This is the train station that saw many visits by my family. At the time we lived in Flin Flon there was no road out of town, not that we had a car. So when we went to visit, or had visitors come to see us, we always went by train. This station is now in a different location than when we last visited it in January 1957, when we left Flin Flon for Atikokan, Ontario. 
This is the statue at the tourist park. The statue was designed by Al Capp, creator of the L'il Abner comic strip. From a novel written about 1900 by J.E Preston-Murdock. The prospectors who staked the first claims in the area in 1915 found the novel, The Sunless City, near the trail. "Flin Flon" set out in his homemade submarine to explore a bottomless lake and ended up going all the way to the centre of the Earth, finding all kinds of precious metals along the way. When the prospectors saw that their vein of ore went under a lake they named both the camp and the lake "Flin Flon". In 1929 the CNR telegraphed them, now the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company(HBM&S) that if they didn't hear differently, the new station would be called Flin Flon. And that is how the town where I was born ended up being named after a science fiction character!
Then we approached Flin Flon and saw the smokestack and the head frames for the mine and the town in the distance. All rock. From the smelter? Or from the Canadian Shield?
Of all of the interesting rock formations, this was the most interesting - looked just like someone had laid a brick wall along the side of the road with this yellow stone.
When you look from a bit farther away, they really are just tree skeletons
We drove to Flin Flon via the Hanson Lake Road. It is practically 300 kilometres of straight road with only a few hunting and fishing lodges. The speed limit is 100 kph but the only thing keeping the speed anywhere near that (and I mean closer to 120) is the thought that an RCMP could just be there somewhere to check on everyone.
We stopped here on the way to meet Jim and Viola for lunch. Our goal was to visit the graves of Grandma and Grandpa McDiarmid. Hadn't been here since Grandma's funeral - 35 years ago. Such a pretty little cemetery, just like most prairie cemeteries. Our time was limited (couldn't miss lunch!) and we didn't find their graves. Found lots of others who are related to us. So later Mom assigned the task of finding the graves to Jim. He called that evening. He had phoned the village clerk, also related to us, who told him that there are markers, and where to look for them next time we are there.
