Dr. Alan Rich, who served longer than any other doctor in Thompson, has passed away

Thompson’s best-loved doctor has passed away.

The legendary, and at times controversial, Dr. Alan Rich, who still holds the record as Thompson’s longest-serving physician, having practiced medicine here for more than 40 years, died earlier today.

Dr. Rich, who died in Swan River, was 73. There will be visitation at the Boardman/Northland Funeral Home at 28 Nelson Rd. here in Thompson, Manitoba next Sunday evening on Jan. 27 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The funeral service will follow next Monday morning at 10 a.m. on Jan. 28 at St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church at 114 Cree Rd. in Thompson. Internment will be at Thompson Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Dr. Rich’s memory to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Canada, a registered charity founded in 1983, which helps children with critical and life-threatening illnesses live out their biggest wishes. The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Canada granted 615 wishes to Canadian children with life-threatening illnesses in 2017, spending an average of $13,268 per wish granted. Their charitable registration number is 89526 9173 RR0001 and their address is Make-A-Wish Foundation of Canada, 4211 Yonge St.,  Suite 520, Toronto, Ontario, M2P 2A9. Their website can be found at http://www.makeawish.ca

Sent packing from Thompson General Hospital into retirement in 2011 after a high-profile dispute with two other doctors on the old Burntwood Regional Health Authority (BRHA) medical staff, just three years later he was presented with the Key to the City of Thompson on Oct. 6, 2014, the city’s highest and infrequently bestowed honour, by then Mayor Tim Johnston and then Coun. Stella Locker, a registered nurse, who was council’s longest-serving member at the time. Dr. Rich had moved to Swan River a number of years ago.

“Al, from me to you, I want to say thank you for your commitment, thank you for your dedication, and I am happy to say that no one has played more of an important role in the health care of Thompsonites, and Northerners, than Dr. Alan Rich. You are to be thanked for the commitment you made,” the mayor said at the awards ceremony at city hall in 2014.

Even after his departure from Thompson General Hospital, Dr. Rich continued to practice medicine for quite a while from both from his office in the Professional Building on Selkirk Avenue, where he had been a long-time tenant of J.B. Johnston Ventures Limited, Tim Johnston’s family property holding company, and in his new home in Swan River, where Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) granted him hospital privileges at Swan River Valley Hospital. Born and raised in Thompson, Tim Johnston, of course, is the son of Dr. Blain Johnston, a former city councillor who was the first regular, full-time doctor in Thompson.

Dr. Rich graduated from the University of Saskatchewan as a doctor of medicine on May 13, 1971. He started practicing medicine in Thompson the following year, after completing his residency internship at Queen Elizabeth Hospital of Montreal in June 1972. Over the course of his long medical career, Rich worked as a general practitioner, worked in CancerCare, was an anesthetist, oversaw dialysis, and worked as a medical examiner. Dr. Rich had originally arrived in Thompson from Saskatchewan as a summer student to work underground at Inco. He hoped to make enough money working in the mines during summers to put himself through medical school, which he did. In Saskatchewan, Dr. Rich as a young man, had worked on the Herriman family farm in Creelman, southeast of Regina. He returned to Thompson to open up his practice after graduating. Dr. Rich was also a high-calibre judo competitor, coaching and training judo practitioners, as well as serving as team physician for the Thompson Hawks, a senior amateur men’s hockey team. Their best season was in 1974-75 when they won the Edmonton Journal Trophy (Western Canada Intermediate Championship) but lost in the Hardy Cup Championship (Canadian Intermediate A Championship) that season to the Moncton Bears, the Eastern Canada champions.

On April 9, 2013, he was presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, created to mark the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty’s accession to the throne, by Swan River Mayor Glen McKenzie.  “It was a surprise,” Twyla Machan, editor of the local Swan Valley Star & Times, quoted Rich as saying in receiving the award. “In Thompson, I was on the wrong side of political decisions, but I am a doctor with no limitations.” Discussing his move to Swan River where he set up a practice, Rich told the Star & Times he was enjoying it there. “It’s a lot of fun. This is a very good place. I retired here, and I will spend the rest of my days here I think.”

Dr. Rich always provoked strong feelings among Thompson residents, many of whom he delivered. He was legendary for making house calls or dropping by unannounced after an 18 or 20-hour day at the hospital and his office because he was concerned how a patient was doing and wanted to check in on them. He had a knack for identifying what was ailing someone when other doctors may not have been able to put their finger on the problem so quickly, as his many loyal patients attested to  over the years. He may have even saved the odd cherished pet along the way, but there is no official record of such.

While some found the bearded Dr. Rich, clad in his leather motorcycle jacket and jeans, which he was attired in when he picked up the Key to the City of Thompson in 2014, a tad brusque in his bedside manner, folks in this hardrock nickel mining town generally liked his no-BS plain-speaking ways.  Besides, his YellowPages ad did say he was “friendly, courteous and understanding.” If he had his eccentricities, don’t we all? Live and let live is a way of life in the North.

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The shorthand on Marcia Carroll’s life: From the White House of LBJ to the Precambrian Art Centre

Marcia Carroll was to my mind a Thompson “original.” Now that’s a bit different than perhaps a Thompson “pioneer” as Marcia didn’t live in Thompson quite from the beginning, marked by those halcyon days that closed out the late 1950s, although she did live here a long time. Marcia was original more in the sense of the unique personal back story she brought with her to Thompson, Manitoba, and the equally unique contributions she made for more than 25 years to minor hockey, through the sponsorship, with her husband, Dave, of the Carroll Aeros Atom “B” minor hockey team, where she incredibly knit or crocheted scarves for all the team’s players for years, and the arts in the North through her unfailing encouragement and patronage of Northern artists – be they indigenous, Métis or white.

So when I read of Marcia Carroll’s Sept. 27 passing at Thompson General Hospital in a 137-word Oct. 9 online obituary in the Thompson Citizen, I thought there might be a few more words to say beyond that about the woman who was my next-door business neighbour for the first five years I edited the Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News, from 2007 to 2012.  Our office was at 141 Commercial Place, while Marcia’s Precambrian Art Centre was adjacent at the same address, occupying space she rented from our corporate owner. Being Marcia’s landlord meant newspaper staff were dispatched on occasion over to her premises, summoned by her to perform some landlord-like task, such as changing commercial grade fluorescent lighting tubes, a task that often fell between 2007 and 2009 to lanky production newspaper page designer Garrett Wiwcharuk (now a colleague at UCN), who was sometimes ably assisted by the paper’s production manager, Ryan Lynds. I suspect now editor Ian Graham and myself may also have been pressed into service the odd time as well.

Marcia owned and operated Precambrian Art Centre for 18 years. But it was her husband, Dave, I actually first heard about from Steve Ashton, our former Thompson MLA, who I had just met on a tour of the then newly-upgraded Canada Safeway in July 2007. Marcia and Dave have two grown sons, Matthew and Morgan, as well as grandchildren Carter and Jerzie.

Ashton told me about Dave’s prowess as a butcher and the demand for his products at Carroll Meats at 20 Nelson Road, where he worked with veteran Thompson meat cutter Joan Monuik, who died two years ago at the age of 76.

Dave Carroll was married to Marcia for 50 years. Finding himself in declining health, he sold Carroll Meats, which had been closed for a time, to Kelly Bindle in 2013, and trained the civil engineer, who had no previous experience in the field, about the meat business as part of the sale. Bindle changed the name to Ripple Rock Meat Shop and still works as its proprietor, although dividing his time between Thompson and Winnipeg since April 2016, when he ran for the Tories and defeated Ashton for the local MLA seat.

Marcia one time told former Thompson Citizen general manager, and still occasional “Out & About” columnist Donna Wilson, that she said she always has three rules for her Carroll Aeros Atom “B” minor hockey players: Learn the rules of hockey, learn to enjoy the fun; learn to lose gracefully, because there may be years that they’ll never win a game, and as far as she was concerned, she said she didn’t care, as long as they all had fun.

Marcia worked with many artists showcasing their work and supporting their talents at critical career points. A short list of such artists would include Jasyn Lucas, Gerald Kuehl, Murray McKenzie, Angus Merasty, Jeff Monias, Ron Disbrowe, Alan Chapman, Tom Dubois, Dr. Ron Zdrikluk, Dave Cadwell, Gene McCarthy, David Williams, Leonard Bighetty, Bruce Ecker, Judy Waldner, Anne Snihor, Desmond Raymond, Marijo Ready, Jan Bain, Cathy Therrien and Michael Spence.

As her health declined noticeably seven or eight years ago and she spent more and more time away from work, with the Precambrian Art Centre often closed only to reopen again briefly and irregularly, those artists and friends became increasingly concerned for her wellbeing.

My first conversation with Gerald Kuehl about half a dozen years ago wasn’t primarily about his famed Portraits of the North pencil portraiture, but more about how Marcia had been a big booster of his work. Kuehl didn’t know me at the time, but knew I worked next door to Precambrian, so he telephoned to check on her wellbeing after being unable reach her on the telephone there on several occasions.

Marcia Carroll may have been best known in Thompson for her long and loyal support of both minor hockey players and artists, but she had been a witness to history before her arrival in Thompson.

An American by birth, originally from Greene, New York, northeast of Binghamton, she was living in Toronto and attending university when JFK was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, but later wound up using her machine shorthand and note taking reporting skills to work in the White House of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, best known as LBJ, Kennedy’s vice-president and successor. Very good stenographers using machine shorthand on a specialized chording keyboard stenotype can write American English at speeds up to 375 words per minute. 

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald did it but I believe there was a second shooter based on what I was told by witnesses,” Carroll told the Nickel Belt News in an April 23, 2010 story. “I suppose one will never really know because there’s no way of proving it now.”

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Winter bicycling in Thompson, Manitoba at 55 degrees (north latitude that is, not the temperature in Fahrenheit

Photos courtesy of Jeanette Kimball

I remember back in February 2011 reading about Bruce Krentz’s bet with Harold Smith, a former City of Thompson councillor and executive director for Manitoba Housing and Community Development’s northern housing operations, who challenged him to use active transportation commensurate with getting to his new job as health promotion co-ordinator with the Burntwood Regional Health Authority (now the Northern Regional Health Authority). “He said, ‘Really, you should walk the walk,'” Krentz said at the time. “I sort of made the commitment that I would bike all year.” Smith said he didn’t expect Krentz to use a bike as his method of transportation. “To be honest, when I threw down that challenge I was really thinking about him walking, not cycling,” said Smith, who noted in 2011 he wasn’t surprised that Krentz had stuck with the plan. “Bruce has a history of sticking with things, especially the crazier ones.”

That’s interesting, I thought. Sounds like Bruce. And Harold. Frankly, it didn’t hold any appeal to me personally, although I had been doing a good deal of fair weather riding from mid-April through early November since my arrival in Thompson in 2007.

Early November came last fall (call it winter here in Thompson, no matter what the calendar might say) and I thought about my three most likely routine options for transportation from my home on Juniper Drive to anywhere else in the city. I say routine because I am not a martyr and happily and gratefully borrow Jeanette’s car on occasion, particularly for bulky grocery items, or when I have a large number of places to get to in a fairly compressed time period, regardless of season. But it was routine everyday transportation I was contemplating back in early November. Walking was one option. Taking the bus was another.

The nearest Transit Route 2 bus stop to me, which even has a shelter, is a very short distance away on Maple Street, near Thompson Drive South. A city-owned public footpath beside my next-door neighbour connects the 200-block of Juniper Drive to the back of Southwood Shopping Plaza on Thompson Drive South, so it’s pretty quick and simple to get to it. Which I did do for a couple of winters. I still have fond memories of two Greyhound-contracted city bus drivers in particular. Darwin Graham made a point of trying to be as close to on time as possible because he realized at -35°C or -40°C two minutes makes a big difference when you are standing outside waiting for a bus, even with a shelter. Darwin also didn’t try and rush his route and whiz by early either for the same reason: You might miss the bus altogether and have to wait for the next one, usually in half an hour, which is even worse in cold weather than the bus being a couple of minutes late. I probably read the equivalent of several books, a few pages here, a chapter there, on my many morning bus trips with Darwin at the helm. The other bus driver I got to know was Conrad Hykawy. I didn’t get quite as much reading done on the days Conrad was driving because he loved trading local news items back-and-forth with me and had an opinion on pretty much everything. A good guy to know, as we’d say in the news business, because he knew where the bodies were buried, in a manner of speaking.

Still, I realized this year, taking the bus, at least as a regular thing, really didn’t hold very much appeal. No matter how fond my recollections of Darwin and Conrad, the predominant thought at the front of my mind was just how cold it can be waiting for the bus in Thompson in the winter even if the drivers make heroic efforts to be on time. And walking seemed kind of slow by comparison after months of bicycling … which brought me back to option three … carry on biking around town.

Aside from reading about Bruce’s winter bicycling experiences, I also knew a bit about the topic from Jeanette’s exploits in the area. She took up winter bicycling maybe a year after Bruce. It’s because of Jeanette’s methodical practicality and lessons learned through experience I wear a reflective vest for night riding (which I do comparatively little of in the winter … usually about twice a month, just down the street to St. Lawrence parish hall to join my Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 brothers for a a few hours for a business meeting or to help work a bingo … as I am now fraternally known by my brothers as the “knight on a bike.” My lights, ski goggles (de rigueur attire, I’ve found below about -15°C) and snazzy red bicycle helmet also came to me courtesy of Jeanette.

Bruce is a big believer in using studded winter bicycle tires. Jeanette also rides with Schwalbe Marathon winter studded 26-inch tires. I ride (at least so far) with my regular non-studded mountain bike tires. I’ve tried Jeanette’s bike and studded tires do grip better on ice, which there is no shortage of. Studs or no studs, I haven’t found a bike tire that gives very good traction in loose snow. A pleasant irony, however, is the colder the day the better the traction seems to be on most Thompson streets. Traction is much trickier usually in -5°C conditions in “brown sugar” like snow and ice road conditions than the grip your tires get at -35°C. Two items that I previously owned but which never got much use prior to this winter is  a pair of long johns and a black balaclava (which I try and remember to take off before going into use my ATM at the Bank of Nova Scotia).

Making life easier for cyclists in Thompson – year-round, not just in winter – are the paved two-lane multi-use boulevard pathways for pedestrians and cyclists completed last fall. In my case, I can take a multi-use boulevard pathway all along Thompson Drive now from Northern Spirit Manor personal care home all the way down to R.D. Parker Collegiate. Truth be told, there are days when it is still easier and safer this winter to ride along Thompson Drive, but the City of Thompson’s public works department is doing a pretty decent job trying to keep the  multi-use boulevard pathway I am using functional. I was on it most recently Jan. 7 as public works had a big snow clearing operation under way, widening a partially snow-covered portion of the outside lane on Thompson Drive, while also cutting back the snowbank and clearing the pathway. All in all it was a pretty good ride. Even the city-owned public footpath connecting the 200-block of Juniper Drive to the back of Southwood Shopping Plaza on Thompson Drive South, which isn’t a multi-use boulevard pathway, remains quite passable on my bicycle. A water break down around the CIBC last month in the parking lot on the edge of Thompson Plaza when it froze up in the extreme cold was sort of like training for moguls if they expand the event from skiing to bicycling, but one can’t have a smooth ride everywhere and all times in the winter. Likewise, Juniper Drive can be a real challenge for a day or two after a significant snowfall as the city works through its priority plowing schedule.

There have long been folks who rode their bicycles in the winter in Thompson. The first few winters I was here, I’d see an older gentleman, whose name I don’t know, riding in the area of Nelson Road and Oxford Bay. Likewise, I’m told there is a guy from McMunn and Yates Building Supplies who has been winter biking for years. As well, Brian Oliver, a senior process engineer at Vale’s Long Harbour Processing Plant in Newfoundland and Labrador, used to ride his bike to work for a time from his Highland Towers apartment to Vale when he worked for Manitoba Operations a few years ago.

It was Bruce Krentz, however, who put winter bicycling on the map in Thompson. Quite literally in fact with a new walking and cycling map he helped spearhead that was released last October.

While Thompson is making a good start in taking winter bicycling seriously, we have a way to go before we come within sight of Oulu in Finland, which at 65.0167° N is about 1,600 kilometres farther north than Thompson and located just 200 kilometres below the Arctic Circle. Oulu is the sixth largest city in Finland with 141,000 residents and hosted the first-ever two-day international Winter Cycling Congress two years ago. The second congress was in Winnipeg last February.

While they have a warmer climate in northern Finland than Northern Manitoba (the average November temperature in Oulu is -3.1°C), the annual permanent winter snow cover begins on average about Nov. 10, which is pretty much like Thompson, give or take a few days in any particular year.

Anders Swanson, who is from Winnipeg and was a riding force behind last year’s Winter Cycling Congress there, was also at the first conference in Oulu in 2013 and has made a 21:49 Vimeo video called “Winter Cycling for Everyone” about Oulu you can check out here at: http://vimeo.com/67039532

As well, if you are interested in winter cycling you can check out Carly Matthew’s Storify piece, “Wheels don’t stop turning in the winter: The winter cycling trend (with images, tweets)” at: https://storify.com/cematthew/winter-cycling-trend utm_source=story&utm_media=storypage&utm_content=related

Matthew is a multimedia journalist on the staff of The Daily Iowan and majors in journalism and art.

The third Winter Cycling Congress is being held from Feb. 10 to Feb. 12 in Leeuwarden, the capital of Fryslân, in The Netherlands. Leeuwarden has a population of 108,000. The congress is a project of the Winter Cycling Federation, which is based in Oulu.

Oh. And don’t forget. The third annual Winter Bike to Work Day is Friday, Feb. 13, the day after the third Winter Cycling Congress closes in Leeuwarden. Last year, Thompson and Winnipeg were the only two Manitoba cities to officially take part in Winter Bike to Work Day. Want more information on Winter Bike to Work Day? Contact Bruce Krentz by e-mail at: bkrentz@nrha.ca

Bruce will get back to you … well, when he’s not out on his bike.

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