Go west, young man
Leaving P. E. I. to seek his fortune worked extremely well for at least one young Islander
Leaving home to hit the jackpot — or just a job — has been part of Island life for centuries.
From the sailing ships to ports unknown, to the “harvest excursions’’ in the 1920s, to the tarsands of today, young Islanders have been leaving to seek higher education, world travel or better employment elsewhere.
Back in the 1940s, the same thing happened to a young Acadian boy who went looking for adventure.
There was no Facebook, text messages or emails for “Spud’’ as he travelled in remote places and prospected for gold in the great white north.
But Ulrich Arsenault became a poster boy with overnight fame when a large mining operation got wind of his gold claim in the Northwest Territories.
“In every society and every generation there are people who tend to be restless or crave adventure, but economics has always been the main driver, even as it is today,” says Dr. Ed MacDonald about leaving the Island. “Our economy’s resource base has never been big or diverse enough to provide meaningful employment for everyone.”
Out- migrants have always disproportionately been young people, says the UPEI professor, since they have fewer ties and more trouble breaking into the job market.
“But with those young out- migrants goes vitality, energy, ideas, innovation. Those out- migrants were also our potential future leaders, and historians in the region have long speculated that the heavy outmigration among the younger generations has deprived the region of leadership and left our society more conservative.”
Spud Arsenault’s first taste of adventure was the First Great War. He joined up at the young age of 16 and was forever affected by the slaughter. He was wounded twice in action and fought in Passchendaele.
He was the son of Mr. Joseph F. Arsenault, deputy prothonotary of the County Court at Summerside and Gertrude Cormier.
After the war, he worked as a fire ranger, ran a trap line, built a log cabin, and was attacked by and killed dozens of bears.
But to Jean Paul Arsenault, who researched his famous relative for an article in the Island Magazine, he was “his mother’s cousin.’’
“He lived the life of an outdoorsman his entire life,’’ said Arsenault. “Even coming home to visit in his later years and pitching a tent and cooking on an open fire on the property of a relative.”
Ulrich had a one- room pine cabin on Joliffe Island in Great Slave Lake and was mining gold during the 1940s. The story spread of his find and on May 8, 1946, a telegram arrived with a big offer.
The Beaulieu Mining Company flew him to Toronto and presented him $ 100,000 for his mining stake in front of the cameras and media of the day. The boy from Wellington, P. E. I., became a newsreel celebrity in movie theatres across the country.
Such a payday was worth a million bucks in today’s dollars. But when he posed for the photographers and munched a cigar, he is quoted as saying, “It doesn’t excite me .”
Spud was billed as “the walking gold mine” and along with the cash, was offered 250,000 shares, in a new mining operation to be named Spud Arsenault Mines Ltd. He was even whisked off to New York for another media frenzy.
The bachelor from the bogs was wined and dined at the Copacabana Club and at Jack Dempsey’s restaurant, appeared on radio shows, and posed for pictures with scantily clad chorus girls.
“They were very cute girls who did not smoke. But I don’t think any of them would like to live in an igloo or a sleeping bag up around Yellowknife,’’ he is quoted as saying.
The company pushed the share price upward attracting a throng of speculators, and Spud became the star of one of the largest publicity stunts ever staged by a mining promoter.
The P. E. I. Guardian headline on May 14, 1946 read, “Island man Strikes it Rich in the North.”
His windfall was for real — and there was gold at his stake — but the mining company turned it into an investment scam, much like the recent Briex scandal.
The Island boy was generous and doled out money to friends and family, but continued his wanderlust dream until he died on June 10, 1981. He lies buried in the family plot in People’s Cemetery in Summerside. I have been a photographer for The Guardian for many years and have turned my lens on a lot of news stories, but the most emotional for me was the last Abbey ride across the Northumberland Strait when the Confederation Bridge opened in 1997.
The trip to Cape Tormentine was a bit festive, but the return trip to Borden for the ship’s last voyage was emotional to say the least. When we were docking in Borden all the town’s emergency vehicles were at the wharf with their sirens blaring and their lights flashing. I then photographed a ferry worker and his wife who were heartsick because he was out of a job.
But I think the most emotional was a group of ferry workers who had moved off to one side of the ship’s upper deck and were huddled arm in arm with tears streaming down their cheeks as they cried, probably for the loss of their jobs, but also, I think, for the loss of something that a concrete bridge can never replace.
I also remember photographing the opening of the P. E. I Legislature in the late 1980s or early 1990s when Joe Ghiz was premier. Ghiz had two children, Robert and Joanne, and during the speech from the throne I photographed a very young Joanne snoozing as she leaned against her mother, Rose Ellen, while her brother, Robert, the future premier of P. E. I., was fidgeting in his seat looking rather bored with the whole thing.
To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
One of my memorable moments as a Guardian staffer occurred on Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, the morning after hurricane Juan’s visit. Overnight the hurricane had slashed across the province, leaving a wave of destruction in its path, including widespread power outages.
As members of the newsroom slowly trickled into work that morning, it dawned on us we were in for a day like no other. Not only would we have to report on one of the biggest storms in decades, we also had to cover the day’s provincial election. Two major stories and, oh yeah, we had no power.
Publisher Don Brander was quick off the mark in making arrangements to get a power generator. While we waited for it, and the necessary electrical hookups that would be required, the staffers rolled up their sleeves and filled their notepads with storm and election stories.
We produced 15 pages of coverage of both major stories under difficult and stressful conditions. It was a shining example of our newsroom stepping up to the challenge. I held up the next day’s paper with a special sense of pride.
And it wasn’t just me who thought we did a good job. A few months later The Guardian was awarded an Atlantic Journalism Award in the “spot news category” for our coverage.