by Evelyn Ward de Roo

At the end of Ethel Street is our one and only public artesian well. Running 24/7 summer and winter this lowly water source has been operating ever since I can remember.

Some still rely on this well as their one source of water. There used to be many public wells throughout South Beach. Down to the corner of Third and Hansson Street we would walk. Two kids with a yellow pail carried on a stick. Still screwed to the wall of our cottage as some kind of family trophy, this said piece of wood has two screws in the middle, between which the pail handle rested. It’s the same stick my mother and her sister used to fetch water in 1938, so their names are at each end, Sylva and Maxine.

We take fresh water for granted. Walking to get it makes you slow down a little. Not to spill a drop because the pail was heavy and you required to fetch perhaps two to three times a day.

Up until recently the well had a nice wooden structure around it. Now it’s been minimized to a barren pipestand and used cheese pail.

After a swim, who hasn’t rinsed off their feet in this freezing cold blast? Many a kid has sailed their little plastic boat in it or dammed up its stream for fun. This little well is now only feet from the approaching mighty Lake Winnipeg. This one last stand of beach allows us to walk into the lake on pure sand with no dike to navigate. But for how long?