This photo, of the students and a teacher of Widewater School, showed up on a social media post last week. The poster was looking for names and any other information he could get on it and it sparked a bit of research. It turns out Jackson Whyte of Slave Lake is doing what he calls “a personal archive” of Slave Lake (or the Slave Lake area), and put out the request for information after finding the photo in a book called These Were Our Yesterdays, by Irene Stewart. Whyte’s project even extends to a bit of archaeology. He says he recently got permission to dig on a property next to the fire hall in Widewater and came up with some mink farming artifacts, including a mink skull, and – oddly enough – a collection of playing marbles. Whyte says he hopes the results of his research might one day end up in a local museum, or failing that, at least as contributions to the library’s archives. With the help of some Widewater oldtimers, Whyte was able to get the names of a few of the students pictured. Blair and Freddy Rippin, Lawrence Sigurdson and Allen Sigurdson, Ken Merkley, Lenny and Allan Fedorus, David and Bobby DePledge, Gladys Reid and Joan Engebretson (maybe) were identified. The teacher ‘might be’ a Mr. Bredenfelt.
