When a new member joins a Rotary Club, they eventually have to give a little speech on their life story, especially their work history. We call it a “Vocational talk”. This is Graham Harrison’s story.
Graham was born in Dryden but did not live here until he retired.  His father and grandfather built the original Temple Bay Lodge on Eagle Lake for his first few months.
 
Harrison lived in Red Lake, Keewatin and The Pas Manitoba for next few years where he spent Grades 1- 5 in Keewatin, Gr 6 - 9 The Pas, and Winnipeg from Gr 10 on through 4 years at the University of Manitoba which is where he met his future wife, Donna Johnson, who ironically was  from Dryden.
 
They were married in Dryden and he started married life at Price Waterhouse where he earned his Chartered Accountant designation.  At that point, he was asked to move to Toronto.
 
Since he did not find Toronto attractive  Graham became chief accountant for the Manitoba Telephone System (MTS) but stayed for less than a year moving to Noranda Mines where he stayed for the next twenty-one years.  He spent the first five years in the lumber division but was asked once again to go to Toronto and said no again and went back into private practice.
 
After a short time, he returned to Noranda and was assigned to their Mattabi mine in Ignace, Ontario for two years when once again he was asked to go to Toronto. This time he relented and spent the next fourteen years with them in the head office.
 
At that point, Noranda decided to shed three of its divisions and go back to being a pure mining company with the result that the concomitant downsizing left Graham on the outside.
 
Graham found his next job with Magna International whose head office is in Aurora, Ontario. However, he lasted less than a year because travel from his home in Mississauga was just too onerous.
 
Next, he found work with a South African investment company that was moving from South Africa to Toronto until he found employment with Extendicare in the financial field on special projects. He remained with them for six years until he retired.
 
Although they spent another two years in Mississauga but since their three children were spread across the continent, and Graham’s brother had retired to Eagle Lake, just west of Dryden they decided to move to Dryden as they also had a cottage on Eagle Lake and Donna still had 2 sisters in Dryden.
 
Today they are grandparents to one grandchild; Graham does a little work on the audit committee of the local school boards, and fines time for some old-timers hockey with fellow Rotarians Mark and Shayne as well as becoming a member of the Genealogical Society. Along with his wife he has also spent a significant amount of travelling.