Marc Legare is a philosopher and motorcycle adventurist.
He has travelled extensively, worked and lived in Australia, US, and across Canada.
He has a varied working career including: Firefighter, Lawyer, Navy, Motorcycle Importer, plus others.
He chose to return to southern Saskatchewan because of his family's deep roots here.
The town of Sandon, B.C. was once booming due to silver mining in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is now a ghost town. What is significant about this long-forgotten place is that there is a ghost there. A living, breathing, whirling, ghost, for all to see. Not a vague phantom with sketchy evidence of its existence such as grainy old pictures or long exaggerated tales. This apparition is real.
This spirit of the past, initially, seems unremarkable. There are millions of them. This shadow from days-gone-by is nothing more than a simple electric generator. There is nothing unusual about most generators, but this one is special. So extraordinary, in fact, it qualifies as a ghost in its own right.
What makes this generator, in an abandoned old mining town in the Kootenay Mountains so memorable, is because it has been operating non-stop and producing electricity since 1897. It supplied electricity to Sandon during its boomtown days in the late 1800s and is still currently powering the town below it in the valley, sending electricity to up to 500 homes. What is more amazing is that it is powered by a simple mountain stream. Nothing more. Absolutely without aid or assistance.
Pausing to think about it, is it not a living thing from another age? When standing in front of it you cannot help but feel it has a spirit all its own.It causes a person to reflect.
That generator was producing power eight years before Saskatchewan was a province. It was operating with its gentle hum 17 years before the First World War. It saw The Dirty Thirties come and go, as well as The Second World War, without missing a beat. It ran while we walked on the moon, and when the Berlin Wall came down. It kept up its duty when 9/11 happened and is still humming away through our recent fiasco. It is unwaveringly serving us without hesitation even though our love-affair is with new-aged machinery. What makes it such a wonderful ghost, is that it is not burdened with the modern machines extensive technologies. So much so, it can almost be said it is running on spirit alone.
That generator has been operating so long it crosses the line from being merely interesting to being a sentinel for philosophical thought and provides us with a unique education. Simply put, it is tangible evidence that our modern know-how is not the be-all-and-end-all. In fact, does it not show us that maybe our currently manufactured machines are lacking something? After all, do we know of a machine we are using today that will be continuously operational for the next 124 years and counting?
Perhaps someday mankind will learn a lesson or two from this simple, old-time, craftsman built, electric generator and not be so quick to dismiss anything old as being useless or outdated. That humble, whirring generator, running off a simple mountain stream for well over a century stands as a beacon and a challenge for any who choose to look at old-school craftsmanship as obsolete. Somehow, having lived so long, that old generator deserves the title of "ghost from the past," and what a friend it has been to so many for over twelve decades.
A final quote from Barbara Hulanicki, "I love old things. Modern things are so cold. I need things that have lived."
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
