Hotel Wynyard: “A City Hotel in a Country Town”

Hotel Wynyard, c 1926. Source

John Oswell Lewis must have had considerable confidence in the future of the hotel business in Wynyard when he built a three-storey brick hotel on the southwest corner of Bosworth Street and Pacific Avenue - now Avenue B East - in 1925 at a cost of $40,000. Prohibition had just ended in Saskatchewan the year before, so perhaps Lewis hoped to open a drinking establishment in the new Hotel Wynyard. (The Town of Wynyard was also optimistic, contributing cash plus tax concessions for the construction of the hotel on the express understanding, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix reported on March 3, 1932, that a provincial courthouse would be built in the community. The distinctive Weyburn courthouse was completed in 1928.)

Ad in the Star-Phoenix, January 25, 1930

Lewis, who also owned a hotel in Wadena, opened the 30-room hotel in 1926, but quickly put the business up for sale or lease. No buyers stepped forward, so from 1931 to 1935, Lewis rented the Hotel Wynyard to a Mrs. Allingham.

Beer Parlour Meets Resistance

Star-Phoenix, April 20, 1935

Controversy arose in 1935 when the Government of Saskatchewan allowed hotels to sell beer by the glass. The new legislation, passed on January 22, 1935, allowed communities to vote on whether they wanted a beer parlour in their local hotel. Temperance supporters in Wynyard circulated a petition in early April opposing the issue. 

Lewis promptly closed his hotel. His action so aroused the

Star-Phoenix, May 8, 1935

businessmen of Wynyard that, on May 7, 1935, over 30 of them met to pass a resolution calling upon Mr. Lewis to reopen the hotel. “It was pointed out,” the Star-Phoenix reported on May 8^th, “that Mr. Lewis had erected a hotel here which was an asset to the community in every respect and that he merited the support of the people.” The businessmen called for an early plebiscite in connection with the beer parlour. They also met with Lewis who agreed that “if the businessmen would circulate a petition among the citizens pledging their support and cooperation,” the hotel would be reopened for business. 

Encouraged by the support of Wynyard business community, Lewis enlarged the hotel, adding seven more rooms and a beer parlor at a cost of $10,000. “Many thirsts were allayed Friday when the new beer parlor in the Hotel Wynyard was formally opened,” the Star-Phoenix announced on September 10, 1935. “From Bosworth Street a double door and inlaid tile entrance greets the eye, while inside there is a spacious room with lofty ceiling and beautiful inlaid linoleum.” 

Labour Dispute 

In 1940, the Hotel Wynyard passed under Mr. Lewis’ estate to his daughter, Mrs. M. B. Grieve and from that time until 1953, the Grieves owned and operated the hotel as Hotel Lewis. A heated labour dispute arose that same year between employers and employees in the hotel and restaurant business in Wynyard. A negotiating meeting was held in March at which it was revealed that some employees were required to work as long as 70 hours per week, while the lowest rate of pay was less than $3 per week and the highest less than $6. “Employees of the Wynyard Hotel objected to living conditions,” the Star-Phoenix reported on April 18, “claiming that the staff quarters in the hotel, located in the basement, were not suitable.” 

Star-Phoenix, March 13, 1940

A tentative agreement was reached in March, setting a minimum rate of pay of $10.50 per week and a maximum working week of 54 hours under the provincial Industrial Standards Act. However, when it came time to ratify this schedule, the employers refused to sign. They claimed that they were intimidated by threats at the negotiating meeting in March, and that the negotiating meeting had been improperly called. On September 4, 1940, the Regina Leader-Post reported that provisions of Saskatchewan’s Minimum Wage Act would be applied to several towns, including Wynyard.

Post-1950 Changes

In 1953, Artwal Hotel Ltd. purchased the property. It was managed by Walter Thorfinnson under the name Artwal Hotel until 1960. The hotel was purchased about 1970 by Benito Falasca and Victor and Helen Bodnarchuck. They sold it to Lorrie Roslinski about 1975. The hotel was owned by Jack and Sybil Demaere from 1982 to 1986. Other owners included John Hawryluk, who changed the name back to the Hotel Wynyard; Mrs. Adeline Ryhorchuk; and the Szydlowski family, including parents Mike and Marie, and sons Theo, Richard, David and Greg. 

Exterior renovations to the Hotel Wynyard, 2005. Source: Facebook

Interior renovations to the Hotel Wynyard, 2005. Source: Facebook

In 2010, Richard Szydlowski advertised that the Wynyard Hotel was for sale for $899,000. The hotel featured an updated licensed beverage room with a 157-person capacity; major additions and renovations to main floor completed in 2005; 12 guest rooms on the second floor, with a common full bath; and a two-bedroom living quarters with suite on 3^rd floor, plus more guest rooms. The hotel was for sale again in 2013 on Kijiji, listed for $925,000. Today, the bar is called The Wrecking Bar & Grill.

The Wynyard Hotel, May 23, 2019. Joan Champ photo

©Joan Champ, 2019

“A Chinaman’s Chance” – Chinese Curlers in Saskatchewan

The rink from Wadena at the Saskatoon bonspiel, 1928. They are identified as (L to R): "Jee, lead; Tom Sing, second, George, third; Toy Wing, skip." Source: Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, January 21, 1928. I believe the men have been misidentified. My guess, based on photo comparison, is that they are (L to R): Tom Sing, George Hing, George Gee, and Toy Him.

As I research small-town Saskatchewan hotels, I often come across references to the men-only enclaves of Chinese laundry, restaurant, and hotel owners that had settled in nearly every village, town and city in the province by 1919. These men, who were not allowed to bring their wives and children to Canada until 1947, did not have a lot of time for leisure activities. Many of them did, however, participate in the sport of curling – whether as fans, team sponsors, or as players.

In her book Cultivating Connections; The Making of Chinese Prairie Canada (2014), Allison R. Marshall writes that participation in sports provided lonely Chinese men the opportunity to connect with their communities. Curling, Marshall asserts, was the most significant sport in which prairie Chinese men and boys were welcome to participate. “As people watched local curling bonspiels that included Chinese curlers, they came to see these participants as members of their own community,” she writes. “Community pride swelled when local boys played sport, regardless of whether they were Chinese or non-Chinese.”

[For more about the history of Chinese hotel owners in Saskatchewan, click here.]

Tom Sing's Wadena Rink

Winnipeg Tribune, Feb. 7, 1944

There were several Chinese curlers in the province prior to 1950, but the most remarkable story I’ve come across yet is that of the all-Chinese rink from Wadena, skipped by Thomas (Tom) Sing. According to Canada census records, Sing arrived in Canada in 1906 at age 15. He went into the restaurant business at Wadena where he worked for 25 years before becoming the proprietor of the hotel in Elfros during the 1930s. By the 1940s, Sing was back running a restaurant in Wadena. Throughout the decades, he was a curler and his game just kept getting better and better.

On February 14, 1927, according to the Regina Leader-Post – the first newspaper account I have found about Sing – he entered an all-Chinese team in the Yorkton bonspiel. The other members of the rink were Toy Wing, George Hing, and Yuen Loy. They defeated a Manitoba team in their first game of the competition. Fred W. Graham wrote about the four Chinese curlers in a Maclean’s magazine article entitled “Baled Hay Rinks” (Dec. 15, 1938). “Did you ever see a Chinese curl?” Graham asked. “I saw the [Wadena rink] in action at the Yorkton Bonspiel a few years ago. They always had the opposing rink advantage, for they discussed all their shots in their own language.”

In January of 1928, Sing’s Wadena rink entered the Saskatoon bonspiel and scored a 9-6 win against a rink from Marengo in the T. Eaton competition for visiting rinks. “The Orientals played a splendid draw game and were in the lead all the way,” the Star-Phoenix stated on January 17^th. “The win proved most popular.” 

Headline in the Winnipeg Tribune, February 8, 1944.

In 1944, when Tom Sing was 53 years old, he entered the first-ever all-Chinese rink in the 56^th annual Manitoba bonspiel. Curlers “blinked in surprise when they took to the ice this year,” Maclean’s wrote on March 15, 1944. Skipped by Sing (who was now back in Wadena and serving on the Saskatchewan Curling Club executive), the rink included Toy Him of Wadena, Harry Ying (or Ing) of Preeceville, and Charlie Poy from Kelvington. None of them were young men. He and his team “curled for fun not for trophies,” Sing told Maclean’s. He likened curlers to bananas – green, yellow, and overripe. His rink, he joked, was in the latter category.

The Chinese curling team suffered some tough losses during the 1944 Manitoba bonspiel. Sing’s quartet dropped a 10-9 decision to Curly Marlatt of Rocanville, Sask., and suffered a 10-8 setback at the hands of a Winnipeg rink.

An International Match

Headline in the Star-Phoenix, January 24, 1945

Tom Sing at the Saskatoon bonspiel. Source: Star-Phoenix, Jan. 24, 1945.

Sing persevered. In 1945, he entered his all-Chinese rink in the 41^st annual Saskatoon bonspiel – his last appearance in that ‘spiel had been in 1928. With 189 rinks competing, the Wadena curlers stole the show. An American vs Chinese game at the Granite Curling Club attracted one of the largest crowds in the bonspiel’s history. The Star-Phoenix provides the following account: “In the early stages of the game the ice was too heavy for the Chinese boys, with the result they could barely reach the house with their shots. While these conditions existed, the Americans chalked up points and were leading 6-1 at the end of five ends. Mr. Sing went to town from then on. His men found the weight for draw shots and tied the score at 6-6 at the eighth end. The Americans went into the lead on the ninth but Tom promptly scored four points on the 10th to practically cinch the honors. He added another in the 11th and held his opponents to one point on the 12th when they tried to build up the house." The final score was 11-8 for Sing's rink.  

Members of the American and Chinese Canadian rinks at the 1945 Saskatoon bonspiel. L to R: George Hing, lead; Dr. C. R. Curtis, lead; Charlie Jim, second; Ross Bennett, second; Toy Him, third; Frank L. Van Epps, third; Tom Sing, skip; and Walter Polski, skip. Source:  Star-Phoenix, January 24, 1945.

Curling provided a chance for Chinese Canadian men like Tom Sing - small-town Saskatchewan hotel and restaurant owners - to move out of the shadows and overcome stereotypes. “Newcomers began to seem less strange and exotic as team players … so that they were seen to be like everyone else,” Marshall writes. However, she cautions, while sports participation “could help young Chinese men fit in, athletic involvement wasn’t a guarantee of acceptance.”


[NOTE: I apologize for the poor image quality. They are screen captures. The Star-Phoenix photo collection, now housed at the City of Saskatoon Archives, does not contain the original photographs shown above.]

©Joan Champ, 2019. 

Behind the Bar - Barrels, Beer Kegs, and Bung Starters

How did small-town Saskatchewan hotels serve beer in the early 1900s? It started with the shipment of wooden beer barrels by train to the hotels, unloaded on the railway station platform. The Bulyea local history book, Between Long Lake and Last Mountain (1982), recounts a story about two local farmers who crawled under the train platform “armed with a brace and bit, a washtub, and several buckets.” When the hotel owner arrived to pick up his delivery, he was dismayed to find an empty barrel.

Barrel terminology. Source

Because they had to stand up to pressure and liquid (and the occasional tampering), beer barrels were lined with pitch and made of thicker, good quality wood. The barrel was filled by the brewery through a bung hole. Once filled, a plug was hammered into the hole, sealing the barrel. 

Source

 

Star-Phoenix, June 1, 1948

Opening the beer barrel presented a challenge to many a hotel barkeep. They used what was called a “bung starter” – a heavy wooden mallet – to drive the wooden plug, bit by bit, up and out of the bung hole. Bill Graham, head bartender at the Great West Hotel in Davidson during the pre-1915 days, told the Star-Phoenix on June 1, 1948 that he had driven many a faucet pump into a keg of beer with a bung starter. Unless you were quick, Graham recalled, beer sprayed all over the place. “I got pretty good with that old bung starter,’ he said. “People would stand around and watch me with their mouths open.” The heavy bung starter also served as an excellent weapon for a beleaguered bartender.

To keep beer cool, many small-town hotels used ice that had been cut from local lakes or rivers. For the hotel at Fairlight, for example, this meant replenishing the ice in the draft beer cabinet on a daily basis and checking the storage of beer kegs in the basement cooler two or three times a week. Other hotels kept ice in an icehouse, packed in layers of sawdust.

During Prohibition, it was not unusual for hotel owners to keep a barrel or two of booze hidden away in the basement of their establishments. In 1925, police raided the Cecil Hotel in Moose Jaw. As the officers entered the hotel, they saw the man behind the bar pull a string. “The officers darted to the basement and attacked a lock cabinet, where they found a small keg overflowing with water driven into it at high pressure,” the Regina Leader-Post reported on February 3rd. “There was, of course, a smell of beer about the place.” The hotel had installed a beer keg apparatus – alleged to have been invented to defeat liquor enforcement methods – consisting of a double spigot connected to the water main. The pulling of a string flooded the keg and removed the beer within seconds.

Regina Leader-Post, February 26, 1935

In 1935, when the Government of Saskatchewan permitted hotels to sell beer by the glass, Saskatchewan’s hotels scrambled to reopen their beer parlours. This required a major outlay of cash for the hotel owners to meet the government’s rigorous architectural and regulatory standards for licensing. In addition to building renovations and new furniture, hotels had to install new drawing systems for beer, refrigeration equipment, and draft beer cabinets. “A 25-table beer parlour will require the most modern beer pumps, a cooling system, and cabinets,” the Leader-Post wrote on December 4, 1934. “It will need 100 chairs, at least 400 glasses and an insulated storage cellar.” This equipment cost thousands of dollars per hotel. Saskatchewan suppliers did well. The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix reported on April 8, 1935 that Sterling Millwork Company and Cushing’s Limited had many orders for tabletops and refrigerators, and the John East Foundry was manufacturing $8,000 worth of table bases.

Ad in the Star-Phoenix, April 30, 1935

1935 was also a boom year for beer keg manufacturers. The Leader-Post reported on May 4 that one Regina brewery acquired 2,900 kegs for its new draft beer business. Of these, 800 were steel, “the newest wrinkle in the keg business.” The remainder were wooden kegs which cost the breweries about $8 apiece; the steel kegs, which had an insulated aluminum lining, cost around $12. “Handling of the empties by the breweries entails a lot of work, the newspaper wrote. “They must be sterilized and repitched each time they go back to the brewery.”

With the outbreak of the Second World War, metal beer kegs were prohibited due to the war effort, but metal hoops and fittings were still allowed on wooden kegs.

Eventually, bottled beer became popular and draft beer sales declined. Today, draft beer is enjoying a comeback thanks to craft breweries.

A 1980s bar set-up, with bartender serving draft beer. Leader-Post, July 2, 1987.

©Joan Champ, 2019