Photo of Alyth Shops by Walter Kot
In late June 1968, I decided to try to get a job as a laborer at the CPR’s Alyth Shops. They were located on the Eastside of the Alyth Overpass across from the stockyards. I went to the office of the Laborers Foreman Max Tims, I told him that I had worked at Ogden and gave him my employee number; he said he would hire me, but he needed a birth certificate. I didn’t have one to show, so I went downtown to the Bowlin Building where the Provincial Government had their offices, I applied for a new birth certificate, which would have to be sent down from Vital Statistics in Edmonton. The clerk said he could expedite my order and have it down in Calgary the next day, so the next day I picked up my new birth certificate. I went down to Alyth to see Max, I showed him my new birth certificate, but he said he could not hire me and could give me no explanation why. I figured it must have had something to do with the time I was off sick and paid by Sun Life in 1966, and they had blackballed me. Anyways, that was it for the CPR, I would have to find employment elsewhere.