school assignements

The name of the assignment will be

"The Dr. Hobbs Railway Tour"

Legend has it that if you stare long enough into one of the paintings the characters will begin to move around and talk to you.  You will become one of the people in the painting.  Be careful not to stare too long or you may never come back.

One typed page on each station, you are a character in the painting.  Be sure to write why you are at the station that day.  Talk about your life, your business your family, love interests, etc.  Make the story believable.  For example in the Brandon station there are two lovers embracing in the window.  You could be the man or the woman.

Entrance the reader with your story about the town, station, time period, everything and anything.  Each town holds a new story.  You must be from that community to understand the background of the community or you could be a visitor, if so explain how you came to be at that station or hotel above the station.

You may be an immigrant, a escaped convict, returning from a war of that time period.  A successful business man about to experience the dirty thirties.  Be creative but be believable.

Ladies may be exchanging recipes or gossiping, the ladies of that time period seldom worked outside the home, maybe that upset you when you could not leave on the train and had to go home to a house full of kids and housework.  Explain your feelings, your dreams, your fears.  Maybe you were a women who lead a secret life somehow connected to the railway.

Notice the blankets around the natives, research the Hudson Bay blanket and find out what each stripe or color meant.  Tell a story from a native hunters point of view or the native women how she felt about the railway and all the business going on around her. 

Remember the railway was the focus of the community it was the life force, most supplies came by train.  Boxes came from special people with gifts from other countries, maybe you were sending a hand made quilt to a relative in England for Christmas.

-- Submitted by:

Portia Belmont

BA, M.Ed.