New book goes on the road to abandoned locales

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This article was published 16/12/2023 (871 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Imagine traveling the province and seeing Manitoba’s history firsthand. Imagine walking through an abandoned one-room schoolhouse or looking up at a grain elevator and visualizing it when it was in its glory. That is what the Abandoned Manitoba book series does.

Out now is the newest book in the series, On the Road to Abandoned Manitoba, which is meant to get people out onto the road and explore these abandoned areas which includes abandoned buildings but also beautiful bridges, ships, and monuments. To further encourage travel, the book gives the GPS coordinates for each location, something Goldsborough was adamant about keeping in this book.

“I’ve put thousands of kilometres on my car and I’ve been fortunate to see pretty much all of Manitoba, at least the parts that are accessible by road. There have been a few places I’ve been able to get to where there aren’t any roads, I’ve been able to fly into a few places. I’ve seen quite a lot of Manitoba and I want to share it with Manitobans. I’m a passionate Manitoban and I love this province and I can’t imagine any other place on earth that I’d want to live. I want to share that with people and kind of think that if people know about the places I’ve seen they would be just as passionate about it too,” said author Gordon Goldsborough.

Goldsborough gave a presentation about his new book and he did a signing at the Jolys Regional Library on Dec. 9 much to the delight of people in the audience.

“(Abandoned Manitoba) books are very, very popular. Our library holds all of his books and they do go out regularly,” said head librarian Nicole Gregoire.

“I love his books. I just love old things. I love going to explore things and I find it very informative. He gets to the back story of it,” gushed Roxanne Schlorff, a huge fan of Goldsborough’s having bought all his books. Schlorff said she has explored the locations in Goldsborourgh’s books in the Southeast.

“Get his books, get out of the house, and follow his routes,” she added.

Goldsborough is a professor of biology at the University of Manitoba but his love of history led him to volunteer with the Manitoba Historical Society, which eventually led to a show on CBC radio called Abandoned Manitoba which eventually led him to a publisher.

“(People are interested) I think it’s because of the story. The question I always have when I see something abandoned is, first of all, why is it there in the first place? Who built it? Why did they build it? What did they use it for? And ultimately, why did they abandon it? Those are the questions I want answers to and that’s the story that I tell in this book,” said Goldsborough. “If this book was just pictures of abandoned things, I personally would not find that interesting and I don’t think a lot of other people would either. Because what really makes it interesting is to know that story about the place, how it came to be, the way it was and how it ended up being abandoned. That’s what I think people find interesting.”

Some of the places that standout for Goldsborough in this new book are the nuclear bomb radiation testing sites, built during the Cold War in the 1960s that dot the Manitoba landscape, and a hydro power generating station in God’s Lake, the first one to be built in Northern Manitoba.

A born storyteller, Goldsborough has 30 chapters in On the Road to Abandoned Manitoba that detail more than 50 locations to visit in the province. His stories are relatable, interestingly written, and informative. For example, he uses Lily Tomlin’s portrayal of Ernestine, the telephone switchboard lady, as an introduction to the early days of MTS and its exchange building in Emerson.

“I want people to resonate with this book. I want them to look at it and go, ‘Hey! There’s something nearby that I can go and see!’ Because, ultimately, what I want people to do is not only enjoy the book but be inspired to go out and see some of these things for themselves. That’s why every chapter has the coordinates to get to the places I talk about…so that you can experience the joy of learning about these places like I did.”

In addition to writing about abandoned places in On the Road to Abandoned Manitoba, Goldsborough has also created a series of YouTube videos with the Manitoba Historical Society called Heritage Minutes. They’re 43 one-minute videos that are released every Monday until August under the banner of Heritage Minute Mondays.

“The idea is that people who have read the book and they want to see some more, they’ll be able to go to YouTube and watch the video we made about it as well,” said Goldsborough. “Basically, they’re one-minute videos about something interesting around Manitoba. Someplace most people have never heard of. And that’s the whole point too. We want people to watch and go, ‘Wow! I never knew about that.’”

Goldborough’s enthusiasm about Manitoba’s historic places is infectious.

“I thought it was very informative. I learned a lot and I’m very grateful that he’s willing to share his passion and it’s helping me grow my understanding of Manitoba and passion for that too. It’s pretty neat to experience that,” said Meagan Wall, who was at the library when Goldborough gave his presentation.

Goldsborough is retiring at the end of December from the university and he’s already working on his next book.

“Oh, heck yeah. I’ve got about a dozen in my head. I started doing the research for another book, but I’m not all together sure which about a dozen ideas I’m going to work on next,” he said. “One of the things people often ask me about is would I write about the ghost towns in Manitoba. I think I might. If not the next book, it might be one in the future because I’ve seen lots of ghost towns and they all have a unique story…That’s a book I’d like to do sometime. Whether it’s the next book or whether it’s a few books down the line, sooner or later I’m going to write a book about the ghost towns of Manitoba, I think.”