This fall, as we add firewood to our wood stove, we shall remember the Batchawana man who helped us with wood deliveries for many years. I am speaking of Gord Chapman, the kind, caring gentleman whose heart gave out at the Frater station along the A.C.R. the week before Thanksgiving. His passing is a great loss for Batchawana as well as for the global community of generous, giving individuals.
And as this autumn advances into that colder season (which I shall not name at this moment) we approach the end of this year’s colour world. So a couple of days ago I hiked a shore trail to breathe in the last of the brilliant golds and reds. The fresh fall of maple and poplar leaves laid out a colour carpet on the forest floor. The deep blue of swooshing waves mixed with the low shine of sun on the water. An eagle drifted high overhead while a clan of loons made their last gathering before heading south. But the hills all around were void of colour; the greys of November already were making their claim on the landscape.
There is no doubt that our Algoma fall colours are a worldwide hit, with a big part of that fame due to ACR’s Agawa Canyon Tour Train. We live beside this unique train corridor into the wilderness but, like a lot of good things, people might take it for granted. I decided to reboot my awareness of train lore and tried to collect some stories about the Frater station. Frater, about 13 km south of the Agawa Canyon, used to be a busy stop along the Tour Train route. Today, tourists whizzing by the Frater sign would not know that the place once resembled a little town. Loggers and sightseers driving the winding, rough Frater Road from Highway 17 North to the train tracks might not realize that the area once was a warm welcoming home for many people. An interview with Sault resident and retired ACR superintendent, Newell Mills, gave fresh insight. Mills recalled for me the look of Frater in its heyday. He said that a bunkhouse for workers, section house for the foreman, operator’s house, train station, coal chute, water tank and post office lined both sides of the tracks. Frater was an active place and the “Frater Turn” was part of the reason why.
Mills explained that a freight train would leave the Steelton station in Sault Ste Marie and 102 miles later arrive at Frater. There, a Y in the tracks allowed the engine to turn around and face the Sault instead of the Agawa Canyon. Then the train would back down the hill to the canyon, pick up whatever deliveries it had to make and climb back up the hill to Frater. In those days, trainmen worked 100 miles or less a day so they stayed the night at Frater before making the return run to the Sault the following day.
Stories of railroad life carry a romance and history all their own. Train stations are a real life stop along life’s journey; are an authentic break in the schedule. And every time I hear the A.C.R. I am reminded that there is a wilderness waiting just outside our door.