Unearthing local oddities

Fort Rouge

East Kildonan

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/10/2024 (339 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If local history is supposed to be boring, Darren Bernhardt never got the memo.

Bernhardt, a local author and reporter for CBC, is set to release Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravity, and More Lesser Known Histories, his second book about the quirky side of Manitoba history, on Nov. 1 with an event at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Grant Park Shopping Centre. It’s published by locally based Great Plains Publications.

“It’s an assortment of what I’m hoping people will find odd,” Bernhardt, 54, said. “My idea is to put ourselves into the greater context of where we are, who we are, what came before us.”

In 2020, Bernhardt released The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities from the Heart of the Continent, also published by Great Plains. Not only were people receptive to Lesser Known, it sparked a keen interest in Bernhardt (and his publisher) to further explore our local spaces, places, and personalities.

“I hope people will recognize that there is a history that we have that is not just politics. There’s a lot of fun to our history, though of course it isn’t all fun,” Bernhardt said, noting his approach has been to scour the Manitoba Archives for photographs and information that strikes him as out of the ordinary, and then to dig up what he can on the subject.

“I find a lot of character-driven stories, as well as things that can become characters,” he said. “The Manitoba Archives building itself has become a character, which I delve into, because it has its own story.”

Now a Fort Rouge resident, Bernhardt grew up in East Kildonan and graduated from Kildonan-East Collegiate. One local curiosity that hits particularly close to home for him is the Bergen Cutoff, located south of the current Chief Peguis Bridge.

“One thing I love to do is ghost trails or remnants in the city,” he said, noting the Bergen Cutoff is one of many such ghost trails which snake their way through the city, and beyond.

Bernhardt also shines a light on local characters such as the late Gar Gillies — a big band musician and founder of the Garnet Amplifier Company, whose amps became synonymous with the Guess Who’s sound — and David Rockola — a pioneer of the jukebox, who was born in Winnipeg before moving to Chicago.

“I try to make people, if I could see their reaction, go, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that’,” Bernhardt said.

While Bernhardt has been focused on getting Prairie Oddities ready for publication with Great Plains, he knows there are plenty more stories that remain to be told.

“I’m just kind of enjoying this right now, and I’m sure my writing fingers will get itchy again in no time,” he said.

The launch of Prairie Oddities will take place at McNally Robinson Booksellers (4000-1120 Grant Ave.) on Friday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. The event is free to attend.