#rural manitoba

[motelpearl]

car behind the abandoned lyons manor, carberry manitoba

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"What purposes could the charivari have served for its participants? Why would a wedding be the community’s business? The practice clearly speaks to extensive scrutiny and judgment of community members’ lives in socially close if geographically far-flung communities like those around rural Manitoba at the turn of the twentieth century and later.

Indeed, it was not only young rowdies who took licence to charivari, but men as old as forty-one-year-old Joe Wiggins and thirty-three-year-old Charles Bugg. Though the married Wiggins had intended to go but did not, all those identifiable men who actually charivaried McLaughlin were bachelors. We don’t know O’Hayes’s age and marital status, but by the 1911 census, apparently only Peter Griffith can be clearly identified as married. Among those arguably old enough to wed, both Joe Bosnell and Charles Bugg were still living with their parents. Bob Whelpton was apparently living elsewhere, but William Ernest may have been working as a hired hand in Dauphin Township. Marriage, as Cecilia Danysk argued, was fundamental to the economic and social base of early-twentieth-century Manitoba communities – the family farm – and had sweeping cultural implications (1995, 70). The proportion of men to women was skewed; women were in a minority, and thus there was no social stigma on bachelorhood, but marriage was a matter of considerable and broad community attention, as it is today.

Some might suggest that the payment in cases like McLaughlin’s would be in recompense for his taking a young woman out of the system of exchange involving young men. Women were a scarce commodity. Taking a second wife, especially so soon after the death of his first, showed insufficient attention to the concerns and needs of others. But that doesn’t explain the Snowflake/Purves charivari, involving a widow and widower. ....at issue is fertility. Even the current charivari could be argued as an encouragement to appropriate fertility; some folks in Ontario told me that a couple could be charivaried any number of times until their first child was manifestly on the way.

In this world, then, McLaughlin could be charivaried not only for taking a young woman out of the pool of eligibles, but also because the couple’s fertility could be in question, given McLaughlin’s previous marriage, and because any further offspring could cause succession problems. The reason charivari died out first in more heavily settled areas has less to do with the ostensible reason usually given – that the noise and drunkenness disturbed the public peace (though indeed, several ordinances were passed in towns and cities explicitly outlawing the practice) – than it did with the lower level of scrutiny of community continuation through family fertility. As larger, more urbanized communities became less closely knit, the ties among all individual members attenuated, with less responsibility placed on any particular group of individuals to maintain the status quo; charivari was no longer rhetorically useful. Charivari survives in rural areas in large part because it not only addresses community notions of appropriate behaviour (unquestioning hospitality, willingness to deal with the unexpected with aplomb, being a good sport, and taking a joke); it also addresses very real needs. By its ‘welcome’ – the term participants used most to describe the charivari’s purpose – it reminds young marrieds that their responsibility is to stay on the farm, continue to do the work their foremothers and forefathers did, and keep the community going by having children. It confirms their community membership and the responsibilities that go along with it (see Greenhill 1989b).

A final mystery, though, is the survival of the tradition of charivari in the Brookdale area of Manitoba in the face of such a tragedy. Surely, as the newspapers suggested, the death of a community member, especially a young one, might end the practice. And yet charivari continued there, at least to the early 1970s, though its form and intention altered considerably (as it has done across most of English Canada) from a statement of disapproval to one of commendation. The main point of the charivari became to party with and play tricks on the newlyweds, rather than to extract money from them. But crucially, as Kathleen Swanson said,

I think it was a mark of affection in some ways, because you didn’t do it to people you were uneasy with, and whose reactions you couldn’t predict fairly well. I think that’s also the reason why there was never any real damage beyond labels off the cans and that sort of thing.

As Charlie Simpson explained, ‘We had to go back and work together, maybe the next day.

The McLaughlin charivari and its aftermath show that traditions are remarkably resilient. Yet traditions also change; it’s more valuable in contemporary rural Canada to mark marriages – at least heterosexual ones – than to convey disapproval of specific matches. The tradition itself has a new purpose, that of marking the recipients’ change in personal status upon marriage. Yet it resists social change on a larger scale by implying disapproval of those who leave the farm or lead a lifestyle the community does not support. While very few Manitobans currently practise charivari, strong memories remain of events in which neighbours, friends, and families ‘made the night hideous.'"

- Pauline Greenhill, Make the Night Hideous: Four English-Canadian Charivaris, 1881–1940. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. p. 108-110.

[murderballadeer]

i'm a manitoba defender bc i think it's unfairly maligned by people who have never been there but i do kind of agree that winnipeg has rancid vibes. sorry winnipeg maybe someday i'll give you another chance

[ozer1497]

[ticholasnesla]

[bechdelexam]

Havakeen Lunch, 1979, Elise Swerhorne

[katrinaftw44]

This is a photo I took of the Wawanesa Telephone Repeater Station. Old technology that was used to increase landline availability.

[alpaca-dave]

Hay delivery (150 bales) and next door’s chickens are visiting again.

[mlentertainment]

kyle in a couple different interviews i think, gives like endless thanks to virginia being so kind and an acting mentor to him on haunting in connecticut. like she even picked him up from the airport! and i thought aww that's so sweet. hey where'd they film this movie? manitoba? oh that was a safety protocol baby

[six-of-ravens]

hmmmmmm guess who maybe accidentally volunteered to do a 14 hour road trip by herself?

[agentgreenbean]

sometimes i think the overly nice canadian who says "bud" and "aboot" and has the Stereotypical Canadian Accent™ isn't real. and then i immediately meet someone from manitoba who fits that stereotype 100%

[motelpearl]

the abandoned lyons manor, carberry manitoba

built 1895, abandoned late 1970s/early 1980s

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Why Charivari?

"There is no law that says that a man must not accumulate wealth, and that if he does so, he must not be miserly with it, or hide it from others, unless he pays a fine, or that an older, widowed, divorced man may not marry a younger but still post-reproductive-aged widow unless he pays a fine. And yet the Wetherill case shows that young men in the Ottawa region in 1881 felt they had a right to ask for money from a man who had done both, and were willing to press those rights firmly with noise, disorder, and even violence.

There is no law that says a man can’t marry a much younger woman, less than eight months after his first wife has died in childbirth, and steal a friend’s girlfriend, unless he pays a fine. And yet that man’s age mates, as well as much younger men, felt they had a right to ask for money from William McLaughlin for doing just that in rural Manitoba in 1909.

There is no law that says a woman can’t walk arm in arm with a young man in front of the general store, or pick flowers along the railway line, or go driving with a much older man to visit her in-laws, without enduring public ridicule. And yet in 1917 six upstanding members of the Nova Scotia community of Springfield felt they had a right to draw public attention to the alleged moral infractions of Irene Varner and to ridicule her in front of her neighbours and family. So strongly did they feel that when she won her defamation and conspiracy case at trial, they appealed (unsuccessfully) to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

The involvement of the first three charivari cases with law is their epiphenomenon. From that time period in Canada, at least, charivari never enforced the formal legal system. Instead, it maintained ideas of proper behaviour, appropriate action, and community membership. And the same can be said of the more recent, approval charivari. There is no law that says a couple who marry must stay in the community, produce children, never be elevated, even symbolically, above their peers, and/or invite everybody to a party to celebrate their wedding, or be punished with noise and tricks – and treat or feed anyone who is willing to attend the charivari. And yet from the beginning of the twentieth century even to the present day in some places, relatives, friends, neighbours, and the community as a whole may demand exactly that.

Elements of charivari are highly gendered. It’s not coincidental that all the participants in the first three charivari were men, or that their wives supported the actions of the Varner charivariers, or that women disapprove of charivari more often than men, or that women are usually the ones expected to provide the treat in the contemporary charivari. These issues will form part of the explanation of each charivari case.

Clearly, the charivari is a pliable practice, surviving with extensive commonalities besides its name from the beginnings of European settlement in Canada to the present day. The four examples demonstrate its uses in city, industrial village, rural village, and farm; by groups of young men, groups of peers and young men, groups of adult men, and a mixed groups of children and adolescents as well as the present day’s mixed sex and age groups; and to indicate disapproval and approval. Indeed, that’s one of the problems of this grouping. Despite clearly recognizable similarities, each case is most telling for its specific manifestations. They resist a common theme or perspective. Though all are strongly gendered, relate to community morality, and implicate ideas of reciprocity, each says something different – slightly or radically – about these issues."

- Pauline Greenhill, Make the Night Hideous: Four English-Canadian Charivaris, 1881–1940. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. p. 27-28.

[lovejam]

Straight from our director

This is the second post about the film Who Killed Christmas? Here’s a post by Boma Cooley-Gam View this post on Instagram A post shared by CKG (@cookeyygam) Instagram from Boma Cookey-Gam

[gallifreyanconsultingphilosopher]

Was supposed to be able to see the northern lights tonight, but the clouds decided to come in with some rain.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

sorry if youve gotten this question before, or this just isnt what you focus on but considering all the things happening in the us right now would it be advisable for me (a trans guy) to move to canada? like how are you guys holding up in terms of policy around trans and gay people? and what city/providence would you most recommend, if any?

Things are mostly ok within the larger cities (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, etc) but some rural communities in bible belts have not been safe spaces for LGBTQ people.

One major concern is that the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada is a transphobe, and based on the polls consistent over the past year or so, he has a very real chance of becoming Prime Minister.

There has been a large rise in homophobic and trans phobic hate crimes in recent years. Its definitely not as bad as the USA, but things are not necessarily trending down either.

As far as which regions in general are safest:

Canada's most left party (NDP) is in control of two provinces, British Columbia and Manitoba. The party is very LGBTQ friendly. Additionally the Liberals are in power in Newfoundland & Labrador and Yukon and are also generally pretty supportive. All other provinces in Canada right now have Conservative governments. The territories of Northwest Territories and Nunavut don't have party affiliations.

There have been some Premiers who have taken transphobic stances and policies in New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta (all are run by Conservative governments).

Moving to Canada is also very expensive, very time consuming and is far from guaranteed unless you have jobs lined up for you, are wealthy, etc. I'm not saying to give up on the idea, just make sure you do the research and know what you're getting into.

Canada has a higher cost of living with especially high rent prices, particularly in Vancouver/Toronto and the neighbouring areas of BC and Ontario. So make sure to keep that in mind.

Hope this helps. I'm Trans too (Trans Femme) and happy to answer any other questions you have.