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No Road Back, A Grown Boy's Story of Wales

By Donald Stuart 96 pages with b/w photos $9.95

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Donald uses humour, warmth and a deep respect for the characters of his youth to share with us the village of Wales and his beloved Hoople Creek. His recollections of

farm and village life along the St. Lawrence are significant not only because they are of a place that no longer exists but because they reflect a way of life that has

changed dramatically in the last 50 years.

Excerpt, No Road Back, A Grown Boy's Story Of Wales

General Stores, p 93

"Every winter the villagers built a public rink east of Ransom's Store, immediately behind the drive shed. Of course, it was open air and natural ice. The water for flooding the rink came from the well in the yard south of the store. This was one of the remarkable wells in the district. It never went dry no matter how much water was used. When I was eight, the rink was flooded by Willie Donnell and son, Bill Jr., who pumped it by hand and drew it in a wooden barrel to the site. Finally my father devised a pump-jack powered by an electric motor. I have vague recollections of a scoop about four feet wide that was used to move large depths of snow and I have a feeling a lot of volunteer labour was involved.

I remember watching the men play hockey one afternoon when the snow was higher than the board fence, which I am sure must have been four feet high. The game that day was between Wales and Mille Roches and I seem to recall some kind of incident occurring. My Dad told me later that he had hit a Mr. Gowsell from Mille Roches and the man was unconscious for an hour. Dad was afraid that he had killed the fellow and he always credited the local physician, Dr. Moody, for bringing him around.

There were two rows of electric lights hanging about ten feet above the ice and when the men played hockey at night, my father said it was a great trick to shoot the puck into the darkness above the lights. This resulted in a mad scramble as no one knew where it would be coming down. There was a shanty-type building at the north end of the rink. It was divided into two rooms for the opposing teams, and when there was public skating one room was for ladies only.

I can still remember skating under those lights wearing my automobile skates, the forerunner of the tube skates that have evolved into today's molded forms."