Standing Into Danger: 2016

Friday, December 23, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: Surprise!

Well, the surprise is on me!
Just when I had everything worked out with technology,
and I thought I was good to go with me and posting,
I had an unexpected development!

Presents Under the Christmas Bush

Mojave Desert Near Oatman, Arizona

Santa came early on Tuesday and gave me
the best Christmas present I've ever received!

McCarran International Airport,

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Christmas in Calgary with my family for the first time this century!!!

So I've been packing and traveling, and here I am,

not in the middle of the Mojave Desert, but in snowy Calgary.

Out the Front Door

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Sometimes you just can't fight the universe!
Fighting the universe landed me in Bullhead City,
which to my consternation, is growing on me!

So I signing off posting until January 4th,
unless I find a pocket of time!
But I will get around and read your posts as much as possible!

In the spirit of Christmas in Lansdowne House,
I'm sharing my all time favorite Christmas carol,
The Huron Carol, also called Twas in the Moon of Wintertime.
Click Here (You Tube is not letting me add it to my post.)

It was written by Jean de Brébeuf in 1643.
Jean de Brébeuf was a Jesuit missionary among the Hurons in Canada.
The original title is Jesous Ahatonhia,
but I first knew it as Gitche Manitou,
a traditional Algonquin name for God.
Gitche Manitou is Canada's oldest Christmas song.

This song means a great deal to me
because of the time I spent in Northern Ontario
among the Ojibawa and Cree Indians when I was a young girl.

Wishing you and yours the best of Christmases
and a very happy new year!

Northern Nights in the Bush

Flickr: J.H. License

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

Bay of Fundy out of Westport, Brier Island
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: How!

When my mother and we five children joined my father in Lansdowne House,
in February, 1961, the white population swelled from sixteen to twenty-two.

Thirteen adults and three babies climbed
to fourteen adults, four babies, and four children.

The lack of older white children in the remote Ojibway village
was a concern for my parents.
Baby Bertie would have plenty of playmates
in babies Duncan, Kathie, and Glen.
Donnie and Barbie, at newly seven and almost five, had each other
and were not accustomed to ranging far from home to play.
But Roy and I were a different matter.

Good Buds, Donnie, Bertie, and Barbie (right)

A Few Months Before Going North

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1960

At nine and ten, Roy and I had diverging interests and a love-hate relationship.
Only fourteen months separated us in age, and we were serious rivals,
forever trying to outwit and outdo each other in everything.
We were accustomed to visiting our friends and relatives all over Smith's Cove
and roaming its woods, fields, and shores together and separately.

Our parents had tried to prepare us for a very different reality,
where we were unlikely to make friends among the Ojibway children
and where we were unable to go far from home in the dangerous and unforgiving bush.
We would be on our own and without school and church activities,
telephones, or television (not to mention electricity and running water).

Sibling Rivalry

Roy (3) laughs as the photographer tells me (4) to pull my skirt down

so my underwear won't show.

Some things you don't forget, ever!

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1954

So that first morning when we awoke in Lansdowne House what did our parents do?
After breakfast and cleaning up, and with no school for the day,
they shooed us all outside to fend for ourselves.

The day was brilliantly cold, as only the North can be,
with a vibrant blue sky, stark black spruce,
dazzling white snow, and deep blue shadows.

Winter Morning

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, December 1960

Photo by Donald MacBeath

As we took a few tentative steps beyond the back doorstep,
the snow squeaked loudly and the Indian dogs scrutinized us.

It was bitterly cold, but calm,
so the subzero temperature was bearable in the bright sunlight.

-20º, -30º, -40º ... ?
I don't remember; when it's that cold, it doesn't matter.
It's flat out, brutally cold.
Our mother had hustled us into thickly layered, warm clothes
so we moved with sausage legs and arms.

The silence was overpowering when we stopped and looked around.
I could almost hear the sparkles dancing in the snow.
The only signs of life were the wary Indian dogs
and the smoke rising from the nearby log cabins.

"Go on! Go play!" our father encouraged,
firmly shutting the back door behind us;

and so, we ventured into the empty space between
our home and the silent Indian log cabins.

A minute or two later,
around the corner of the nearest cabin
two young Ojibway girls appeared:
Fanny and Nellie Kitchejohn.

Likely Fanny on the left
and Nellie on the right ~
Blame my half-century memory.
Photo by Donald MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

We approached them, encouraged by the shy smiles of the two girls

with their beautiful copper skin, flashing eyes, and dark hair.

I raised my right hand in greeting and said, "How!"

followed by "Me, Louise" as I patted my chest.

"Me, Roy," added my brother solemnly.

"Speak to them in proper English" bellowed my father

from the back door he had cracked open surreptitiously.

After that my memories are less distinct.

I wrote in a letter to Nana about ten days later

that we had spent that first day "trying to talk with the Indians."

We learned their names, and they learned ours.

Somehow a toboggan appeared.

It may have been the one that usually stood against the forestry shack,

or it may have been one that belonged to the Kitchejohns.

Regardless, we were soon taking turns pulling each other

around one of the log cabins on the toboggan.

We did this for a long time, until we were frozen sausages.

The two Ojibway girls especially loved pulling our younger sisters around.

We even dashed briefly into their log cabin to warm by the wood stove.

Small, dimly lit, sparsely furnished around the edges, it was deliciously warm,

and their mother welcomed us quietly, despite her reserve.

Sleighing Toboggan

Historical Photo, Canada

Photo by Alexander Henderson (1831 - 1913)

Wikimedia

Our parents were shocked and pleased when we finally went inside our home.

They had worried about nothing, it seemed.

They had forgotten that children naturally speak in a universal language

when they approach each other with openness and friendship.

They had also neglected to consider the love of First Nations people for children.

Within a couple of weeks, my younger sisters had made the rounds of the village.

Donnie with her long curls, Barbie with her blonde hair,

and Bertie determinedly tottering around on her unsteady legs

were welcomed warmly and with shy curiosity everywhere.

Roy and I were also treated with warmth and respect,

but we were invited into Ojibway homes less often.

As older children, I think we were more intimidating;

whereas Donnie, Barbie, and Bertie were irresistibly cute.

I, in particular, was a conundrum.

As an independent and outspoken girl,

I didn't fit into any recognizable female role.

Neither child nor adult, I had to find a niche I could occupy.

Siblings, Going Their Separate Ways

Canoeing on Lake Attawapiskat, Spring 1961

Photo by Donald MacBeath

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

Bay of Fundy out of Westport, Brier Island
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

Notes:

1.   20 Below = -28.8º C
  30 Below = -34.4º C
  40 Below = -40.0º C

2.   A Personal Note:
I'm sorry about the irregular publishing of my Northern posts the last few weeks. After a lot of
time and frustration, I've resolved my computer and internet problems. No more library! Unless
there is a snafu when we move to another trailer shortly. Terry is a happy guy as he cheerfully
announces the subzero temperatures and snowy weather in Colorado, then prances out the door
to play pickleball in the Arizona sun. I have to admit that the warm sunshine and dry roads are
lovely. Bullhead City is turning out to be quite a nice fit! I'll be making the rounds to visit your
blogs asap.

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Location of Neskantaga (Lansdowne House)

Human Rights Watch Report on the Safe Water Crisis

in First Nations Communities in Ontario

Make It Safe

Friday, December 9, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: @#$%!

I am experiencing technical issues:
Still limited internet access, until Suddenlink sorts it out.
Photos crashing ~ too many and out of memory.
Can't back up ~ no room on external drives.
No new four terabyte external drive,
because Amazon screwed up guaranteed delivery while I was in Colorado,
and I'm still waiting on late delivery here in Arizona.
Been traveling, so little access to my library internet onramp.
Hopefully things will work themselves out in the next few days.
See you next week (or maybe sooner)!

Meanwhile I'm still on the hunt for wild burros ...

Wild Burros

flickr: James Marvin Phelps License

Friday, December 2, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: A Lesson Learned

I was tired when we finally arrived in Lansdowne House,
but I can't imagine how worn out my mother must have been.
As a young girl, I took her energy and optimism for granted; and especially so,
because she sheltered my siblings and me from her challenges, big and small.

My mother had a core of steel and powered through life with an unbelievable will.
No matter how difficult it was, she faced life with a courageous optimism.

Some women might have looked around on arriving in such a remote place
and taken the return trip to Nakina with the pilot.
My mother looked around and embraced the positive.

My Mother, Sara (MacDonald) MacBeath

Studying at Acadia University

Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1947

On Friday, February 24, 2016 she wrote
to our extended family in her unassuming way:

When we landed I expected the Indians would look at us blankly.
Instead they were all smiling and seemed to love watching the children.
We went to Maureen’s and Dunc’s and they gave us dinner.
Then Don and I came to visit our house.

Don said the house was small,
so I was quite amazed to find it spacious.
It has lovely cupboards and drawers in it,
seven drawers and four sets of cupboards.
There is a lovely dinette set in it.
Best of all, though, is the lovely gas range.

Love to you all,
Sara.

The Forestry Shack

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada

Sketch by Maureen McRae

My mother was not a Material Girl.
The only things she truly wanted in life during my childhood
were her husband and children close, healthy, and safe,
and if that came with a gas range thrown in she was delighted.

My father returned from the forestry shack and collected us from the McRae's,
leaving my mother behind in her new home for a few rare minutes alone.

By then it was dark, and brilliant stars filled the sky like I had never seen before.
The starlight cast spindly tree shadows on the deep snow,
as we trudged through the bush to our home on the other side of the peninsula.

It was the coldest cold I had ever experienced;
and when I breathed in, my lungs burned.
I remember wrapping a scarf around my face to cover my nose and mouth.
Within a minute or two the front of my scarf was a sodden mess,
the inside warm and wet, the outside already stiff and freezing.
My moist breath froze on my eyelashes,
and my eyes watered making it hard to to see in the dark.

Half blind, I stepped off the packed down snow.
There was a reason the narrow path through the bush was well-trodden.
The moment my foot veered off the path, my leg sank in the snow to my crotch,
and I was down on my left knee struggling to pull my right foot out.
It came, but with no boot.

"That will teach you," my father laughed,
as I retrieved my boot and banged the snow out.
He was a big believer in experiential learning.

I managed to haul my stiff boot on my icy foot and stumble along the path,
peering through upper and lower eyelashes now frozen together.

Later in the spring, as the snow melted away,
everyone tottered around on those frozen snow paths
that stood above the muck like slippery balance beams.

It was the strangest sight,
but so much fun for veteran rail-walkers like Roy and me.

But very soon, the well-trodden snow paths melted too,
and we were all slogging through the mud,
in a world alive with the sound of trickling, running water.

Winter Sky

usm.maine.edu

We came out of the bush and into the open.
On our right was a long, dark, log church; and on our left,
a cluster of log houses spilling dim light through the odd window onto the snow.
Directly ahead was our new home, and home looked really good!

Nothing stirred around us as we rushed for the door,
except for the Indian dogs bedded down in nearby snowbanks.
A few rose to their feet and stared at us with hungry eyes.
We didn't have to be warned to be wary around them.

Sled Dog

Wikimedia ~ edited

The kitchen was lit with two softly hissing kerosene lamps,
but the rest of the house lay in shadows.
Dad lifted one lamp off its hook in the kitchen ceiling,
the shadows swinging wildly as he carried the lamp to show us around:
from our water supply (a twenty-five gallon drum with a wooden cover)
to our bathroom with its chemical toilet (a low seat over a bucket in a tiny room),
to the bunk-crammed bedroom we five children would share.
Our parents had a second bedroom just big enough to squeeze in a double bed.

Last was the small living room with a big window that looked out into darkness
beyond the pool of light from the kerosene lamp.
I'm sure if you made a beeline from there to the North Pole and beyond,
you wouldn't have encountered a single light in the vast, empty bush.

Before I knew it, we had found our pyjamas, brushed our teeth,
tried out the chemical toilet, and claimed our bunks.
Roy and I were on the top, with Donnie below me
and Barbie and Bertie toe-to-toe under Roy.
Roy was close enough that I could lean across the space
between our bunks and poke him (and him me).

We lay on our stomachs in our top bunks and stared out the window,
me on the left and Roy on the right. It was a moonless night,
but the Indian homes stood out starkly against the starlit snow.

We whispered excitedly in the starlight gleaming on our pillows.
We couldn't believe it ~
We were finally here: in the mysterious North!

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

Crossing Petite Passage
Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia
Photo Copy by Roy MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Notes:
1. Photo: For the view from our front window, click here. This is summer in 1956 before the forestry shack was built. The Indian tent is pitched just to the right of where I went down to our waterhole on the frozen lake. The tip of the Father's Island is in the middle right of the photo.

2. Rail-Walker:

Walking the Rails

Flickr ~ Rafael Clemente License

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Map of Canada

Highlighting Ontario

Wikimedia

Location of Lansdowne House

Wikimedia edited

Lansdowne House

Sketch by M. Louise Barbour

Peninsula and Island

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario

Credit: Canada. Dept. of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Library and Archives Canada: PA-094992

Rough Sketch of Lansdowne House

by Donald MacBeath, Fall 1960

This sketch shows the Father's Island and the tip of the "Mainland" peninsula

that contained the community of Lansdowne House.

#18 McRae's

#16 Anglican Log Church

#15 Forestry Shack (Our Home)

Black Dots ~ Indian Homes

Friday, November 25, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: The Greatest Blessing

On this Thanksgiving weekend I am thinking about all that we are blessed with,
about the peace, opportunity, and material wealth we have as Americans.
But I often wonder why are some so fortunate and why others have it so hard.

The First Thanksgiving ~ by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

circa 1912-1915

Wikipedia

Rich or poor, around the world,
there is one blessing that sustains most of us,
and that is family.

The most wonderful, powerful force in my life has been my family:
my parents, my siblings, and of course,
Terry who has made my life a joy and an adventure.

Terry and I waiting for the Prince Kūhiō Parade

Kalakaua Avenue, Honolulu, Hawaii

March 13, 2016

Some of My Extended Family

Jake, Roberta (My sister), Natalie, Olivia, Heather

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada Summer 2016

iPhoto by (Maybe) Sara Heembrock

When we arrived in Lansdowne House, we were already a closely-knit family,
and our experiences in the North bound us more tightly together.
Even today, separated by long distances, we are unusually close.
We love nothing more than to get together,
and this closeness has continued into the next generation.

Some of the Next Generation

Sara, Jake, Heather, Natalie

Jeffrey, Andrew, and Gavin

My sister Donnie and Martin's House

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada Summer 2016

iPhoto by (Maybe) Donalda MacBeath

As for Terry,
I can’t imagine my life
without his calm, steady
support and love.

Binion's Photo

It was difficult for my father to be separated from my mother
and his children for almost six lonely months.
He wrote on February 24, 1961 to his extended family:

"It was sure great to see them!!!!
Everyone knew me except the baby.
She was quite strange with me
for a while, but she is over it now
and going around saying,
"Hi, Dad” just like a trooper.

She is the most adorable Baby,
but then maybe I am prejudiced.
Gretchen remembered me and just
about went foolish when she saw me.”

Baby Bertie, February 1961
Thanks to my cousin Dawn MacDonald White for this photo

I’ve been badgering my brother to share his memories
of Lansdowne House with me.
He and I are likely the only white people who lived there then
who are alive now and have detailed memories.
In spite of his challenging job at Kufpec in Kuwait City,
Roy is writing down a few thoughts about Lansdowne House
and sharing them with me. He prods my memory, and I prod his.

My Brother Roy and Me

Breckenridge, Colorado, USA, July 2016

Photo by Susan MacBeath

I am grateful every day
for the incredible parents
I was blessed with,
and this long process of working
with their letters and photos
has lessened the pain of their loss.

Sara and Don, First Christmas Together
With John and Esther (Mom's brother)
Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, 1948
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

I thought in honor of Thanksgiving and the blessing of my family,
I would share what Roy wrote for me about our parents
in November, this year:

“I was blessed with highly intelligent and loving parents
who cared for their children more than themselves,
and gave everything they had to us.

They were a hard working and passionate couple with rich personalities,
and with inquisitive and interrogative but also very different outlooks on life.
They were very lucky in that they were, as teachers,
able to share their professional lives with each other.

Life can be kind and it can be cruel.
They were not perfect and definitely had their ups and downs,
as does any couple with spirit and soul.
But regardless, they were the anchor of our lives,
and they passed their values and their attitudes on to their children.

The five of us siblings shared equally in both their love and their care,
and their constant encouragement to find and live our dreams.
As a nine year old, I idolized them both and felt boundless security in their presence.
As an adult, I look back and understand the blessings they gave us;
and that they are and were the finest people I have ever met in my lifetime.
I know exactly where the courage and confidence to chase my dreams came from.”

We Five: Barbie, Me, Bertie, Roy, and Donnie

Lac Seul, Northern Ontario, Canada Summer 1961

Photo likely by John Garrick

Roy and Susan with Their Daughter Heather

Beautiful Cove, Long Island Nova Scotia Summer 2016

Hold your loved ones in your heart every day.
Cherish them, because life is unpredictable,
and you never know when you may lose someone you love.

I wish my American family and friends joy in each other
this Thanksgiving weekend.
When everything is stripped down to the one essential in life,
we find unconditional love.

Friday, November 18, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: Touchdown in the Remote Wilderness

When Lansdowne House appeared on the northern horizon, late in the afternoon
of Monday, February 20, 1961, my family and I were flooded with emotions:
joy, relief, curiosity, and excitement.

Peninsula and Island

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario

Credit: Canada. Dept. of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Library and Archives Canada: PA-094992

But I was also shocked by the immensity of the wilderness
surrounding the frozen village. We had been flying
from the small northern town of Nakina for well over an hour,
and we had seen no trace of people.
The Father’s Island and the tip of the long peninsula
reaching out into ice-bound Lake Attawapiskat were stunningly remote.

Remote is how Lansdowne House is described in almost every reference
I have found. But remote doesn’t begin to convey how isolated the tiny village is.

It exists in a vast tract of Canadian wilderness,
stretching over 3,100 miles (almost 5,000 kilometers)
from the wild coasts of Labrador to the border of Alaska.
It spills outside the confines of Canada, east to Greenland,
north to the pole, and west to the Bering Sea:
a desolate expanse of tundra, forest, muskeg, and water.

Landsdowne House is located where the subarctic boreal forest
straggles into the empty wastes of the Hudson Bay Lowlands.
Even today, this land of stunted spruce and tamarack, bogs, rivers, and lakes
is one of the least-populated and least-explored areas in the world.
Even before fur traders and missionaries pushed into the area,
the land was largely uninhabited by Aboriginals
because of the harsh environment and the scarcity of food.

As the tiny plane banked and came in for a landing,
we were relived that the cold, noisy flight was over
and overjoyed at being reunited with our father after six long months.
We were curious about our new home and community,
and we were excited about meeting the mysterious Ojibway people.
Roy and I were thrilled about landing in a Norseman on skis.

I clutched Gretchen with one hand and braced with the other,
as the plane slowed and glided, the ice rushing toward us.
The landing gear, consisting of two main skis and a taildragger third,
felt small and fragile, collapsible, unequal to the task.
With a sudden bump, bump, bump,
we bounced along the ice and coasted to a stop near the DOT dock.

Lansdowne House

The Department of Transport dock was just beyond the middle left of the photograph.

Photo by Donald MacBeath

My father wrote of our arrival on Friday, February 24, 1961:
“Sara and the family, including Gretchen, came winging over the southern horizon
about 4:45 Monday afternoon, just as I had given them up for the day.
The train was over two hours late at Nakina.
It was good that they got in Monday,
because the weather deteriorated right after they got in,
and there hasn’t been a plane in since. ...

The children and Sara survived the trip
without too many ill effects.
Actually the only casualty was Donnie.
She threw up, just as they touched down
on the ice at Lansdowne House.
I think that it was excitement
more than anything else."

Donalda MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

I climbed stiffly out of the Norseman unto the ice and into my father's bearhug.
Then I walked into a parting wall of black eyes staring out of fur-lined parkas.
Contrary to what we expected, the Indians were curious and happy to see us,
the first white children many of them had ever seen.
They crowded around us smiling shyly as we trudged across the ice to the dock.

The men stepped forward, some in olive green Hudson Bay parkas,
others in black leather jackets, all in blue jeans and boots,
while the women stood quietly in the background, children by their sides,
babies laced in tikanogans on their backs.
The women looked very strange in their long colorful skirts, parkas, and mukluks,
knee-high moccasins made of moosehide and decorated with bright felt and tiny beads.

Meeting a Summer Plane at the Hudson's Bay Dock

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada

Photo (Transparency) by John Macfie

Reference Code: C 330-14-0-0-95

Archives of Ontario, I0012712

www.archives.gov.on.ca

They were as taken with us as we were with them.
Certainly Barbie's blonde hair, Donnie's long curls,
and Gretchen bounding beside me on stubby legs were novel sights.

Dachshund in Snow

You tube ~ adventurejess

I was overcome with shyness at all the attention
as I floundered up the hill in the squeaky, sparkling snow,
and I escaped into the warm haven of the McRae home with gratitude.

Suddenly very tired, I was overwhelmed by the unbroken bush surrounding us
and by the alien sights of the tiny, ice-locked, Ojibway village in Lake Attawapiskat.

The evening passed in a warm blurr of McRae hospitality,
but the one thing I’ll never forget about our arrival in Lansdowne House
is the kind welcome of the Ojibway people when they met our plane.