Robs' Place

I was born in a small town in N.W. Ontario (Kee­watin).

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This is where my Dad was born, as were his par­ents. My Dad, his father, uncles and grand­fa­thers all worked at the flour mills there. These mills where Mill “A” & Mill “C” of the Lake of the Woods Milling Com­pany. “The Lake of the Woods Milling Com­pany Lim­ited was started May 21, 1887 to take advan­tage of the new rail­way and west­ern grain production.

Formed by a team from the board of Cana­dian Pacific Rail­way, includ­ing George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen, William Cor­nelius Van Horne and James Ross, the head­quar­ters were in Mon­tréal, while the milling oper­a­tions were based in Kee­watin, Ontario. The loca­tion pro­vided trans­porta­tion via the CPR, access to raw prod­uct, and water-power from the Win­nipeg River.

The first mill was com­pleted in 1888 with vice-president John Mather over­see­ing con­struc­tion. It had a capac­ity of 140,000 bushels and a daily pro­duc­tion capac­ity of 800 bar­rels of flour. The flour was mar­keted under the name Five Roses, which became a world famous brand. In 1913, Lake of the Woods released the first edi­tion of the Five Roses Cook Book, which is still in pro­duc­tion to this day.

The mill oper­ated in Kee­watin for 79 years, clos­ing in 1967. At the height of its pro­duc­tion, it was pos­si­bly the largest flour mill in the British Com­mon­wealth.” (Source: Wikipedia).

I have found some images that are gonna help me to model the mills and pas­sen­ger sta­tion. Between this, Dad’s mem­ory and two books on the his­tory of Kee­watin and I should get started.