SK0094 ASTWOOD, ASSA - (CROWD AFTER XMAS SERVICE)

POSTCARD

Date: Posted January 23, 1909 from Astwood, Assiniboia, through Canora, Saskatchewan, to Miss Brenda Ouverson, Granite Falls, MN.

Publisher / Photographer: Unidentified

Notation: This is an odd scene. The picture was apparently taken after church services on Christmas day 1908. There is definitely snow on the ground but most of the folks, including the children seem relaxed in posing without overcoats. I haven't researched it but it may have been a particularly warm winter. In the note on the reverse, written on January 23, 1909 it says; "...not cold now - raining this evening".

There is a makeshift structure in the front of the group that may be a pulpit or baptismal font - suggesting that the Christmas service may have actually taken place, at least in part, outside. A priest of some sort is just to the right of that odd structure -a tall bald fellow with an odd circular collar, who seems to be holding candles?

Astwood is now a ghost town. Near Canora, SK, it was renamed Hinchcliffe in 1929.