aerial photos

Joan McEwan (née MacLeod)










“I started teaching in 1956 in Moulinette. And the two guys you interviewed before, I taught both of them. Well, David when he was in grade 6 and Doug when he was in grade 5.

And I was in Moulinette school until we … The town disappeared while we were there. Then in… ’56, ’57… In the fall of – would it be ’57? – they moved us to Mille Roches.

And in those days nobody packed up your stuff, you had to do all that yourself. Kids had things in paper bags and we got them on the bus and there were paper bags breaking and stuff rolling all over the floor. That’s one thing I remember: Trying to collect all this stuff afterward and get it back to the right person.

Anyway, and then we were in Mille Roches until February of 1958 before Long Sault School was ready. And while that was happening, the town of Mille Roches was disappearing. The only thing left by that time – I think they were just tearing down the Catholic Church which was beside the school, when we moved out and went to Long Sault.”




Joan McEwan’s first teaching job was in Moulinette. That school was soon knocked down. She and her students were then shifted to the Mille Roches school before, it too, was levelled. They were finally moved to the new Long Sault School in February 1958.

in her own words: Joan McEwan's Voice (4 audio & video clips)

Joan McEwan Interview Audio Excerpts (joint interview with Patricia O’Duffy & Isabel Hunter), Lost Villages Historical Society Schoolhouse, Long Sault, Ontario. August 22, 2013




Our farm was cut in half by the farm by the flooding of Hoople Creek. Dad was a dairy farmer, he tried for a while to put the cattle through the lake to pasture them in the north pasture.

Remembering Mr. Hoople who used to deliver the mail. He was deaf amd sat in the back seat of the church and sang at top of his voice. Sang way slower so we would all wait for him to sign the next verse.

As a teacher, moving
from school to school and town to town as villages were dismantled.

Video



Video Excerpt: Joan McEwan (joint interview with Patricia O’Duffy & Isabel Hunter), Lost Villages Historical Society Schoolhouse, Long Sault, Ontario. August 22, 2013



In this video Joan McEwan recalls how fresh from teacher’s training she began her teaching career in 1956 in Moulinette, Ontario. She stayed there with her students until the town disappeared around them and they were moved to the school in Mille Roches. Mille Roches was, in turn, dismantled (with the school building the last to go) and they finally moved to a new school in the newly built town of Long Sault.

Bio

Joan McEwan (née MacLeod) grew up on a farm near Wales. Fresh from her own schooling in Wales, with a couple of months of teacher training, she then taught in two of the Sunken Villages in Moulinette and Mille Roches before moving with her students to a new school in Long Sault, Ontario.

Now retired, she lives in Ingleside, Ontario.