[This video clip was originally from Sunday Edition hosted by Joanne Schnerr.]
[Black and white image of a field being ploughed by horses.] The Grand River Valley of central Ontario was settled by a few hundred homesteaders, many were Mennonite, most were German. [Black and white image of an old Waterloo mill.] The town of Waterloo grew up around a few mills on the Grand River.
[Black and white group photo of L. Kunz's Park Brewery employees.] By the 1840s, the town boasted of three German style breweries, [view of whisky bottles,] but it was British style whisky, [view of an old label of Seagram's White Wheat Whisky,] not beer, that would soon put Waterloo on the map thanks to Joseph E. Seagram. [Black and white photos of Joseph E. Seagram.] Seagram was so proud of his British heritage that he played up his resemblance to King Edward the seventh. [Painting of King Edward the seventh.] He came to Waterloo to manage a mill and to make rye whisky. [Black and white photo of distillery.] Within a few years, he was selling a million gallons a year, and as his distillery prospered so too did the town of Waterloo. [Black and white photo of Waterloo.] [Black and white photo of Waterloo dignitaries in cars.]
[Cut to Kenneth McLaughlin, Historian.]
"I think the town and Seagram's went hand in hand in a way that one can hardly identify in the present. With the distillery comes a major employer, and if the name Waterloo is on all the labels and is sent world-wide, so that Waterloo and the distillery become one in the same."
[Black and white photo of Joseph E. Seagram.] Joseph E. Seagram relied on a forceful personality and a deep pocket book, to forge a British identity for his town, [black and white photo of a street car,] distinct from the "Germanesse" of the nearby Berlin, now known as Kitchener.
[Cut to Kenneth McLaughlin, Historian.]
"It was the Seagram's identity as an Anglo-Saxon in the midst of a large German community. It was the fact that he was involved in the Queen's Plate and horse racing, which was not "another thing the German businessmen had done". And it was the fact that Joseph Seagram himself was the Member of Parliament for three terms and people began to identify Waterloo with Seagram - with Joseph E. Seagram - rather than with the German business men from Berlin."
[Black and white photo of horse and jockey at the Queen's Plate.] Horses from Seagram's stable won the Queen's Plate, [view of plaque with a list of Seagram's Queen's Plate winners,] Canada's most prestigious race twenty times. [View of Seagram's King's Plate Rye Whisky bottle].
[Cut to Kenneth McLaughlin, Historian.]
"Whenever Seagram would win a race they would telegram the results back to Waterloo, and they would raise the Seagram flag on the distillery flag pole, the whole town would turn out to rejoice. And the town took its identity with Seagram, it was Waterloo as well as Seagram that was winning the Queen's Plate and that made it a national event rather than just something local or regional."
[View of several displays from the Seagram Museum.] What remains of those glory years is displayed in the Seagram Museum, an impressive tribute to an industry now in decline.
[Cut to Peter Melrose.]
"Oh, I just can't seem to get away from Seagram's. It's been my life. (Chuckles.)"
[View of Peter Melrose touring the Seagram Museum.] Peter Melrose is as much a part of Seagram's history as many of the artifacts on display. After forty years with the Company, Melrose refused to retire, he wanted to stay on as a guide in the Museum.
[Cut to Peter Melrose.]
"It all started out here, back in 1857, and uh, that's why we are here. That's why our Museum is here."
[View of a Seagram Museum Display of old whisky casks.] Melrose says it will be a sad day when the Distillery next door shuts for good.
[Cut to Peter Melrose.]
"I don't even want to think about it. It was a shock to hear that it was closing."
[View of Seagram warehouses and Angie's Kitchen Restaurant.] It is a sentiment shared by many in Waterloo. Across the road from Seagram's is Angie's Kitchen. [View of Teresa Hugo serving food at the restaurant.] Like her father and her grandfather before her, Teresa Hugo relies on the plant for much of her business. She says closing Seagram's will be a tragedy.
[Cut to Teresa Hugo.]
"This whole community loses 200 people, who can't afford to dine anywhere, let alone Angie's."
[Aerial view of Seagram's warehouse at the corner of Caroline St. and Erb St. in Waterloo.] Although Seagram's no longer dominates Waterloo's economy, it still dominates the City. [View of Seagram Stadium.] Witness Seagram Stadium, everywhere you turn here you see the Seagram black and gold; on the flag at City Hall, on all municipal cars and trucks, at the University of Waterloo.
[Interior view of the distillery.] But the decision to close this plant was made in Montreal, far from the black and gold of Waterloo. Sometime in the next year when the last barrel is rolled out of the warehouse and uncorked, a little history will drain out, along with the aged whisky.
[Cut to Kenneth McLaughlin, Historian.]
"It is a great sense that when the Distillery closes that it is not just the closing of a company, but it is a tradition around which the life of a City of Waterloo revolved, uh, and intertwined over more than a 100 years."
For Sunday edition, I am Joanne Schnerr.