collection fishing

The mission was to track down a thin publication, released in 1967, possibly by the Canadian Wildlife Service. The thing you don't realize before you work in reference is just how useful those old timey mid-century bibliographies are. They're on paper, actual paper, which means you can flip back and forth quickly instead of ticking off agonizing seconds while the screen changes to the digitized page you think you might want. You can unfocus your eyes enough as you flip though the book on the table and let the right word reveal itself to your brain.

I didn't find what I was looking for, in any bibliography of the CWS, Environment Canada, NRCan, on the Publications Canada website, or in the Canadian Publications catalogues. No. Dice.

But in one of those bibliographies, and this was before I was Collecting collecting, which means I was just scribbling little notes to myself on the backs of AMICUS printouts, there was a listing for another thin paper. Just a few pages, I believe, and if you've worked in non-profits or the gov, you know the type - 10, maybe 15 pages, thick staples leaving flecks of rust on the cover cardstock. A block of now-retro colour across the bottom half of the front, maybe avocado, maybe burnt orange, a square with rounded corners cut out to reveal the title on the title page. One corner with a diagonal tear where someone picked it up once with clumsy fingers.

I never did see the book, but the title was "This Trout is a Great Fighter."

A flat statement. A specific trout. I like to imagine one fish, fighting a great fight against a predator’s teeth, claws; the encroaching ice.

It puts me in mind of a poem I can’t remember – one that involves river water glinting like diamond scales. I thought it was “The Fish” by Marianne Moore. Or a poem by Elizabeth Bishop – maybe “The Fish” again, or “At the Fishhouses.” No and no and no. I think I’m focused too much on the fish-image instead of what was back of it. No mind, though. I can still see the river in the fall, running hard, small crests flecked with foam under moonlight.

If you've never done a systematic search for archival photos, well. It's a process. I took the training session twice, and still flopped around like a fish out of water doing this.

First you need to search our online database for photos - but only about 3-4% of the photos in the collection have been described individually (archivists say "at the item level"). So if you strike out there - or, in my case, found a couple of what you wanted, but wanted to see if there were more - you go to the paper finding aid for the collection.

Photos at LAC are organized by Accession. So we get a whole whack of photos from the Dept. of National Defence, e.g., and give it a number - in my case, the magic number was 1964-114, or, the 114th collection acquired in 1964.

For this fabled accession, there's a complicated finding aid, FA-22, a box full of ratty handwritten or typewritten or photocopied pages. I wanted the O-series - O for Ordinary, comprised of shots of the troops overseas doing, I suppose, ordinary things.

I suppose that most of what I found was actually reasonably ordinary. One or two photos of the xth battalion, buying oranges from French children. All the Non-Commissioned Officers from the nth battalion, a scarred field their backdrop: so many of them they are interchangeable in the camera's eye, pale skin and dark hats. A few men from another battalion are leaning back against the damp walls of the trenches, steely faced as a superior officer makes a brief visit. Few people mentioned by name.

In all of this, suddenly: Yvonne.

There wasn't another single page of the O-series that had this many ditto-marks. Yvonne, described as "the pretty railway gate keeper" the page before, was, I would say, hot shit for a war photographer at the front. As well as for a few of the other men from whatever unnamed battalions.

I could picture her - a thick rope of dark hair twisted and pinned at the neck. Swept off her face. High cheekbones in a pale oval face. Wide, dark eyes. Leaning on her crossing gate and staring with insouciance into the camera.

If I were interested in writing historical fiction, this would be a gold mine. What was Yvonne like? Was she really that pretty? How many men went to visit her in a day? Did she like the attention? What does a railway crossing gate keeper - pretty or no - do? Is pretty then the same as pretty now? Was she sad when the war was over and the men went home? Was she relieved to hear no more clumsy Canadian accents and choppy French? What was her family like? Did she live with her parents? Did the men compete for her attention, hoping for a few kind words, a bright smile in the midst of death, boredom and filth.