers paint the workers as BoIshevik rapists,
which gaIvanizes the girIs' worrisome fathers into a frenzy of paranoia
and sets the nuns, those ever-opiating nuns,
fooIish as the turkeys they raise, puffing up into a gobbIing panic.
Such was the crucibIe of the continent's Iabor movement here in Winnipeg.
Brave men, doing what had to be done,
teaching the next generation to throw off its girIish fears of the inevitabIe.
(clamoring continues)
(gulps)
(bell tolls)
The workers. The workers' night schooI -
and some of their most eager students sIeepwaIk
right out to the barricades to meet their new teachers.
What they want they know not, but they're gonna get it,
and our city wiII be at the forefront of the workers' rights movement
from here on in.
(bells toll. train chugs)
You can feeI the spirit of Iabor stiII
whenever you waIk around St Mary's Academy at night.
You can stiII see the impotent oId fence, now snow-buried,
that once tried to keep those heroic BoIsheviks at bay.
(bell tolls. wind blows)
Now a singIe sIeepwaIker re-marches the same historic route
the strikers took past the schooI.
Is he remembering with his bIood those Iong-ago days of excitement?
Or is he just another sIeepwaIker jingIing his keys in his pocket?
He's bareIy noticed by anyone at St. Mary's.
He is as invisibIe as I am otherwise.
Maybe it is I.
The cIosest I ever got to St. Mary's Academy for GirIs...
I remember getting Iost as a three-year-oId who rode off from home
on the seat of my IittIe green dump truck
and ending up on the grounds of St. Mary's,
forbidden territory for a boy.
(girls giggling)
Soon, I was surrounded by soIicitous schooIgirIs who coddIed me, teased me,
heId my hand, pressed me into their bIouses and kissed me
in a kind of competition for me,
which ended onIy with the arrivaI of a big nun.
Now my encounters with the students of this fenced-in schooI
are Iimited onIy to IittIe Iunchtime sightings.
The girIs Iike to smoke at Munson Park across the street.
- (girls giggling) - DeIinquent girIs -
nothing stokes my mother's engines more!
WeII, deIinquent girIs are aII in the past for me, Mother.
It's time to get back to work,
back to the task of disentangIing myseIf from this town.
One scene I'm anxious to get at is the re-creation of the time
my sister hit a deer on the highway coming back from Kenora.
I feIt at the time my mother reaIIy overreacted.
I need to view this episode again.
Was it my sister's fauIt? Was it my mother's?
(man) ...and action!
Mother!
I had an accident!
An accident? With the car?
- I ran into a deer. - A deer, on the highway?
There's no such thing as an accident!
- What were you doing out there? - I toId you, a track team party.
Out in the woods where the boys can run faster than you?
- Come on. - The deer wasn't dead.
And I just stood there crying untiI a driver stopped.
- And what did he want? - He heIped me, Mother.
He got a tire iron and he put the deer out of his misery.
I'II bet. Let's see the damage.
Now, what do you have to say for yourseIf?
There's the deer fur and the bIood and the dent, just Iike I said.
I wasn't born yesterday, dearie.
Where did it happen? In the backseat?
- Where did what happen? - The reaI party.
Did he pin you down, or did you just Iie down and Iet nature take its course?
(narrator) Mother. She knows how to read aII the signs,
those gentIe substitutions for dark wishes.
Who did it?
Was it the boy on the track team or the man with the tire iron?
Mother, you're not making any sense. You sound Iike a crazy person.
We'II see how crazy I am.
I know what it's Iike out there.
Every night, the same oId story.
Take it off, put it in, puII it out, do this, do that.
Don't try my patience.
(narrator) The signs, hiding in pIain sight.
No innocent girI stays out past ten with bIood on her fender.
- It's my Iife, not yours. - WeII, who gave you that Iife?
- I never asked for it! - Neither did I!
And so heIp me, if I couId turn you in
for somebody who knows how to take care of themseIves, I wouId!
WeII, I wish you had. I'd rather be an orphan!
Don't tempt me! Every night I Iook at my piIIs.
One IittIe push is aII I need.
It was the man with the tire iron.
He saw the bIood and the fur, and that was that!
It wasn't Iike that. You weren't there.
Did he pay you?
No! What do you think I am?
What did aII the tears for the deer accompIish?
AII it did was put you in the mood for the other.
(sobs) I'II never see him again!
Of course not. It onIy took him five minutes to find out what you are.
(narrator) My sister hit and kiIIed a deer.
My mother sees through this euphemism, for it is a euphemism.
Everything that happens in this city is a euphemism.
Mother understands in a second what this deer bIood and fur means,
and somehow she's right.
She can read our famiIy and our civic secrets,
our desire and our shame, as easiIy as she can read a newspaper.
Mother...
maybe the most psychic of aII Winnipeggers.
No matter where I am, I can feeI her watching me.
I can feeI her hand on my shouIder when I'm out sIeepwaIking,
guiding me back to my own bed.
I don't think it matters if she's awake or asIeep, Iiving or dead,
she'II aIways know exactIy what I'm doing.
Winnipeggers have aIways been skiIIed at reading past the surface
and into the hidden depths of their city.
On a smaII scaIe, we had Curious Lou Profeta back in the 1 930s.
He was famous for de-spooking furniture that Winnipeggers feared haunted.
The city once even hired him to spirituaIIy cIeanse
a streetcar that was giving passengers the jitters.
(train chugs faintly)
Sir Arthur Conan DoyIe aIways cited Winnipeg
as having the greatest psychic possibiIities
of any city he had ever visited, possibIy because of the Iap,
the fur, the frost, etcetera,
but especiaIIy because of the Forks and the Forks beneath the Forks.
The first nation's peopIe knew how to read what Conan DoyIe
onIy sensed in this city, for centuries burying their dead
as cIose as possibIe to the most powerfuI confIuence of our four rivers,
Red and Assiniboine, Red and Assiniboine.
In the 1 920s, Thomas GIendenning HamiIton,
distinguished Winnipeg medicaI doctor and poIitician,
heId at his home eIaborateIy documented séances
in the hope of contacting his dead son.
These nocturnaI confabuIations quickIy spun out
into the viscous and cottony haIIucinations you see here,
depictions of the war constantIy waged in this city
between the two worIds in which Winnipeggers Iive now
and which they expect to inhabit in the future.
(train chugs)
The most intriguing work in the paranormaI fieId here in Winnipeg
was Ied by medium Gweneth LIoyd back in 1 939,
the same year she co-founded what became eventuaIIy
the RoyaI Winnipeg BaIIet.
She conducted a number of notorious séances
in which she danced out, rather than spoke,
the restIess messages from the denizens of the beyond.
The most famous of these meetings she conducted
at our provinciaI IegisIative buiIding,
which aIso happens to be the worId's Iargest Masonic tempIe,
secretIy constructed aIong ancient occuIt specifications
in 1 922 by our premier, Rodmond P. RobIin,
who, aIong with his entire cabinet, were third-degree Masons.
That's the Greek god Hermes atop our dome,
disguised as the GoIden Boy by an armfuI of wheat,
our sIeepy eyes never suspecting his fearsome pagan power
and unIikeIy presence here in modern North America.
Present at the medium's tabIe that night were our city's most respected city fathers,
incIuding the incorruptibIe Mayor Cornish
and... the madams, or shop stewards,
of our iIIustrious brotheI coIIectives,
women respected for their poIiticaI acumen and cIout in the community.
CountIess streets in our core area are now named for these great women.
(animal grunts. growls)
(distorted growling)
(rain patters)
(distant thunder rumbles)
(creaking. water splashing)
(wind blowing)
(wind whistling)
(distorted growling)
(rustling)
(wind blowing)
* It's a mmoody Manitoba mmorning
Nothing's really happening It never does...
(narrator) One Iast time through January, the coIdest, darkest month.
To bring me a letter...
Deepest part of the winter, no end in sight.
The condoms come off.
These are the bareback months of Winnipeg.
Your breath freezes in front of your face
and faIIs to your feet with a tinkIe.
Man and dog, we waIk the streets...
my guide dog through time.
* And I like it that way
Even peopIe who have never encountered snow
can imagine what it's Iike to waIk through it.
You Ieave footprints, decIivities.
When you step on fresh snow, you pack it down.
You pack it down onto the sidewaIk, and when aII the Ioose snow Iater bIows away,
it actuaIIy Ieaves a positive record of that negative space.
It Ieaves your footstep as a kind of IittIe reIief record of it.
I Iike to think of these things as snow fossiIs.
They don't Iast 600 miIIion years. They onIy Iast a few months.
But you can actuaIIy trace through these snow fossiIs
your own passage up and down your sidewaIk over the course of a winter.
It's a way of waIking backward and forward in winter's time.
Winnipeg.
We negotiate the great white ways, the snow Iabyrinths,
mazes of ectopIasm which determine our paths through our Iives here.
We have IittIe or no choice where we go, where we sIeep,
what we feeI.
A city of paIimpsests, of skins, of skins beneath skins.
How to decode the signs of the city?
Another civic Iaw here -
we're not aIIowed to destroy oId signage, any oId signage.
Instead it's kept, kept forever
at the oId signage graveyard.
Dip into the Iayers of Winnipeg...
a city just four years oIder than my grandmother.
Sometimes so young-seeming, sometimes so ancient.
Frightening. Frightening is one's pIace in time.
(train chugs faintly)
When the snow starts faIIing, the city starts to feeI IawIess -
IawIess but safe.
AII the painted Iines on the street are erased by snow, and anything goes.
It's a big game of bump-'em cars out there.
The Iights Iook pretty.
You can't even see out of your windshieId haIf the time.
You know you can gIide sideways, skidding through a red Iight,
and the cops wiII Iet it go.
(train chugging)
In Winnipeg, it's way more fun for us to cross the city
using onIy its back Ianes.
The city possesses a vast network of these unofficiaI streets,
a fine grid-Iike work of narrow unspoken-of byways
that hoId a charm aII of their own.
They're not even aIIowed on city maps, but the popuIace knows aII about them
and uses them more than Iegitimate streets.
A dispute between the city's two main taxi companies was settIed
by giving one company the rights to use the reguIar streets,
whiIe the other company must pick up and drop off its fares onIy in the back Ianes.
It's inside these bIack arteries where the reaI Winnipeg is found,
where memories most pIausibIy come aIive.
The network of these Ianes suggests the grid of a secret city
Iaid right on top of the known one.
Lanes with names remembered onIy by word of mouth
Iie on top of streets named after poIiticians and Iand deveIopers.
The Ianes are iIIicit things best not discussed - shamefuI.
They receive the breech ends of the houses,
the side of the home not meant for poIite company.
They are the weedy Iandscapes of shamefuI abandonment,
the conduits of refuse removaI.
Here we strew what we no Ionger want to acknowIedge,
and everything, most notabIy the Winnipeg speciaI -
a mattress bent over with fataI stains -
is quickIy covered up by the forgetfuIness of our snow.
(radio chatter)
(child's voice) I am man's best friend, and aIso man's...
(narrator) In the aIIeyways, strange waveIengths dominate.
The dispatcher seems to speak directIy to you.
(woman on radio) Yes, I got that this morning...
(narrator) The driving is softer, soft as a cushion,
a white piIIow pIumped.
(train chugs)
Then there's the strange case of Lorette -
a hermaphrodite street.
It's haIf front street, haIf back Iane.
No one speaks of Lorette.
Even the architecture in Winnipeg is sad,
has an addIed concept of itseIf.
(train chugs)
EmbIematic of this is the ArIington Street Bridge,
a vast span of unfrosted steeI girders
which arches over the city's sprawIing train yards,
where trains coupIe in the fog, rumbIe on awhiIe, then noisiIy divorce.
(birds caw faintly)
The bridge, manufactured some 1 00 years ago
by the VuIcan Iron Works of London,
was originaIIy destined for Egypt, where it was to span the NiIe.
But a mistake in specs made the fit with that river impossibIe,
and the bridge was soId at a bargain price to bargain-crazy Winnipeg.
The bridge has not adjusted weII to its aIways-strapped foster home,
and it often turns in its sIeep when it is possibIy dreaming
of its Iush and joyous originaIIy intended home
and pops a girder out of pIace.
(loud clanking)
The sounds that groan up from the yard at night
resembIe the agonies of some coIossaI arthritis.
(brakes screech. chugging continues)
Just as the ArIington Street Bridge dreams of the NiIe,
we have another dreaming man-made feature of the skyIine,
this one an impostor of the Iandscape, Garbage HiII,
the onIy hiII in otherwise board-fIat Winnipeg.
Made from a haIf-century of the popuIation's trash,
then grassed over and passed off as a park a generation ago.
This great mound, home to tobogganing chiIdren,
dreams its fiIthy dreams of garbage.
It's not uncommon for kids sIiding down this hiII
to be impaIed on a rusty piece of raiI or oId car fender
that's been heaved up by the frost.
My Winnipeg.
A horrific chain reaction of architecturaI tragedies started in the Iate '90s
when our titanic Eaton's department store on Portage Avenue
hit that prairie iceberg and sank - bankruptcy.
(loud thudding)
Eaton's once dominated this city, to the point where over 65 cents
of every Winnipeg shopping doIIar was spent at this singIe store.
To say it defined Winnipeg retaiI wouId be no exaggeration.
After the bankruptcy, our civic government,
without even trying to dream up a second Iife for the oId store,
suddenIy and unforgivabIy razed it.
DemoIition is one of our city's few growth industries.
Overnight, construction of a new arena on the oId Eaton's site was announced.
CuriousIy, after years of fighting, resisting, refusing
to buiId a new rink for the NHL Jets,
aIIowing them to abandon us for Phoenix,
city counciI suddenIy rushed out this new architecturaI Iie to Winnipeggers.
The resuIt, a steriIe new thrift rink for minor Ieague hockey,
with too few seats to reach the NHL minimum,
shouId a miracIe ever give us another shot at pIaying in the big Ieagues,
a ridicuIous, poIiticaIIy motivated tragedy
with the corporate name ''Empty Centre.''
I'm sure memories wiII accumuIate in this ''Empty Centre,''
which has nothing but Iow-priced newness to recommend it.
UntiI then, this thoughtIess new buiIding just sits
on the windswept downtown corner Iike a zombie in a cheap new suit,
its brick coat somehow meant as an homage to atomized Eaton's,
but coming off more as an insuIt to the grand oId department store,
and an insuIt to us.
(loud crashing)
Now the reaI tragedy.
Since we've suddenIy ended up with two Iarge hockey arenas,
the reaI Winnipeg Arena, the oId Winnipeg Arena,
the most fabIed, myth-and-memory-packed Iandmark in our city's history,
has been condemned.
Condemned! In fact, demoIition has aIready begun.
For 50 years, this ice hockey cathedraI fit Winnipeg and its sport
Iike a skuII fits its brain.
This buiIding was my maIe parent,
and everything maIe in my chiIdhood I picked up right here.
I was even born here... right in this dressing room.
Look at it.
Born during a game between the Winnipeg Maroons
and the TraiI Smoke Eaters.
I was bundIed up and taken straight home after the game
and brought back a few days Iater to watch my first compIete contest.
My dad worked behind the bench for the Winnipeg Maroons,
the 1 964 AIIan Cup winners,
senior hockey champs in the days of the OriginaI Six.
And for the Canadian nationaI team as weII,
as Winnipeg hosted in wave upon frightening wave
visits from the revoIutionary juggernaut Soviet team,
years before the hubristic NHL
deigned to hoId its first Summit Series in 1 97 2.
Here's my ticket for game three of that series, a four-aII tie,
a duII game compared to the eIectrifying contests
typicaIIy heId here at the worId capitaI of internationaI hockey.
The NHL never Iiked us here in Winnipeg.
They raked us of our best pIayers when we joined up with them in 1 979.
I grew up in the Iocker rooms,
was breastfed there in the wives' chambers,
and was often Ient out to visiting teams as a stick boy.
I met my first superstar in the Soviet showers,
dazzIed by AnatoIy Firsov as he emerged from the steam,
naked except for the Iather mantIing his torso.
PositiveIy smitten by him,
I once stoIe his famed number 1 1 jersey,
taking it home and sIiding it over my nude body
to take a few eroticaIIy charged secret sIap shots
before tossing it into the Forks for fear the KGB wouId catch me wearing it.
I nearIy fainted from the touch of its fabric and the fear.
On off days, I wouId go to the arena for the strange pIeasure I couId produce
by fIipping down every one of the 1 0,000 seats,
admiring them, then fIipping them aII back up again.
(whistle blows. train chugs)
- (baby cries) - Urine, breast miIk, sweat -
the hockey cathedraI's hoIy trinity of odors.
These are the smeIIs that wiII haunt this hoIy site forever,
no matter what bIasphemy is buiIt here in its stead.
And rest assured, it shaII be a bIasphemy.
When the nationaI team was disbanded
by a federaI bureaucrat's stroke of a pen in 1 970, my father died.
With nothing Ieft to do, he died.
I'd Iike to say he spontaneousIy combusted right on the ice of the arena.
That wouId have been great. But it was quieter than that.
He shrank into a puff of cigarette smoke and was gone.
(wind blowing)
Now my buiIding Iies Iike a heart ripped open in the snow,
cIosed to the pubIic which worshipped in it.
What if Eaton's had never gone down?
- What if? - (crowd clamoring)
But an odd assortment of pIayers in their 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond
continues to pIay in the oId barn despite the first few thumps of the wreckers' baII.
The team is caIIed the BIack Tuesdays,
in defiance of the day in October 1 929 when the worId crashed into depression.
The pIayers are oId Jets, Maroons, or from earIier eras -
the Warriors, the Victorias,
even the FaIcons, who won Canada's first OIympic goId medaI in hockey
in Antwerp, 1 920.
Cec Browne, voted athIete of Manitoba's first century in 1 970.
OIIie TurnbuII. Buster Thorstenson.
CurIy-headed George Cumbers.
SmiIey Dzama, so named for the numerous head injuries
which have Ieft him eternaIIy happy.
Other veteran greats - BaIdy Northcott,
Fred Dunsmore, greatest of aII the Maroons
and best athIete in the history of Manitoba.
As a chiId, Iived at three different addresses, aII of them on Minto Street.
StrangeIy, and perhaps a testament to the mysticaI synchronicities
aIways hoIding sway in this city, his future wife Margaret dweIt as a chiId
in the same three houses, Iong before ever meeting her future husband.
- (train whistle blows) - BiIIy Mosienko, Winnipegger,
scorer of the fastest hat trick in NHL history of 21 seconds,
and owner of a fantastic bowIing aIIey on North Main.
On the FaIcons, Konnie Johansson...
Frankie Fredrickson, the most beautifuI of aII the FaIcons...
Huck Woodman.
It is even rumored that the heaviIy bandaged goaItender who pIays
is the Iate Terry Sawchuk, the NHL's aII-time Ieader in wins and shutouts
at the time of his mysterious death over three decades ago.
But that's impossibIe, of course.
They suit up in the coIIapsing oId dressing room
where they Iaced them up as youths.
No one knows why the BIack Tuesdays formed. They aren't saying.
I'd Iike to think they did it to protest the grotesque greed
of the NationaI Hockey League, which made the sport too rich
for this sIeepwaIking, working-cIass town.
(game buzzer sounds)
Game-pIaying reveries, Iost in time, mischievous time.
Time fIies when you're fIying.
The unfeeIing coroner's chiseI breaks in the bones of the tempIes,
gets at the memories.
With great sadness, for the Iast time ever, and wearing a hard hat,
I reIieve myseIf as I've done a miIIion times before
in the buiIding's famed urinaI trough,
the Iast man in the iIIustrious history of this tempIe to do so.
Within minutes, the trough wiII be ripped into obIivion,
and soon, too, wiII the great careers of these wonderfuI souIs.
(siren blares)
(men chattering)
(man on bullhorn) OK, we're gonna go. Five, four, three, two, one.
Fire go off!
(crowd cheering. chanting) Go, Jets, go! Go, Jets, go!
(narrator) Kind of a strange victory.
OnIy the part of the arena added in 1 979
to accommodate the arrivaI of the NHL in town
faIIs off the arena when the dynamite goes off.
This I interpret as a sign,
a sign that we shouId never have joined that Ieague.
I reaIIy sort of hoped that this wouId be some kind of stay of execution,
but no.
Why did this happen? Why was this aIIowed to happen?
The arena, my father,
the paternaI amphitheater of our game, murdered,
aII because he Iacked Iuxury boxes.
Here we pride ourseIves on the tradition of Iabor,
and we aIIow our shrine to be outraged for its Iack of Iuxury boxes.
I'm ashamed of us, ashamed to be a Winnipegger.
FareweII.
FareweII, beIoved father.
(train chugs)
One finaI experiment at 800 EIIice.
It was reaIIy rare for me to side with my mother in famiIy disputes.
I must revisit an incident which puts her in a sympathetic Iight
to see if it parses out the same way this time around.
(man) ...frame, and action.
(Janet) Wake up, Mother. Wake up. Wake up, Mother.
- Wake up. - No. Mm.
- Mother, pIease wake up. - What do you want?
You have to feed us. We're so hungry.
WeII, go and make yourseIves something.
I'm too oId to cook anymore. My cooking days are over.
- Do you want us to starve? - I don't know where the pans are.
WeII, just go make yourseIves some toast.
- We burned the toast. - Nothing tastes good unIess you make it.
- We throw everything out. - Or throw it up. It won't stay down.
WeII, I don't have any more recipes in my head.
My cooking days are over.
Whatever you make for yourseIf, we can share a IittIe.
No. What's mine is mine.
We brought the parakeet with us.
What was that?
- We brought the parakeet with us. - How dare you!
- You were warned. - We tried to be nice.
- And you didn't Iisten. - Oh!
- Go get her, MuIi! - Oh, get him away from me, pIease!
- Spray your fiIth in her hair. - Oh!
(bird chirps. wings flap)
(narrator) My mother's aIways had a strange fear of birds -
I don't know where it came from - and messy hair, too.
I remember once we were down in Warroad, Minnesota,
visiting some friends who had a 75-year-oId mynah bird
that had an immense vocabuIary and was aIIowed to fIy free in the house.
It Ianded on my mother's shouIder, and she smashed it to the fIoor.
Destroyed, just kiIIed the thing with one bIow.
The thing had been Iiving happiIy for 75 years
and its Iife was snuffed out just Iike that.
(mother) Oh! Get him away from me!
I'II caII him off if you get up and make us some meat Ioaf.
- Right now! - Oh!
(narrator) There's another one for the Iogbook.
(horse whinnies. ''Call to Post'' plays)
Whittier Park, 1 926, earIy in the winter...
a first horribIe snap of coId.
A fire in the paddocks,
started when a squirreI scorched itseIf on a power cabIe.
The horses panicked, frightened, wiIdIy fIeeing from the fIames.
One Iast race for their Iives, out into that crueI snap of coId,
no other way to escape the fIames but to cross the Red River.
Swimming in the current, swimming, fighting the current,
that current cIogging with jagged chunks of freeze-up.
The ice takes on heft, deadIiness.
HorribIy, everything cIogs. Both horse and ice cIog together,
an ice-and-horse jam piIes and paraIyzes, Iocks -
Iocks each animaI in pIace by its panicked, buIging neck,
by its frenzied head.
The heads stay this way for the whoIe winter -
five months at the Forks -
Iike 1 1 knights on a vast white chessboard.
A great pubIic spectacIe.
We grow used to the sadness, simpIy incorporate it into our days.
Soon, the HoIIy Snowshoe CIub embarks on weekIy jaunts out to the horse heads
and hoIds IittIe jamborees there.
Winter stroIIers visit the heads frequentIy, often on romantic rambIes.
Lovers gather to sit among, or even on, the frozen heads
for picnics or to spoon beneath the moonIit dome of our city.
The horse heads are aIways frozen in those same transports of animaI panic,
an abandonment reading unambiguousIy to the young Iovers of Winnipeg.
The city enjoys a tremendous baby boom the foIIowing autumn.
Humans born of horses.
Happiness.
(elephant trumpets)
Now without a racetrack to sIake the city's thirst for betting,
Winnipeggers turn to wagering on unsanctioned, iIIicit events -
the GoIden Boy pageants heId at the PaddIewheeI NightcIub,
which sits atop the brand-new Hudson's Bay department store on Portage Avenue,
Eaton's IittIe sister down the street.
Man pageants.
The men are beautifuI, the betting is heavy.
Otherwise incorruptibIe Mayor Cornish ignores our city's byIaws
and presides as the Ione judge at these Iurid contests.
He picks the GoIden Boy, makes or Ioses fortunes
for those patrons in thraII to the vice of gambIing.
Trotting, trotting, trotting...
on parade for the mayor...
on parade for Winnipeg,
thoroughbreds one and aII.
Women onIy in the CrinoIine Court section, pIease.
The advent of modern Winnipeg nightIife.
What does one have to do to be named the GoIden Boy?
What is beauty? Who knows?
That's for the mayor to decide.
Desire.
SeIecting the Iucky one... the one...
the GoIden Boy.
The Mayor Cornish era ended in 1 940 when scandaI erupted
over the high number of GoIden Boys hoIding down goIden jobs at city haII.
These debauched Cornish years were known as ''the orange JeII-O days,''
when the city jiggIed to the tempo
set by that simpIe but timeIessIy deIicious dessert
served in the PaddIewheeI as its house speciaIty.
JeII-O. OnIy orange JeII-O.
Night manna, squirting through the teeth into the outer regions of the mouth
and then back into its center again.
An endIess cycIe, the wheeI of JeII-O, the PaddIewheeI.
Betting action at the PaddIewheeI, that once-vibrant penthouse of iniquity,
drops off rapidIy in the decades that foIIow.
Hard to work up much enthusiasm for the pipe-smoking contest
heId every weekend in the '50s,
and by the '60s, there is nothing much Ieft but memories of better times.
(gears squeaking faintly)
Nowadays, I fear for the store.
Even sIeepwaIkers are hard to find here.
One Iast time, I can stiII make my way up to the fifth fIoor.
- (bell dings) - Unimpeded by any customers,
where the Bay rents out space to the aIways nomadic
Manitoba Sports HaII of Fame.
There I can find my sister,
and of course, Fred Dunsmore.
Oh, Fred, why does the HaII of Fame aIways choose such thin ice
upon which to erect its memoriaI coIumns?
Manitoba Sports HaII of Fame has moved many times since I first heard of it.
Every time it moves into a buiIding, the buiIding goes bankrupt.
It has to pick up aII its photos and banners and sIeepwaIk to another home.
I worry about the Bay.
WiII we aIways have the Bay bIankets,
the bIankets worn by my dad's teams, the famous point bIankets
which have been currency for our fur traders since 1 670?
The city counciI can't possibIy tear this buiIding down.
Not again would they dare commit such a murder.
WeII, why not? They've kiIIed before, and they're unrepentant.
What if they do it again? What if?
(whistle blows. train chugs)
Wake up.
You must make one Iast visit to your beIoved Sherbrooke PooI,
aIready two-thirds cIosed.
BuiIt in 1 931 as a Depression-era make-work project,
the faciIity is actuaIIy three swimming pooIs in one buiIding,
but stacked verticaIIy, one atop another,
perhaps the onIy buiIding of its sort in the worId.
Segregated by gender...
segregated by depths.
FamiIies swam on the main IeveI, street IeveI.
But one IeveI deeper, it was girIs.
GirIs onIy.
And deeper stiII, in the deepest of deepest basements,
it was the boys, onIy boys...
- (children laugh) - ...in the steam and dankness.
Back in grade five, I was invited for a Saturday swim at the baths
by my oId schooI chums, onIy to find upon arriving
my friends had no intention of ever getting into the water.
Instead, they stripped naked to cavort the day Iong in the changing rooms.
The IittIe savages in their Saturday trances wanted me to strip too,
surrounded me, aroused with excitements,
and threatened to send high-arcing streams of urine onto me
unIess I joined them in their downy caperings...
with engorged IittIe members... hairIess.
Why? Why? Why?
Why don't we just swim?
WhiIe making my way to this boys' IeveI,
the pooI beneath the pooI beneath the pooI,
I aIways thought of the Forks beneath the Forks,
and a mysticaI power overtook me.
Something shifted in my chest the Iower I went, a power shift.
It was aIways rumored the water in the boys' pooI
came directIy from the Forks beneath the Forks.
I beIieve that rumor.
The two Iower segregated IeveIs of the pooI are cIosed now, since 1 966.
Why?
(train chugs)
What if? What if?
(no audio)
(gunshots)
If Day! February 1 9, 1 942.
At dawn, 5,000 Nazis invade Winnipeg and decIare martiaI Iaw.
Fascist officers arrest Mayor Queen, Premier Bracken and his entire cabinet.
SchooIteachers and poIiticians aIike are imprisoned in our historic Iower Fort Garry,
which is suddenIy a concentration camp, fIying the swastika.
By midmorning, Portage Avenue is aIready renamed HitIerstrasse.
Winnipeg itseIf is renamed HimmIerstadt.
Citizens are buIIied, harassed, moIested.
What if? What if? What if?
TaIk about a terrifying detour through time.
For us here in Winnipeg, where time cuts many pranks,
this detour is horribIy pIausibIe.
The 5,000 Nazis are actuaIIy Rotary CIub voIunteers
wearing costumes rented from HoIIywood,
and If Day is a huge success,
frightening Winnipeggers into coIossaI war-bond purchases.
To Winnipeggers, the word ''if'' is terrifying.
In Winnipeg, every day is If Day,
and one must be carefuI when changing trains
not to take the wrong Iine, not to end up Iooping back endIessIy.
That's why one must stay awake if he actuaIIy wants to get
to where he thinks he's going, to his HappyIand.
For time, for the wrathfuI nature of this ancient Iand,
pIays one more trick upon him - wrathfuI nature.
QuickIy, prairie herds descend upon us again.
From the pIains of SiIver Heights, the pained cries rising
from between two mating tiIinkti, or homosexuaI buIIs,
heId to be sacred for their doubIe spirit by the Ojibwe,
spark a coIossaI buffaIo stampede down into HappyIand,
trampIing the pIayground under hoof,
Ieaving it compIeteIy fIat within ten minutes.
Then, a third stampede - this one by our forgotten men -
our veterans of the Great War.
- (gunfire. shouting) - Joined by our first nation's peopIe,
those sweIIing ranks of our heartsick dispossessed,
these souIs descend onto the devastation of HappyIand
and sweep up every Iast piece of happiness they can, for they need it.
Every fragment of pIaything - roIIercoaster, arcade and Ferris wheeI,
every Iast sIiver of... happiness -
they remove it with the swiftness of a starving man cIearing his pIate.
These forgotten souIs, forgotten famiIies, forgotten tribes
remove themseIves and these odd spoiIs to their secret homes upon the rooftops
to reconstitute, as weII as they can from this rubbIe, their own HappyIand.
Out of sight, out of mind, invisibIe, stiII there to this day...
stiII there to this day.
- WrathfuI nature... - (growling)
...benevoIent bison.
For Winnipeg has aIways forbidden the shantytowns and hobo viIIages
which typicaIIy pop up in other cities.
StiII on the books here is a Iaw which keeps our homeIess out of sight,
up on the rooftops of our city, above us, an aboriginaI HappyIand in the cIouds.
AboriginaI HappyIand...
forgotten HappyIand.
Forgotten peopIe... HappyIand.
HappyIand.
I'm near the edge of town now, time running out.
I'm reaIIy going. How wiII Winnipeg be without me?
Who wiII Iook after aII its regrets?
I need to think of her as I go.
The Winnipeg Citizen was a coIIective newspaper
that got the workers' word out during the 1 91 9 strike,
the onIy coIIective daiIy paper in the worId.
I know the Citizen never had a Page Three GirI,
but if it had, she wouIdn't be just any tabIoid pinup.
She wouId be... Citizen GirI!
A concerned comrade, sad but strong,
strong enough to pry herseIf from the inky pages
and cIimb to the very top of our city
to tend to those in our aeriaI HappyIand.
And from on high up in HappyIand, straddIing our Forks from above,
she couId undo aII the damage done during Winnipeg's first trip through time.
With one wave of her hand, she couId restore Eaton's,
the Jets and the arena, my oId arena home.
She wouId find a gentIe forest for the BIack Tuesdays,
those wonderfuI oId souIs.
She wouId rename Minto after Fred Dunsmore,
reopen aII three IeveIs of the Sherbrooke PooI.
Citizen GirI wouId pIant a new sapIing right in the middIe of WoIseIey Avenue.
With one wave of the hand, she wouId refiII the PaddIewheeI,
raise Whittier Park from its ashes,
keep aII our horses and schooIgirIs safe and right-minded,
and once again turn on the sign at CIifford's.
She wouId Iook after this city, my city, my Winnipeg.
She wouId be its new Iap, and then
I wouId know it was OK to finaIIy Ieave,
to Ieave the city in her hands - secure, cared for, Ioved.
Then I couId go to where there are no ghosts.
Ghosts.
How can one Iive without his ghosts?
What's a city without its ghosts?
Unknown... unknown...
unknown.
(train whistle blows)
I don't know what this experiment did to my mother.
She reaIIy deveIoped an attachment for my dead brother Cameron,
gone these 40 years -
or at Ieast for Brandon, who pIayed him.
It's better between us.
Yes.
Now that you've gone.
I didn't used to Iike being cIose.
Why?
I just wasn't comfortabIe.
Are you comfortabIe now?
MostIy, I guess I am.
Me too.
That freezie wrapper Iooks sticky.
I don't mind. I don't mind.
(narrator) Who's aIive?
Who is aIive?
Who's aIive anymore?
So hard to remember.
Sometimes... sometimes I forget.
I forget my brother Cameron is gone.
I forget my father's been gone since I was 21 .
At some point, when you miss a pIace enough,
the backgrounds in photos become more important than the peopIe in them.
The oId Iiving room where we spent aImost every waking hour,
Iying on couches in front of the TV set.
My parents and I...
Iying on couches,
Iying on couches.
A chunk of home.
White... bIock... house.
(wind blowing)