Orin McIntosh Collection
Orin McIntosh Collection
Orin McIntosh has skilfully crafted some of the key elements of the past from Watrous & Manitou Beach. These replicas were on display at the Watrous Civic Center during the Homecoming 2005 Celebrations, and are now on display at the Heritage Centre.
About Orin
Orin McIntosh is a longtime resident of Watrous. He was born in Melville, Saskatchewan in 1929, where his Dad worked for the railroad. The McIntosh family later moved to Watrous where Orin graduated high school in 1948 and then enrolled in the C.R.E.I. (Capital Radio Engineering Institute), a correspondence school in the U.S. He worked at CKCK radio in Regina as summer relief, then spent the next 5 years at CFQC Radio in Saskatoon. In 1953 he started employment with the CBC at Carman, Manitoba for CBW as a Group 3 Transmitter technician. In 1958 he returned to Watrous and worked at CBK. Being an enthusiastic hobbyist, Orin has built several scale model replicas of steam locomotives, radio controlled planes, and a snow plane.
Taking an early retirement from the CBC, when the Watrous transmitter site became fully automated, Orin is now able to spend much more time at his life long hobby. Most recently it has been building scale model replicas of buildings in the Watrous area which hold historical significance. These include the CNR Station and Water Tower, Grain Elevator, CBK Transmitter building and Tuning House, All Saint’s Anglican Church with its historical stained glass window, and most recently Danceland at Manitou Beach. He tries to use original blue prints for his models, but when this is not possible he makes his own blue prints by taking digital photos and measurements of the buildings. This has even taken him to Biggar, Saskatchewan to photograph and measure the CN Station which is nearly identical to the Watrous station, which was torn down after the C.N. no longer used it.
Orin’s CBK model spent 2 months on display in the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon in the fall of 2004, after the province of Saskatchewan?s heritage architect saw it and was impressed by the architectural accuracy and’ precision of the model. All of his building models were on display at the Saskatchewan 100 Year Anniversary celebrations in Watrous in the summer of 2005.