Historic Sites of Manitoba: Tales School No. 721 (Municipality of Clanwilliam-Erickson)

The Tales School District was established formally in September 1892 and a school building was erected the following year, in the southeast quarter of 20-18-18W, in what is now the Municipality of Clanwilliam-Erickson. A new school building was constructed in 1911. It closed in January 1965. At the time of a 2011 site visit, the school building was largely intact, with pressed metal panels on the interior walls and ceiling. It appeared to have been used as a granary in the past. A commemorative monument stood along the nearby roadway.

Among the teachers of Tales School were Duncan A. Matheson (1893), R. Davies, G. M. Robertson, J. C. McArthur, Maxwell Wallace (1898), Malcolm Campbell, L. Robertson, H. E. A. Bewell, H. S. Sharpe, A. K. Cates, Sara Hanson, Nell Raye, A. K. Cameron, W. B. Singleton, Millicent Ducklow, Olive Frazer, Anna McDougall, Henry Neilson, Clara Nelson, Leah Zinger, Bertha Cohen, Miss Tesley Nettie Blough, Mrs. N. Wood, Evelyn Aikenhead, Cora Lee, Fanny Rusoff, Viola McPherson, Grace Frame, Elizabeth Craig, Ethel P. Miller, Miss Balfour, Isabelle Lee (1923), Laura Patterson, T. Coutts, Dora Patterson, Leonard Neva, A. J. Dickson, Emma Carlson (1942), Mamie Challborn, Phyllis Rushton, V. Hamilton, T. Prefontaine, A. W. Shalay, Verna Hood, Norma Mack, M. Woychyshyn, D. W. Smith, F. C. Larwood, Mary Gusdal, and Leona Mackedenski (1962-1963).

Tales School (no date) by W. C. Hartley Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 114. Tales School grounds surrounded by spruce and pine trees (circa 1936) Source: Education Department Report, 1936, Manitoba Legislative Library. Former Tales School building (circa 1986) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 235. Former Tales School building and commemorative monument (August 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Former Tales School building and commemorative monument (July 2019) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Former Tales School building (September 2020) Source: Rose Kuzina Interior of former Tales School building (August 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Interior of former Tales School building (September 2020) Source: Rose Kuzina Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.55027, W99.91560 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

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.

Forest to Field: Centennial History of Rural Municipality of Clanwilliam and Village of Erickson, Manitoba, Canada by Clanwilliam History Book Committee, 1984, pages 128-132.

A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.

We thank David Ford and Rose Kuzina for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 28 September 2020

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