The Lansdowne Letters: What's a Teacher to Do?

Did the beginning of the school year fill you with excitement? 
It was always a fun-filled and hopeful time for me as a student and a teacher. But I'm imagining what it was like for my father in the fall of 1960, when he flew into the northern bush to teach in a one-room Indian school.

My School

Photo by D. B. MacBeath, Fall 1960

© M L (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved


 He walked into an empty classroom to prepare for kindergarten and four grades of students ranging in age from five to eighteen, many of whom did not speak English. Because of weather delays, Dad was a week behind opening school. Some of his students had already disappeared 
into the bush for the winter traplines, their parents assuming there would be no school that year. Dad had no idea how many students would show up once school opened. 
 But if there is one thing teachers do well, it is problem solving, and my father didn't let the unexpected stump him. 
Dad wrote on Sunday, September 18, 1960: "My school starts tomorrow. I finally managed to borrow some old homemade seats from the Father. I wish you could have seen us transporting the seats across to the mainland. "I hired two of the mission Indians, (the Dept. pays for things like this), and they hauled them from the island to the DOT dock in a big 18 foot freighter canoe which belongs to the Father. "I wish you could have seen that canoe. They put five double desks 
and four chairs in it the first time, and the second trip, 
they added a large table.
"There couldn’t have been more than 
three inches showing after they got into the canoe, 
and the water was quite rough. They asked me if I wanted to come too, but I wouldn’t have gotten in that canoe 
for a hundred dollars. "I followed them in my little canoe; at least I tried to follow them. However, when I was a little more than two thirds across, I met them coming back for the second load. By the time I reached the DOT dock 
and had tied up my canoe,
they had loaded the second load 
and were starting back.  

"I would have liked to have gotten 
a picture of the whole thing, but of course my camera wasn’t loaded, and I didn’t want to hold up the operation while I dashed up and loaded it. We were in quite a hurry 
because the wind was rising, and we were afraid 
that the water would become too rough."

Mainland, Lansdowne House
Photo by D. B. MacBeath, Fall 1960
"This shows the Hudson's Bay Post in the background.
Center. MacMahon's house is to the left and Mitchell's is to the right.
In the foreground is the only rock in Lake Attawapiskat
I haven't run into with my canoe.
The plane at the dock is the plane I came up in."
© M L (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Enlarged View

© M L (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Dad also made the rounds of the Hudson Bay, the Department of Transport (DOT), and the Nursing Station scrounging card tables and chairs from the avid card-playing community in Lansdowne House. He had desks for his students but would he have any students for those desks?” Even in the swirl of meeting new people and getting his school functioning, Dad contended with the loneliness of leaving my mother and we five behind. Dad also wrote: “I will be so glad to get you and the children up here next year, Darling. 
You will love it. We will buy a large freighter canoe and an outboard 
and go on fishing trips and picnics across the lake.  
There will be electricity, 
and I think there will be running water, 
but I am not sure. Well, I just heard the plane coming in, 
so I had better sign off.” I am always humbled by the struggles and sacrifices my parents endured to give us a good start in life.