Process: Lake of the Woods Milling Co. Ltd.

My community newspaper, La Voix Pop, has recently started including historical sketches written by Parcs Canada. This week’s edition broached the subject of flour: La farine, ingredient indispensable de l’essor industriel. Flour figures predominantly in the history of the Lachine canal because of the surrounding flourmills such as Ogilvie Flour Mills Co. Ltd. in the Old Port, the Dominion Flour Mills in Saint-Henri, and the St-Lawrence Flour Mills (now known as Robin Hood Multifoods) in Sainte-Cunégonde.

 

Royal Mills, Ogilvie Flour Mills Co. Ltd., Montreal, QC, 1915 Wm. Notman & Son © McCord Museum

Lake of the Woods Milling Company Ltd.

A detail of note was that the Ogilvie family bought Lake of the Woods Milling Company in 1954, which accounts for one of Montreal’s famous landmarks in the Old Port — the iconic FARINE FIVE ROSES FLOUR. It was renamed in 1977 to FARINE FIVE ROSES because of Quebec’s language laws. Matt Soar’s ongoing art project Farine Five Roses playfully deconstructs and re-imagines Montreal’s beloved sign with Love Letters, Farinagrams and a collective sketching process via Flikr — From Memory.

I chuckled at the disclaimer on his site disassociating itself with the Five Roses brand and the much sought out, out-of-print Five Roses cookbooks. I myself had purchased a copy of Five Roses Cook Book: Being a Manual of Good Recipes (1915) issued by The Lake of the Woods Milling Company: its flour was marketed under the name Five Roses.

Lake of the Woods Milling Co. Ltd, Keewatin, ON, 1897 William McFarlane Notman © McCord Museum

 

I found a few photos on the McCord Museum website, as the mill no longer exists. It burned down in 1967. I was impressed by the McCord's on-line collection: by its intuitive interface, by its ease of navigation, and most importantly, by the Creative Commons license on all their photos. Allowing users to embed the properly attributed photos on their own sites, effectively enables the wide dissemination of an invaluable archive.

 

Lake of the Woods Milling Co. Ltd, Keewatin, ON, 1897 William McFarlane Notman © McCord Museum

 

Though the Lake of the Woods headquarters were in Winnipeg and Montreal, the milling operations (est. in 1887) were based in Keewatin, Ontario, which is situated on the northern shore of Lake of the Woods, at the eastern extremity of Ontario close to the Manitoba border. According to the Lake of the Woods Museum, at one time, it was considered to be one of the largest milling centres in the British Commonwealth. 

Virtual Heritage Winnipeg provides the user with an interactive tour of the Exchange District, declared a National Historic Site in 1997. While the Lake of the Woods building at 212 McDermot Avenue previously served as headquarters for the mill, it now houses the Mayberry Gallery. Built in 1901, the house is an example of Romanesque Revival architecture and boasts impressive red brick facades with sandstone.

 

View Larger Map of Lake of the Woods

 

The Centre historique de Montréal : Vieux Montréal website is comprised of interactive blueprints of Old Montreal which reveal its rich heritage, history and architecture. In 1915, the Lake of the Woods Milling Company established its headquarters at the intersection of Saint-Sacrement and Saint-Jean. This building is quite unique in its two-tiered structure because the new construction, built in 1909-1910, kept the vestige of the Corn Exchange edifice, which was built in 1865-1866. The architects Ross and MacFarlane preserved the two first original floors and integrated them into their new design. A nice feature of this website is the integration of finely-conceived architectural drawings with the city grid.

Flour Mill / Moulin à fleur, Sudbury, Ontario

The Flour Mill, Notre Dame Ave, Sudbury Uploaded Jan 14, 2009 by by Richard R. Forget

 

I was surprised to find a reference to Lake of the Woods in the Greater Sudbury Historical Database. Sudbury’s Flour Mill area (Moulin à fleur for its resident francophones) is still marked today by the silos made of four-foot thick concrete walls that were built in 1883, the year the Canadian Pacific Railway made its way to Sudbury. According to the Greater Sudbury Libraries and Heritage Museums, the Lake of The Woods Milling Company Ltd. owned the silos. Les amis du Musée du Moulin à fleur are now working to refurbish the Flour Mill silos in an effort to conserve part of Sudbury’s industrial heritage.

 

The Flour Mill silos post 1920 © Greater Sudbury Libraries and Heritage Museums.

 

I have memories of going to the warehouse beside the silos with my father as a child. His father, Joseph Armand, owned the wholesale business J. A. Lapalme & Sons Ltd. The company still exists today as J. A. Lapalme & Sons though it is now named after my uncle, Joseph Aimé. At the Grand opening of the Flour Mill Museum on October 5, 1974, the Flour Mill Action Committee purchased the Flour Mill Museum from Aimé Lapalme for $1.00.

The artifact as communicative device or interactive tool?

Educational aid. Demonstration of the Modern Milling Process illustrating the making of Five Roses Flour. Issued by Lake of The Woods Milling Company Limited. © Greater Sudbury Libraries and Heritage Museums.

 

The Greater Sudbury Historical Database describes this educational aid as a “communications artifact”. The Musée de la civilisation in Québec City also describes traditional tongue rugs in its collection as “communication objects”. Does this term mean that the object is a cultural artifact, meaning “anything created by humans which gives information about the culture of its creator and users” (Wikipedia)? Or is it rather an interactive tool, where a human user experiences something while interacting with an object?

 

Lake of the Woods Tongue Rug, c. 1930 Reverse view of the burlap bags from Lake of the Woods Milling Company Ltd.

 

I have a tongue rug made up of old suit material hemmed with red & tan fabric onto burlap bags from Lake of the Woods Milling Company Ltd. It is badly worn, but its form is intriguing. The overlapping tongues made up of various materials raise all sorts of questions.

 

Lake of the Woods Tongue Rug, c. 1930

 

Who made this rug? Was it a mill worker in Winnipeg or Montreal? Could it simply have been a woman who bought middlings (floor sweepings) that were delivered to her home in these large burlap bags? Were the tongues made of used clothing from her own family? Did these bits of fabric hold meaning for her? Could you read the tongues as a narrative? Is it indeed a sort of interactive interface?