Oliver Lake Vacation

Gordon at Oliver Lake – Summer 1957

This is the picture that reminded me of the time we were on vacation and I climbed the hill with an unknown man.

When we were growing up, my father had a twin-lens, Roloflex camera that he had bought when he was in the Air Force. My father took quite a lot of pictures as we were growing up, and sometimes we liked to sit around and look at the old family photographs. I remember there was one picture of myself when I was about three years old. In the picture, I am sitting on the grass, dressed in shorts and a short sleeved shirt. For some reason, every time I look at this picture I have memories of this time we were on holidays, when I climbed up this hill with a man. I remember that when we got to the top that we were looking out over Lake Superior. When I talk about this incident, my father is saying I must be referring to a vacation we took at Oliver Lake. For some reason, I always have this idea fixed in my mind, that this incident took place when our family was on vacation at a place called Grand Marais.

After my mother’s funeral in May 2004, I was at my parent’s place looking through the boxes containing old family pictures. I was able to locate a number of pictures taken at Oliver Lake. Some of the pictures were from spring 1957, and others from a separate visit in summer 1957.

My recollection is that we went on two vacations in the summer of 1957. We had a short vacation to Grand Marais, followed by a longer vacation to Oliver Lake. My recollection is that the vacation to Grand Marais was cut short, after just two nights. This was maybe because we were camping in a small and stuffy canvas tent at a very hot and dusty campground that was quite a ways inland from the Lake Superior lakeshore.

One memory I have is after we returned from our vacation at Oliver Lake, we were discussing the two vacations. My mother said she thought that Oliver Lake was a much better place because it was close to home (about an hours drive southwest of Fort William), and because it was nice staying in a cabin by the lake. In my memory, I was the only one who seemed to express a view that both places were good places, even if I agreed that it had been cramped and uncomfortable to sleep in the tent.

A separate memory was a few years later while we were still living in Fort William. I am talking to my brother and complaining to him that we haven’t had a family vacation since the year we went to Grand Marais and Oliver Lake. I seemed so unfair to me that we had been able to go on two vacations that year and had gone on no vacations since.

Oliver Lake – Spring 1957 Note date on picture is Mar – 57. My father, Barry on left, Gordon in centre and David on right.

Oliver Lake – Summer 2002 Note similarity in trees at top of rock wall. Picnic benches are gone. The area is now just a boat ramp.