The Norgate School District was organized formally in February 1894 and a school building operated in which is now the Municipality of McCreary. Initially located about one-half mile east of Norgate, on the Burrows Trail, it was known as Montcalm School and later as Camden School. In 1920, a new school building in Norgate opened and was named Norgate School. The school closed in 1966 and the district was dissolved the following year, with remaining students going to McCreary Consolidated School No. 1348. The former schoolhouse was moved to Kelwood where it was used as a school storeroom. It was later sold to a local farmer for use as a granary.
Among the teachers of Montcalm and Camden schools were Belle McLean (1895), M. E. Dunreith (1896), W. L. McKenzie (1897), Thomas Ross (1900), Mr. Palmiter (1908), Mr. Morrison (1908), I. Kellington (1911), A. McLean (1913), M. Campbell (1916), G. McRae (1917), Pearl McGuire (1918), and A. Holmes (1919).
Among the teachers of Norgate School were W. McGuire (1920), D. Bradshaw (1922), V. Martin (1925), E. Omen (1926), E. Clarke (1928), Enid Wall (1929), Kathleen Musgrave (1930), D. Campbell (1935), M. Bentley (1936), N. Mooney (1937), D. Campbell (1939), N. Bell (1940), Irene Little (1941), K. Chorneyko (1942), M. Collins (1943), D. Allen (1944), F. Lewis (1945), K. Storgaard (1946), E. Skabar (1947), A. Koop (1949), A. McNaughton (1950), Ted Shyiak (1951), W. Maksymic (1952), A. Romaniuk (1953), F. Hyra (1954), S. Sul (1956), Miss English (1956), Anne Shyiak (1957), W. Channon (1958), E. Armstrong (1959), L. Oke (1960), Miss Patterson (1964), and Mrs. Hannibal (1965).
A monument at Norgate, in the Municipality of McCreary, was erected on 27 July 1985 to commemorate the community and its pioneers and military veterans. A post office was established here in 1895 and also comprised a church, school, grain elevator, and Canadian National Railway station. It was named by settler Malcolm McGillivray because “it was the narrowest pass on the route between Riding Mountain to the west and the swampy country to the east.” The post office closed in 1970 and most vestiges of the community were gone by 1971.
Norgate School (no date) by C. K. Rogers
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 3.
Norgate commemorative monument (May 2012)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N50.68347, W99.47008
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Montcalm School No. 984 (Municipality of Lorne)
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Montcalm School (120 Tecumseh Street, Winnipeg)
McCreary: Milestones and Memories by McCreary History Book Committee, 1987, pages 131-132.
One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.
Geographic Names of Manitoba, Manitoba Conservation, 2000.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 25 August 2020
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