PORTRAITS OF AN ERA; The Aerial Photography of Howdy McPhail By Bill Waiser, Fifth House, 184 pages, $40 By Ted Hainworth Of The StarPhoenix Howdy McPhail flew bombers over Europe, was shot down, interned for a time, then was back in the air -- 28 missions. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross; a park around the North Battleford cenotaph bears his name. Today, however, McPhail is remembered for his flights across rural Saskatchewan – and his portraits of an era. After the war, McPhail, like many returning servicemen, found himself at a career loose end. Although raised on a farm, he had no abiding interest in farming, despite his pre-war degree in agricultural economics. He worked for a time as a counsellor with the Veteran’s Land Administration, then as a fieldman with the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in the Wilkie district, and that was where he fell in love with Mary Kujawa, who was studying to be a doctor. Life was good, but the career was not. He longed to get back at the controls of a plane. And so it was that, with his wife’s encouragement, he went searching for a “hot little plane” – finding a second-hand high-winged Luscombe. That was the start of what would become McPhail Air Services Ltd. There were not many business opportunities for a flier in Wilkie, so in 1952 Mary moved her medical practice to North Battleford. And Howdy took to the air. He got into the crop dusting business at a time when more farmers were starting to use aerial spraying to control pests, disease and weeds. It was good work in spring and summer; in the winter, he hauled fish from the north to a packing plant in Meadow Lake. As his profile in the community increased, so did local interest in flying. As a result, flying lessons soon became a major part of his business. All this time in the air gave Howdy a window on another business angle – aerial photography. He had taken photographs during his wartime training in Saskatchewan, and in Europe. Now he hatched a plan to market “portraits” of farms and communities. Saskatoon historian Bill Waiser has compiled, in this book, a sample from the McPhail collection of more than 2,000 images that reflect rural Saskatchewan in the 1950 and early 1960s. McPhail’s aerial oblique photographs -- typically taken from an angle, as opposed to vertical – are full of detail. Taken from a low level, at low speed, they capture the essence of farmsteads, many of them in transition. As Waiser notes, the Battlefords area, where most of the farm photos were taken, was not heavily settled until the early 20th century. Fifty years later, McPhail was documenting what had become of this “agricultural colonization.” There are frequent reminders of that pioneer past – old structures, sometimes first structures, discarded machinery and rock piles. “The poverty of some operations is visible in the photographs,” writes Waiser, “suggesting that success was often elusive and that dreams never matched up with reality for some farm families.” Electricity had not yet reached many Saskatchewan farms. The biffy was still a fixture of each yard. In these pre-supermarket times, there were large gardens, a few orchards, and many chicken coops. Many of the photos must have been taken on Monday – wash day. At the same time, his photographs of cities – towns and villages mostly – create what Waiser describes as a “a visual record . . . before the resource and industrial boom of the post-war period and accompanying population growth had brought about a large-scale, physical transformation of these centres and the nature of their economies.” Howdy died in March 2001 at the age of 86. These pictures are his legacy. It seemed everyone in North Battleford had a story about Howdy. One of the most popular as I recall, a reference no doubt to his crop dusting and low-level aerial photography, was the comment, its a good thing hes married to a doctor. A personal note if I may: I met Howdy in the late ‘60s, and flew with him -- once. As a 19-year-old cub reporter with the North Battleford News-Optimist, I was assigned to get an aerial shot of something or other. I caged a ride with this guy who ran the airport, and who I knew only as the father of a former classmate. Howdy strapped me in, taxied out on the runway, wound up, and began his run. Halfway along, he hooked his knee around the stick and started lighting his pipe, all the while executing a perfect takeoff. I was impressed (too dumb to be scared). Minutes later, he flipped open my side window and advised me to hold tight to my Speed Graphic. He stood the little plane on its wing, and I had my picture. Only now do I appreciate the company I was in that day, the years of experience that had informed that moment. The veteran had given The Kid his first shot at aerial oblique photography.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 22:38:46 +0000
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