Harry

A man in the middle of history

Happy new year folks. May the year be a time of reflection, creativity and connection for all of us. First of all, thank you so much for reading and supporting this crazy little story time idea. I especially love those of you who took the time to give me some feedback on the stories.

This is a big month for my music friend and collaborator Cathy Checora. She recorded and is now releasing her first song called The Cat’s Song. If you like original songs, cellos and cats you might really enjoy this little tune.

Listen here.

For more about our music endeavours, go here.

One more thing. If you know of other folks who may know me or who might enjoy the stories please hit the share button below and send out the invitation.

This month’s story is about a fine public servant who I admired as a kid and who came back into my life recently. This year he turns 100 and I hope birthday wishes come from near and far.

Harry

My hometown was history on a stick…

First Peoples lived in the Fort Battleford geographical area for some 11,000 years and their descendants still have an important presence there.

The newly minted country of Canada bought a huge western landmass from the Hudson Bay Company and Great Britain and dubbed it the Northwest Territories.

My hometown was blessed with being chosen as the capital of these Northwest Territories and they built a beautiful Government House on a hill overlooking both the North Saskatchewan and Battle Rivers.  We were supposed to become the capital of the new province of Saskatchewan in 1905, but some land shenanigans sent the capital to Regina, the only capital city in Canada not on a natural body of water.  We are still a bit touchy about such matters.

In 1876, a little farther down the road, they built and established a N.W.M.P. post.  Originally there was no fortification, but our history took a bad turn in 1885 and the post became a fort, and many stories of conflict, hangings and indigenous/colonial relations were played out within blocks of my home.

Fort Battleford was  de-commissioned in 1924 and the police left town.

Also, in 1924, across on the north side of the river, a baby was born on a farm near the village of Brada.  Little Harry Tatro grew up able to see the historic fort across the river in the distance from his second story window.

He was fascinated.

He grew up loving history and would soon connect directly with history across the river.

In the mid-century citizens struggled with old things.  For many, when anything got old, it also got worthless.  The value was in an item’s usefulness not in its story.

So, the Fort stood pretty much alone in the fields from 1923-1957 with only the interest of some of the local residents who started to recognize the value in the old and then did their best to prevent looting and destruction.

It was not until 1952 that the federal government realized that the public service must play a greater role in the prevention and protection of our historical landmarks.

I was no different.  As a kid in those times old things and old people held no big interest for me.

A confession: my mother used to say to me, “Bobby, you should go visit that old lady across the way, Jesse Degear.  You know she was in the Fort when it was under attack during the Rebellion.”

I was intrigued but far too intimidated to go and knock on the door of a lady in her nineties.

I grew up regretting every moment of that bad decision.

Some time ago, I was watching my grandson play basketball.  Next to me another grandfather watched his grandson and as such, with old men, we talked.  We got into hometowns and he mentioned that he had an uncle who ran the Fort in Battleford by the name of Harry Tatro.

The memories flooded in…

In the mid-fifties I was an elementary school kid with a crappy English cherry red three speed bike.  All summer we made great days of riding out to the Fort.  I can still remember the first time I meandered through the grounds discovering the barracks, the officers’ quarters and the best of the lot, the Sick Horse Stable.  I remember walking through the door.

It smelled like the last century, a muted light came through the old windows and the dirt floor felt so real under our sneakers.  We found the ladder heading up into a tower. Up we scrambled to peer out the lookout window, my imagination running fully out of control as I imagined my importance as a lookout scout in the crazy world of 1885.

This was the amazing thing…no one was out there and if there was someone in charge it felt like he or she was giving us the run of the place….and they were. 

It was Harry.

We would always have our lunch up in the Tower.  Later, dinner was hotdogs further down the river at the Springs.  We were Huck Finns in a miniature Mississippi life.

A variation on these magic days would be riding the bikes further east to the Forks where the Battle River meets the Saskatchewan River and the prize fish was a goldeye caught with a stick, a line and a worm on a hook.

The Fort though, was the key.

We prowled through the barracks where the police lived, locked each other up in real jails in the guardhouse and just let the imaginations go crazy in the lookout tower. 

As I reflect back, I realize that I was given a gift of more than looking at history.  I got to touch it.  The reason I got to touch it was because Harry Tatro let us touch it.

“When did Harry die?” I asked the nephew at the basketball game.  “Oh, he’s not dead,” he says, “he’s ninety-eight, going strong and living in Calgary!”

Ten days later, unlike my Jesse Degear story, I am in a big hurry to knock on the door of someone in their nineties and share our stories of living in history.

Harry is like a vintage automobile: everything is still working fine, and he has a well-worn patina of quiet wisdom.  He is still living in his own home supported by family.  Coffee and cookies in true prairie style will be served.

Stories began to be swapped like coffee row mornings in a small town.

The boys in the Tower had a favorite story.  We had sniffed out the rumours of a skeleton found up there after the Mounties left and we imagined the ghost still in residence. 

Yep, says Harry, the Mounties had pulled a body from the river and were probably keeping it for some elementary forensic work and forgot where they stored it.  I never saw it says Harry, but I believe it was a true story.

I told Harry the story of his hiring my mother one summer.  The young ladies had the job of disrobing the Mountie mannequins and sending off the uniforms for cleaning.  When the garments returned, my mother suggested that the naked mannequins did not really reflect the Mountie culture with the hairless chests and so they each trimmed their locks and with some glue, gave the Mounties each a hairy chest.

Harry said he had no idea but loved the initiative of the prank.

I loved his story of the handgun. The pistol came into his possession and as a young man he was immediately taken with the romance of it.  “I decided that it would be great sport to fire it,” he says.  He found a bullet, loaded it and pulled the trigger.  It was old and tired and sort of blew up leaving Harry with a big bruise on his chest and a big lesson for a man destined to spend a long career in handling history.

Respect.

Let old things lie, he believes.  You can touch history, but it must be a light touch and thus he began to learn how to respect history by protecting and preserving.

Harry left the Fort early in his career because he was so good at what he did.  The public service challenged him to find, protect and restore historical sites all through western Canada.  He figures he either started or, one way or another, worked on establishing just about every historical site in the west including a favorite in Alberta, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

I was a public servant for almost fifty years, and I admired the men and women who, through their public service careers, made our country a better place to live.  I met a few great public servants, but this was the first time I could close the loop with a public service hero that started in my childhood and came full circle in my elder years.

Harry, the man in the middle of history, knew people from the 19^th Century, dedicated his career to those pioneers in the 20^th century and is now telling stories in the 21^st century.

Thank you, my friend and our good friend to public service and western history.