Human Refuse 1

Another journey begins today.
A long journey that I have carried in my heart for over fifty years.

I am going to tell my story of my sojourn in the North.
It changed my life forever.

It is not just my story, but the story of my family.
I have been the keeper of my father's letters for 35 or 40 years.
It was always understood
that I would be the writer who told the story.

I've done scribbles and scratches of writing about this time over the years.
I've even done bits of research.
I have a lot to uncover and process.

On the third day of my retirement,
I decided that I would walk to St. Anthony, Newfoundland - on a map.
I promised myself I'd walk the last ten miles for real.
Yesterday I passed the 289 mile mark, which puts me just a few miles west of WaKeeney, Kansas.
I have been walking every day for 171 days, through sickness and in health,
and I know that I can do it, one step at a time.

I also know that somehow I will tell this northern story.
I have faith that I can do it,
one word at a time.

This is the cast of  family characters:

My mother, Sara Margaret MacDonald MacBeath

My father, Donald Blair MacBeath

The photo is probably taken at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia circa fall, 1947 or 1948.

We five in the fall of 1960 just a few months before we went north.

Louise (me) with Bertie, 

Barbie, 

Roy, holding his science project bean plant, 

and Donnie with our dachshund Gretchen

So, I'll start here, with me, 

at the beginning of February, 1961,  

but I'll make no promises to stick to a strict chronology.

I will be going back and forth in time.

Human Refuse 1

     Our flight from Nakina to Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, was a corridor through which I passed from the safe, secure world of my childhood into an alien world; a world of starvation, sickness, and hopelessness; a harsh world of discrimination and exploitation.  I sat next to Chicago Bill, the pilot of the Norseman, watching the shadow of our tiny bush plane skim over the ground below.  The trees and lakes were locked in ice; no sign of life could I see in the frozen wilderness which stretched to every horizon.  The winter had drained all color from the land leaving only the stark black of the brittle trees and the dazzling white of the deep snow.  The sky glowed an electric blue. It assaulted my eyes with its clear brilliance.  My breath hung in the frigid air like smoke on a still day.  My fingers and toes tingled in spite of my thermal underwear, woollen socks and mittens, warm clothes and parka.  Gretchen, our dachshund, huddled on my lap, shivering in the subzero temperatures; her tiny boots and coat, sewn out of a cast-off jacket, were useless against the bitter cold.

     When Lansdowne House appeared on the horizon, a tiny cluster of buildings at the end of a long peninsula reaching out into an ice-bound lake, we were both relieved and appalled; relieved that the long cold flight was over, appalled at the immensity of the wilderness surrounding the frozen village.  I didn't realize it at the time, but this tiny village alone in a vast wilderness of ice and snow would have a profound effect on the rest of my life.

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada

Hudson Bay Post and Dock   

Winter 1961

     My experiences in this community and in Lac Suel and Sioux Lookout during the next three years would radically change my outlook on life.  Before coming to Lansdowne House I was a typical Nova Scotian girl, ten years old and secure.  I came from a happy family and had never lacked anything I needed.  After Lansdowne House I could never again capture the carefree innocence of my earlier childhood.  Starvation, disease, and death had become harsh realities.