Customer Reviews

A Store Like No Other: Eaton's Of Winnipeg

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In 1958, when I was 7 years old, my family moved into a little house on Carlton Street, about three blocks from Eaton's retail store. By the time we moved away from the neighbourhood four years later, I had been in that huge, magical building countless times, and it is a prominent part of the architecture of my childhood. I still have dreams about being in it (strange dreams -many of them involving elevators, which sometimes move sideways -in some of the dreams I am climbing the fire escape staircases, which we used to do as kids, only now there are gaps in the stairs so that you have to leap from one level to another and catch the railings). A lot of my memories of those days are gone, but what I do remember, I have just finished writing down. Memory is imperfect though, and plays tricks, and so I have come across Russ Gourluck's wonderful book at an opportune time. My family moved away from Winnipeg altogether in 1963, and I lost touch with the city and my memories for many years. 'A Store Like No Other' has refreshed those memories wonderfully in regards to the Big Store.

A lot of the architecture of my childhood in Winnipeg is now gone. Alexandra Elementary School, along with the rest of the block that housed several friends, was wiped out to make way for the monstrous Winnipeg Convention Centre. St. Stephen's United Church burned down. The block I used to live on, which included a corner store and a little park we used to play in on the corner of Hargrave and York, now houses a large hotel and high-rise apartment blocks. That area of town used to be a vibrant, bustling, if somewhat poor, neighbourhood. I visited last year and, with the vacant lots, abandoned buildings, and sterile high-rises, it has a cold, unfriendly, ruined feeling to it. I did feel better about the area around Broadway and south of Broadway; it seems to have kept much of its character.

But back to the book. This is a gem of a book; it is a labour of love -well researched, balanced, excellently produced, with a generous number of pictures, a bibliography, an index, and even a comprehensive list of photo credits. It documents the history of the Big Store from the digging of the basement to its closing and destruction. It introduces the reader to the story of Timothy Eaton, the mercantile genius who started the Eaton empire, and to the generations of family members who followed. You might wonder how 200 pages of a large format book about one particular department store could hold a reader's interest all the way through. Trust me, you don't have to be a nostalgia nut or Winnipeg nut like me to enjoy this book. With its combination of history, photographs, personal anecdotes, humour and fascinating stories, this is a book that should please anyone with the slightest interest in this country, mercantilism, or the past century. As I've already alluded to, the layout of the book is very attractive. It's nice to look at and easy to read. I would have liked it to have been 200 pages longer with even more photographs and anecdotes.

I was devastated when I learned the Eaton's building had been destroyed. It had always been the heart of downtown to me and even though I didn't visit Winnipeg often, it was important for me to know it was still there. I guess I always assumed the Eaton's building would qualify as a heritage building (if it didn't, what commercial building would?). I didn't get a chance to buy a souvenir brick, but Russ Gourluck's book is certainly a very special souvenir, and much more helpful to my notes about my childhood than any brick could be.

Before I finish I'll share two reminiscences of Eaton's from when I was 7 years old:

-In the basement, beside one set of escalators, was a snack bar where you could buy ice cream, pop, hot dogs, that sort of thing. They sold a kind of soft chocolate ice cream that was the only kind of ice cream that I would eat for years. When I ate hot dogs at home I always had ketchup on them. One day, my father and I stopped by this snack bar and he ordered me a hot dog and a Coke. When my hot dog came, it had mustard and relish on it. When I pointed this out to my father and raised and objection, he responded by saying, 'Eat it!' And so I was introduced to a wonderful new experience, a mustard and relish hot dog -so different from a ketchup hotdog and so much better that I never again ate a ketchup hot dog.

-One day, I was cruising the basement of the Eaton's store on my own when I noticed a set of buttons underneath the rolling handrail of one of the escalators. I waited until no one was approaching the escalator and then bent down and pressed one of the buttons. The escalator ground and clanked to a halt. The escalator riders seemed to be frozen in a kind of stasis for five to ten seconds until they came to the realization that they were no longer moving upward and that something had happened to the escalator. They all started babbling and chattering at once. As the hubbub grew, I thought it best to exit the floor via the other escalator, which fortunately happened to be still working.

This is an excellent book. Downtown Winnipeg used to be destination of choice, mainly because of the EATON'S store and to a lesser extent, also the Hudson's Bay store a few blocks west. Up until the late 1970s a trip downtown was something special, as these stores anchored a viable business and retail district. But the expansion of the city into an urban sprawl, and with that the requisite suburban malls, gradually diminished the need/desire to head into town. Looking back, it is hard to believe that EATON'S had such a large market share and employed so many people. The implosion seemed to happen so quickly ie the downward spiral started in the 1980s when the company lost it's ability to adapt the changing North American retail trends. This book chronicles an important chapter in the history of Winnipeg.

I first saw this book in a bookstore on a trip to Winnipeg. After paging through it I found it hard to put down, but didn't purchase it at the time. A few months passed and then decided to order it from amazon.

The author goes deep into the facility and also the entire city of Winnipeg. This is an excellent history of Eaton's. I recommend it not only for the local Manitobans but anyone into history and culture.

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