Photo Friday | Farm Electrification: And Then There Was Light
Photo Friday | Farm Electrification: And Then There Was Light
Most of us take most things for granted.
Take for example clean running water, or electricity. Who ever thinks twice about being able to enjoy these luxuries?
But these little things we take for granted weren’t always around, which means they “arrived” at one point or another, marking a “before” and a “forever after.”
Farm Electrification, a short film from Saskatchewan-born journalist and filmmaker Evelyn Spice Cherry captured such a momentous event: the arrival of hydroelectricity in rural Manitoba in 1946.
The film isn’t online for the moment, but these wonderful photos from the production give us a glimpse of what the arrival of electric light and electric power might have meant to those used to living without.
Enjoy the pictures below.
For more about the Prairies, see also:
Photo Friday : Inside Alberta’s Seclusive Hutterite Colonies
We are so fortunate to have almost unlimited electrical power here in Canada. Thankfully, the inventor, Nikola Tesla never patented alternating current!
Your glimpse of pictures are really great
thanks for sharing and reminding us of our past…it brng back memories of my parents…
Great.
Love your programs.
Keep them coming.
Our family left Saskatchewan before the power came to our
old farm. We used a 32 volt windmill with batteries and a
gas generator in the cellar. We had an electric radio and
an electric motor on the washing machine.
The lights were wonderful, otherwise my brother and I went
up to bed with a flashlight.
My grandparents got by with kerosene lamps and lanterns, and pumped up mantle lamps hanging from the ceiling, for special occasions. A gas engine ran the well, or just hand pumping.
I remember some people wondering if they could possibly consume enough electricity to justify the $10/mo minimum charge.
Your pictures show scenes I can remember from my childhood.
Thank YOU. Always interesting to me to hear people tell stories from a time where I was thank you for sharing that with us