Back in the day, the Valley has its own array of musical talent that originated right within the area. This is part one about a group of talented local musicians, who fostered their love of music by developing a band, which led to them playing all over the Valley and eventually creating a record to put in local jukeboxes.
The Group started up about 1965 and originally consisted of Gordon Hornbeck on the drums; Jim Hooper on lead guitar; Aaron Burnett on rhythm guitar; Glen Kerestes on bass guitar and Raymond Fulford on keyboards. In 1966, the band underwent some band member changes with Hooper and Kerestes leaving and Doug Scales joining in.
“I recall being in Grade 10 and Mrs. Clara Stirling was my biology teacher at the time,” said Hornbeck. “One day we assembled at her class to find her sitting on the edge of the desk and she asked if any of us had seen the Ed Sullivan Show the previous evening. The whole class erupted because it was the Beatles who appeared on the show. Everyone got very talkative in class about the phenomena of popular music.
“After that discussion, I went home that night and talked to my parents about it. It was a short time after that, I found a friend in high school, Jimmy Hooper, who had an electric guitar and I told him I had an acoustic guitar. He invited me over to his house.
“I met Jimmy’s parents and while we were talking, his mom kept playing the piano,” said Hornbeck. “She was crazy on the piano and played everything you could think of. She kept asking if there was anything we wanted to hear. She played by ear and all these songs with such enthusiasm. Looking back, I kind of associated her with Jerry Lee Lewis, because she had that same enthusiasm for music.
“A few weeks later I had Jimmy over to my house to see what I had set up to play my guitar in the basement. I had a quiet section in the basement all to myself. Jimmy picked out the song with chords and flat-picking; it was Wildwood Flower. It’s a famous old song that talks about the effects of smoking cannabis. Jimmy played the song so perfectly; you’d think you were listening to a recording.
“I suggested we meet more often so he spent a lot of time at my house and we spun 45 records from Scalf’s Music Store,” said Hornbeck. “That was a source for studying music. Jimmy could listen to that song off the portable record player and identify each chord by listening to it. Without any formal music training or education, Jimmy had the same talent as his mother and could play by ear. He really had the inside track to listening and copying music. We were so drawn to his musical talent.
“Aaron Burnett was another friend from school who heard about our enthusiasm for listening and playing music. Aaron wanted to join us and bring his guitar. He came over and we plugged his guitar into Jimmy’s amp and started making some real noise. That was the beginning of the band.
“Another friend of mine from school, Glen Kerestes, was working as a furniture deliveryman,” said Hornbeck. “He got his older brother’s guitar, took the top two strings off and tuned down the bottom bass strings. Once he had it to where he wanted it, he said he would join in playing bass.”
The newly formed band began to experiment with their sound during rehearsals and soon found themselves upgrading musical instruments and equipment.
“By then this little amplifier of Jimmy’s that had a speaker the size of a butter plate was really overloaded,” said Hornbeck. “Jimmy set out to get an amplifier in the Sears catalogue. He found a Sears Silvertone amplifier that had two 12-inch speakers and a separate power head on top with about five or six inputs. For the first year, which would have been 1965-1966, we played everything through that one big amplifier.
“One day we went outside and set it up to play in the backyard. The next day at school, a couple of classmates told me that their parents heard us playing music in the backyard from about three miles away. We must have been playing pretty loud, but when you’re playing rock n’ roll music, you don’t always know how loud the volume really is.
“Eventually Glen purchased a Fender Mr. Bassman amplifier and a Fender Jazz bass guitar,” said Hornbeck. “Then Aaron went out and bought a Fender Mustang and his own large amp. Now we were really rocking.”
It wasn’t long after before the band was asked to do their first live stage performance in town. Luckily Hornbeck’s father captured all those early moments on stage by filming it.
“We were soon asked to play live music for the Canadian Girls In Training (CGIT) dance behind the United Church in Swan River,” said Hornbeck. “It was our first gig and my dad had this small 8 mm movie camera came out and started filming the band and the crowd. I still have those 8 mm movies and transferred them to DVD, which allows me to watch it anytime I want. It’s amazing to be able to watch that live stuff from the past.
“We all decided that if we were going to perform as a band, we were going to have to be presentable. So for that first performance, we wore white T-shirts with red cardigan sweaters, white pants and white tennis shoes. I have lots of photos of us dressed like that. There was no money involved and the greatest joy was to be asked to come and perform.”
After their first performance, they realized they needed a name for the band if they were going to continue on taking bookings and performing.
“Once the dance was over, we all sat down and realized we had a golden opportunity to form a band, but we had no name,” said Hornbeck. “We went through a brainstorming session in my parents basement and were throwing out names. We knew the names of all the popular bands at the time. Glenn was very quick and came up with some names. We couldn’t come up with a name that we could all agree on, so we decided on the name called The Group.”
Hornbeck has many classic memories of The Group and some of the adventures they had as a band. This was the beginning for many of the band members to develop a long-time love for music and the start of their musical careers.
“I have the original stamp we used for the dances at the Legion and community halls we would rent on a Friday or Saturday night to play a dance,” said Hornbeck. “We had a guy sitting with the stamp and a cash box at the door. The admission price was one dollar and he would stamp their hand to show they had paid.
“We travelled and played in community halls numerous times. At that time, it became popular to have a light show travelling with the band. Bands would perform and this different array of lights would come on. So I got some coloured lighting from my parents Christmas floodlights and I wired them all up through a board at my feet so my high hat foot could punch these switches on and off. It also allowed me to rotate the lights, which allowed me to put on a light show. Looking back it was pretty psychedelic for our time.
“There was this one time we were set up to play in Bowsman,” said Hornbeck. “We had the stage all set up and I wired up the lights.
We figured we were going to have a real good show that night. Well to my surprise, I had wired up the perfect short circuit, so about the third song into the first set, I start punching the lights and my foot goes down and there’s an explosion under my foot and fire going across the stage.
Bang! All the lights and cords were melted, the entire Bowman Hall breakers went at once and it was pitch black, so everyone turned on their cigarette lighters to see. The amplifiers have tubes and they don’t die instantly, they make a strange sound cooling off. I will never forget our amplifiers making that sound. It was definitely a night I will not forget.”
The story of The Group will continue in next week’s Star and Times.

The Northwest Métis Council Inc. (NWMC) held its annual regional meeting in Dauphin, Aug. 13. Local executive members from 24 Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) Locals in the region came in to hear about the NWMC’s year in review, projects for the future, and the launching of a new and substantial health care initiative.

“I’m proud at the amount of staff that the NWMC has employed in the region,” said NWMC vice-president Frances Chartrand. “We now have 42 staff members working out of the administration office, 55 summer students placed across the region, 20 staff working our Michif Children’s Place and another 20 staff to be hired in the Swan River Daycare. Our new governance office should be opening soon and we will host 125 staff there.

“Other highlights for our region have been the new builds that are taking place, from the Michif Children’s Place daycare that is up and running, to our new governance office here in the City of Dauphin and the new daycare being built in Swan River. We’ve also purchased a house next door to Métis Child and Family Services that is currently being renovated and will be fully furnished.

It will be used as a medical stay place for people who have to travel in to Dauphin for medical appointments or day surgeries and need overnight accommodations.

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OCN’s Smart Farm has had a few successful harvests so far under their belts for the month of August.

Despite not having any produce last year due to COVID-19, the return of the Smart Farm’s produce has been a huge success, leaving nothing to go to waste.

“We’ve been in operation for about six years,” said OCN Smart Farm Operations Manager Stephanie Cook. “Unfortunately the pandemic shut us down, because they were using the hall as a COVID-19 hall and test site for OCN, so we basically just got back up and running.

We have done two harvests now in the community and they were very well received. We had no produce left over at the end, which is really good.

“There were over 50 families that came to get produce at each one of our harvests. There are families that consist of two people or some with six to eight, and as a result, this produce is feeding a lot of people.”

Food security is an issue in Manitoba thanks to rising cost of food and the high level of poverty in the province. Most communities have a locally run food bank to assist those who are struggling to provide enough food to feed themselves on a regular basis.

The Pas Friendship Centre took on the role of running and facilitating the food bank during the spark of the pandemic, but now has no choice but to close it down.

“The Pas Friendship Centre has run the tri-community food bank since March 2020 and we just can no longer do it,” said The Pas Friendship Centre Executive Director Douglas Bartlett. “We started it because the pandemic put a strong focus on food shortages in the tri-community. We were up to about 200 hampers a month and then it went down to 150, with 100 of those hampers going to seniors.

A historic partnership emerged from the provincial and federal government investing in Arctic Gateway Group’s (AGG) Hudson Bail Railway (HBR).

AGG received up to $147.6 million to support the rail line and future opportunities for northern Manitoba.

HBR is essential for supply chains, local food security, and is the only year round mode of transportation for passengers and freight trains to the north.

“The Hudson Bay Railway is an engine for economic development, job growth and tourism opportunities, and our government is proud to support this vital transportation network connecting people and businesses in northern Manitoba with the goods and supplies they need to live, work and invest in their communities,” said Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson.

“This historic investment and partnership represents a new and exciting chapter for northern Manitoba and today’s announcement demonstrates what we can accomplish when we work together to advance shared opportunities in the spirit of reconciliation and collaboration. Building our northern economy is essential to our province’s future economic and social success, and I am confident this investment will provide economic benefits for the North, Manitoba and all of the Prairie provinces for years to come.”

Over the weekend a fantastic group of unsung heroes in the community met with the high rail trucks during the late hours of the evening to do intake of the animals coming in from the fire zones as well as any surrenders from The Pas.

The Manitoba Animal Alliance (MAA) has been busy rescuing animals that have been left behind as a result of the forest fires that raged in Pukatawagan and Mathias Colomb First nations.

The homeless pets left behind still depend on people to provide food and water, while some of them need medical care and treatment.

MAA has stepped in to transport these animals out of harm. The animals were making their journey on to Winnipeg where they will receive necessary medical treatments, be reconnected with owners if possible or adopted to new homes. The MAA has also been collecting donations of pet foot and kennels for the animals to send up north to feed them and have the necessary crates to transport them out of the area if needed.

Just after the long weekend, the Province signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Mosakahiken Cree Nation (MCN) and Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) that will work towards developing revenue sharing that will see up to 45 percent of revenues from timber dues.

“This is a historic day for MCN,” said MCN Chief Vincent Bercier. “We will be the first reserve to have revenue sharing as part of this agreement with the logging industry. The revenue sharing and stumpage fees will differ depending on how much logging is done in the year. It will benefit the community by giving us more opportunities for infrastructure, create jobs and just allow us to do more for our community and people.”

“In the spirit of reconciliation, this is a great first step that allows us to assert our sovereign rights as the OCN,” said OCN Chief Sidney Ballantyne.

“This revenue sharing concept has been talked bout for years with our community and to see this finally come to action gives me hope as a leader. Not only will the added revenue help with improving our services for our people, it will benefit both our community and our neighbours in MCN with added opportunities.”

With some rural emergency rooms being temporarily closed for the summer, another threat has seemed to loom. Just last week, it was made public that the Winnipegosis Post Office was closed for several days due to staff shortages, which resulted in Winnipegosis residents having to travel to Dauphin to pick up their mail.

“There’s a public concern that this could be setting a precedent when it comes to the potential closing of post offices in rural Manitoba communities,” said Mossey River Reeve Ron Kostyshyn. “We’re hoping that’s not the case.”

There wasn’t a notice issued that the Winnipegosis Post Office would be temporarily closed, until the community became concerned as to why it wasn’t open the next day. There was a lack of communication starting back to when this initially happened and not everyone was properly informed.

“We learned of the situation when the Winnipegosis Post Office was closed on a Tuesday for the day,” said Kostyshyn.

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