Glimpsing vestiges of city’s manufacturing past

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/12/2023 (633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’m following an older man I just met through an old warehouse on Adelaide Street. “I saw the table top for that machine, I know there’s one here somewhere,” he says.

The lighting is old and insufficient and he carries a flashlight, peering under stairwells and up the shelves, 20 feet above us where, stacked, crammed and piled, lay hundreds of industrial sewing machines, in wartime green and grey.

Many are on their sides with their entrails spilling about, piled in cavernous rooms. I feel intensely that I’m witnessing the aftermath of some cataclysmic event, peering through a tiny tear in a curtain into another time and place; the Winnipeg of the past, the city of industry and manufacturing.

It is evening and the enormous warehouse windows are dark. My guide pulls a dust-covered cast iron machine from beneath a low set of stairs leading to what looks like an office. After scouring the internet to find this machine, it was here all along, awaiting resurrection in a not-quite-forgotten space.

I’ve signed my kid up for a summer lacrosse camp. It was a last-minute addition to our plans and I haven’t heard of this camp before, but it came recommended by a friend. The drop-off address is 55 Duncan St. It’s in the East Exchange, near the river, tucked in behind the old Eaton’s warehouses, on a street I’ve never had a reason to visit. It’s a long, low, peaked-roof building, clad in stamped tin, which is rusting and curls up where panel meets panel.

The grass growing around the building is long and I’m reminded of old tin buildings left to rust by the sides of Prairie highways. I find street parking, and double-check the address. I am skeptical. I’m sure I’ve made a mistake, but I push open the door. “Welcome to the home of the Winnipeg floor hockey league” greets a cheerful sign. Beyond it, a full hockey rink, lit so brightly I find myself squinting, complete with neatly painted lines on the concrete floor, ringed by familiar white and yellow hockey boards, replete with bleachers for spectators. I feel like I’ve stepped through the wardrobe to Narnia.

My son has broken his championship yo-yo. His curious mind and nefarious fingers couldn’t help but take it apart to examine the bearings. Alas, one bearing has fallen and rolled away and cannot be found. So I am at Adams Supply on Wall Street, handing the singular remaining tiny, specialized, impossible-to-describe yo-yo bearing to someone behind a counter. “I need just one of these.” The man is wearing coveralls. He frowns at the tiny bearing, and disappears into row upon row of small boxes, a labyrinth of miscellaneous bits and pieces, a kaleidoscope library of everyone’s grandfather’s workbench. He emerges a few minutes later: “Eighty-seven cents.” I slide a loonie across the counter.

Another low, stamped-tin-sided building, this time on St. Matthews Avenue. A part has broken on that vintage sewing machine and will need to be custom-manufactured. It’s a scorching hot day, and inside, the staff crowd around me in the boss’s office, the only air-conditioned space. They appear happy for a unique challenge and an excuse to cool off. This is Standard Machine Works, buzzing with life for over 100 years, the unexpected and unassuming grandmother and incubator of $5-billion StandardAero. Calculations made on pad with pencil, we agree on a price.

And finally, Galt Avenue. Immediately across the street from that bewildering floor hockey rink is a long, low, sprawling brick warehouse, still wearing a crown of twin water towers from a bygone age. Here and there, the windows are cracked and missing panes have been replaced by painted plywood, improbably concealing a candy factory, of all things. From chipped concrete loading docks has flowed a century of sweets and from them the last few shipments of Nutty Club candy will depart over the next six weeks. The cheerful candy man logo, tipping his hat one last time, will wave a final goodbye after more than 120 years.

Our city, our little Winnipeg, conceals hives of life behind corroding rebar, broken windows and stamped tin. Bustling with life and enterprise, harbouring and nurturing generations of entrepreneurs to discover and satisfy our strange Prairie proclivities. Winnipeg eschews the trappings of gloss and polish of bigger cities and their thin veneers of status. Instead, we lead one another through darkened dusty warehouses, through breezeless Prairie summers on a members-only tour of life and industry concealed behind facades of brick and tin. Some lights must flicker and fail, some fade and others still shine proudly, illuminating a spirit of enterprise, hidden, yet undimmed.

rebecca.chambers@freepress.mb.ca