Pine Falls-Lismore-Cowal connection: Nancy Kovachik on Lismore

Nancy Kovachik is a high school art teacher who works at a kindergarten to grade 12 school in Pine Falls – Powerview, Manitoba, Canada. She lives on the shore of Lake Winnipeg which is about a 30 minute drive from where she works. She is also an artist and had begun playing the fiddle about three years ago.

It was the fiddle that brought her to the Isle of Lismore in Argyll, to an international fiddle workshop with the well known Mairi Campbell. And it was on Lismore, at that workshop, where she found Cowal’s Walking Theatre Company. They were working with the Lismore youth team on creating a new play about the famous collector of folk lore, Alexander Carmichael, who lived on the island.

Nancy was mesmerised by the way the Walking Theatre Company worked with the Lismore youth team . She then initiated a joint project which will see  the company’s director, Sadie Dixon-Spain, work with a youth team from the High School at Powerview, creating a new play about the Selkirk Settlers.

The play will focus on the impact of these settlers on the indigenous population, especially the Metis – Franco-Canadian Scots’ offspring of settlers who took new wives when they came to work for the Hudson Bay Company. The giant fur trading company itself will also be at the heart of the play.

2013 will see the Powerview youth team come to Argyll with this play – already booked in for performances on Lismore and Easdale islanda and in Cowal and Oban.

Between now and then, Nancy Kovachik has agreed to write for us on her experiences as the project develops.

Today she begins with the meeting on Lismore that saw it all kick off.

The ‘pasture ceilidh’

‘I had no idea what would lie ahead when I was given the opportunity to come to Scotland to study the fiddle with internationally acclaimed Mairi Campbell at her retreat on Lismore.

‘Arriving on the island a day early so as to see Mairi perform, I was given the most amazing introduction to the island’s history by the Lismore Youth Theatre and Argyll’s Walking Theatre Company.

‘Wowed by these young performers, drenched by the rain and surrounded by the history of my ancestors, I began to feel a strong connection to the island and the people.

‘It was a sense of belonging combined with a burning desire to see and do as much as I possibly could while here; and to get to know the people who called the island home.

‘Totally unprepared for the pasture Ceilidh, I cleaned the sheep offerings from my sandals and peeled off my yellow plastic rain cover that was a sad excuse for a coat before I was introduced by Mairi to Sadie!

‘As a teacher, I was impressed with Sadie’s ability to work with these young people to bring alive the story of Alexander Carmichael in such a way as to cause me to fall in love with the island and the people.

‘I knew at that moment that I wanted to work with Sadie and the Walking Theatre Company to bring the experience to my students in Canada.

‘When I got home, I couldn’t wait to share my experience with my colleagues as we began imagining what possibilities could come from developing a partnership with Sadie and bringing the Walking Theatre company to Canada as a way of exploring and celebrating our shared connections!

‘From the moment that I stepped on the island of Lismore I felt the most overwhelming and magical feelings that this was not going to be a typical holiday by any means but the start of an adventure that begins when you take time to dance in the rain….’

Nancy Kovachik

Background story here. The photograph above is of the pasture ceilidh Nancy took part in on the Isle of Lismore.

Powerview-Pine Falls

Or Pine Falls-Powerview, depending on your affiliations, is a six year old amalgamation of the township of Powerview with the area of Pine Falls in eastern Manitoba – about 1,5 km apart and now with a joint name said to annoy Manitoba Highways because it’s too long for their road signs. The town has a population of around 1,300.

Just over two years ago this one-industry town hit trouble. That one industry – the Pine Falls Tembec paper mill, locked out its workforce when they refused to accept the company’s proposal to cut their wages, pensions and benefits. Ironically, the lockout was on Labour Day 2009.

A year later it shut, part of the collapse of the forestry sector across North America, wiht the fall in demand for paper a predictable  consequence of the dominance of digital communications and information services.

The Tembec mill closure left some 240 folk without a job. Some young families had to move away but overall the population has dropped only by around 20. The loss of the mill also meant the loss of contracting work for hundreds of tree cutters, chippers and transporters.

The economic hit was severe.

Another hit on the town from the mill closure will happen this year, in 2012. Tembec had been paying around $1 million a year in business taxes and 2012 will be the first year where none of this tax income will be available. The town is looking at residential property rates doubling to cover the cost of a necessary storm-sewer system and resurfacing the roads afterwards. The council is hoping the province will help to cover the rise.

Some of those left jobless have found work at AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd) which is decommissioning a plant  at Pinawa – and, with Doonreay in Caithness decommissioning, we know how long that process takes.

But what has kept the town going has been gold. With the price at its current astronomical level in a shaky global economic situation, San Gold Corporation first took on nearly 80 former mill employees to work in its Bissett Gold Mine and,  we understand, later employed around the same number again. The mine is two hours away from Powerview-Pine Falls so the workers do two weeks on-two weeks off, living in temporary accommodation at Bisset for their duty periods.

The settler spirit survives. Whatever it takes.