The Field Trip
Our teacher at Silver Stream school, Miss Enns, must have been fairly young at the time. Probably in her early twenties, fresh out of teachers college. I have no idea if it was her first posting but I do remember she was well respected and I might even say loved, at least by the younger students. That doesn’t mean there were never any problems. Thirty students in eight different grades can be a handful at the best of times.
There were always the usual things; whispering between neighbors, passing notes, schoolyard fights. Miss Enns dealt with them all, swiftly and fairly. She became a crack shot with a chalkboard eraser and didn’t hesitate to bring out the strap when it became absolutely necessary. A yardstick often came in handy to crack knuckles or tap heads of those whose attention might be focused in the wrong direction.
In the spring we often went out on a sunny afternoon for a field trip along the nearby Silver Stream looking for tadpoles, frogs, snakes and various plants as part of our natural science studies. Most of us took it very seriously and paid attention. Even me.
Every year there would be a field day held in Gladstone where students gathered from the area schools to compete in track and field events. I wasn’t particularly athletic but I joined in many events such as long jump, relay races, etc. It just felt good to be out of the classroom for the day.
One particular field trip that stands out in my memory was a tour of the Sifto Salt plant in Neepawa.
Before I tell you about our tour, here’s what that plant actually was. In the late 1950s, the salt operation near Neepawa was a well-established industrial plant run by Canadian Salt Limited, part of the same evolving industry that would later be associated with Sifto Canada. Unlike the large underground salt mines many people picture, this facility worked by pumping natural brine from deep underground—more than a thousand feet below the surface. That mineral-rich water was brought up through wells and processed in a surface plant using heat and vacuum evaporation to crystallize the salt. By that time, the plant had been operating in its modernized form for nearly two decades and was one of the only significant salt producers in Manitoba.
The plant itself ran continuously, day and night, with a relatively small workforce of a few dozen people, yet it produced tens of thousands of tons of salt each year. Its output served practical prairie needs: table salt, dairy salt, and especially coarse salt and pressed blocks for livestock, along with byproducts used for dust control on rural roads. For a small agricultural town, the operation was an important local industry—modest in size, but steady and essential. By the end of the 1950s, it stood as a mature and dependable operation, even as larger and more modern salt sources elsewhere in Western Canada were beginning to emerge.
Several of the students’ mothers (mine didn’t drive) provided transportation by car and aided Miss Enns as chaperones for the day. The thing that struck us as odd was all of the ladies including Miss Enns, wore dresses and high heels. I don’t know where they thought they were going but it didn’t take long for them to discover their error. There were several levels in the plant, and the stairs and all of the floors except the ground floor were constructed of metal grates. You could stand on the main floor and look up through all the floors to the top of the building.
You can probably imagine the consternation when the boys discovered the view provided as the women ascended as part of the tour. Not to mention the number of heels that got caught in the iron grids. They either had to remove their shoes or walk on tip toes which I’m sure they had not envisioned when getting dressed for the day’s event.
Most of the girls were appropriately dressed except maybe for the eighth graders who had more at stake fashion wise. I’m sure many of the girls took the odd salt sample home, but I and most of the other boys made it our goal to take home a sample of every type of salt produced in the plant. Pants and jacket pockets were filled to capacity by the time we headed home. For weeks after that we were still sampling various salt products until we nearly made ourselves sick.
We farm kids were especially fascinated by the huge machines that pressed the big livestock salt blocks that we were all familiar with in our cattle pastures at home. I don’t think we paid too close attention to the guide droning on about the details of all the aspects of the plant but for this one we hung on every word.
All in all it was a great break away from the daily grind of school work and I remember it as clearly over 60 years later as if it just happened last week.
Anyone else have fond memories of school outings you’d like to share? We’d love to hear about them and even share them with our subscribers.
**Bill Gould** spent 43 years as a long-haul truck driver before trading the steering wheel for a keyboard to help fellow Canadians navigate the road of retirement. A freelance writer, published author, and editor of over 50 books, Bill co-founded *Canadian Senior Moment* with his wife, Marilyn, to provide a trusted space for seniors to find clarity, safety, and connection in the digital age. When he isn’t troubleshooting “tech gremlins” or sharing childhood memories of the Prairies, he can be found in his woodshop or working on his latest novel.