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I sometimes take a look in the old picture boxes, going through the pictures that my mother took from on top of the King George Hospital (now Riverview) back in about 1928/29. In the background of the pictures, you can see the Norwood Grove area known as the ‘flats’. Who would have known that in 12 years our family would be living in that area of Winnipeg

The Norwood flats area which is bounded by Lyndale Drive, which runs along the river on three sides of it, and St Mary’s Road on the East. This higher flat area extends back into the St. Vital area to the South and towards the Seine River area on the East. To the North it slopes gradually to the flood plain area that extends from Cromwell, along St Mary’s Road to Tache, where it now becomes a sharp drop-off (that was once an outer bank area of the Red) is now called Enfield Crescent. The washout area at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine pushed an abundance of clay silt and organic material up in ridges against the inside bank area of the ox bow (Enfield Crescent) which formed the area streets from Kitson to Dollard Blvd. (St. Boniface).

In these lower areas, deep rooted oak trees held the soil firmly in place while the clay water slurry from flood waters passed over top during heavy Spring floods, that is why we find pool areas of heavy clay soil throughout the area. The largest oak (that I remember) in the area was on Eugene Street, just West of Kenny, two 10 year old children could barely put their arms around it.

I had occasion to view the digging of a few basements; St. Boniface Hospital, Safeway’s and the De Leeuw apartments on Marion, as well as numerous house basements in the area. There are reasons the apartments on Marion are only built with the basements suites only five feet in the ground. The reason is because the hole kept filling up with water just after the dozer dug it and a pump couldn’t keep it dry. The hospital, on the other hand, had an impervious clay that was so sticky that it had to be scraped out of the bucket of the drag line and when it dried, it was as hard as a brick. One summer rainstorm gave us an excellent swimming hole at the hospital for almost two weeks.

Even during the ’50 Flood when we dug out the Norwood Community Club playing field, later called the Norwood Flood Bowl, and hauled the clay soil to make the dikes along Lyndale Drive. The sticky clay was so tacky that you could break a dump truck u-joint in one spot, move two feet over near a bit more water, you would slide like a skier down the bank towards the river, and save for an alert Cat operator, would prevent you from going in the drink.

Generally, most of the ‘high ground’ had two feet or more of rich black organic soil before the clay started. The rich soil with the abundance of moisture below allowed the elm, oak and ash trees to flourish in the area, hence the name, Norwood Grove.