The Lansdowne Letters: Freeze-up Clarified

At home in Nova Scotia, my mother and we older kids
were very curious about the phenomenon of freeze-up,
and we anxiously waited out the period over which freeze-up
took place and we were cut off from all news of my father.

Needless to say, when my father's typed Lansdowne letters
started arriving in the new year, we were thrilled and avidly
listened as my mother read them to us.

I always read my father's letters over and over again,
often taking them to school to share with my teacher and classmates.

Winter Today in the Canadian North

Flickr ~ Travel Manitoba License

On Sunday, January 8, 1961 
My father wrote to our extended family:

Hi There Everyone:
Here I am again, just as I threatened to be, and I hope everyone
is in a receptive mood.  Myself, I feel a little like Uncle Remus.

You know, I didn’t know that water could freeze up as fast as it froze over up here.
I don’t remember the exact dates now, but on a Friday night
I went across to the mainland in my canoe; no, I beg your pardon,
it was on a Saturday night, and Monday morning I WALKED
over the same piece of water on my way to school.

Some of the Indians were walking across on Sunday night,
but I didn’t risk it till I saw a rather large Indian with a
four-dog team and a rather heavily loaded sleigh go across.

Library and Archives Canada

Credit:  Bud Glunz. National Film Board of Canada. 

Photothèque e010962320 

Flickr   License

For the week after freeze-up we had some wonderful skating,
but then the snow put a rather abrupt end to our skating for the year.  

Everyone was out skating, except Bill Mitchell who is
an old country Scot who never learned to skate. 

I went for a nice skate about five miles down the lake and back.
It was wonderful.  There was no wind to speak of, and the day
was a nice crisp winter day with the temperature around ten below.
This was about the seventh or eighth of November.

Ice Skating on a Northern Ontario Lake

You Tube ~ Corey & Kristy's Adventures 

 
The first two or three inches of iced formed very quickly,
but it takes seven inches or so to support a Cessna and
over nine inches to support a Norseman or a Beaver,
and the thicker the ice became, the slower it froze.  

A couple of heavy snowfalls didn’t help the situation too much either.
The freeze-up period is not the time it takes for the water
to freeze sufficiently for you to walk on it;
it is the period required for nine inches of ice to form to enable the planes to land.

A Modern DeHavilland DC-6 "Twin Otter"

Equipped with Skis

Flickr ~ Sahtu Wildlife    License

I’m glad that I wasn’t living in Ogoki, for this mission
is situated on a rather swift flowing river,
and their freeze-up didn’t end till after Christmas.
I don’t know how my emotional hibernation would have endured,
if I had been cut off over the Christmas holidays.
It would have been pretty miserable here without my Christmas presents.

Incidentally, I want to thank you all (Louise and Carl also)
for the lovely things that you sent to me.
I have thanked you all individually, but since then,
the weather has been real cold (35-50 degrees below at times),
and I want to assure you all that I really appreciated the nice
warm underwear, pyjamas, and shirt that you sent me.
I never thought that I would see the day when I would be begging for long underwear;
me, who always boasted that he never wore a suit in his life.
The end of the page and the end of today’s edition.

Bye now,
Love, Don.

No More Canoe

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, 1961

Photo Probably by Duncan McCrae

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

What I would have given chance to fly down Lake Attawapiskat

on a pair of skates, even at 10 below zero!
I did get to canoe down the lake to the base of the peninsula,
but that's a tale for another day!

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue


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

All Rights Reserved

Notes:  

1.  Uncle Remus:  
      I'm not sure what my father meant by this reference other than he felt like a storyteller.
      Uncle Remus is a fictional narrator of a collection of American-African folktales
      compiled, adapted, and published in a book by Joel Chandler Harris in 1881.  Wikpedia
   
2.  Miles to Kilometers:
     5 miles = 8 kilometers

3.  Fahrenheit to Celsius:
     -10º F.  = -23º C.
 
4.  Inches to Centimeters:
     2 inches = 5.1 centimeters
     3 inches = 7.6 centimeters
     7 inches = 17.8 centimeters
     9 inches = 22.8 centimeters
   

5.  Ogoki:

     Ogoki is a community managed by the Martin Falls First Nation.  Wikipedia 

6.  A Personal Note:
      I am still without internet access.  I have several northern posts written and scheduled to 
      post automatically.  If I can get online, I will reply to any comments and try to visit as many 
      blogs as I can.  Sorry about that!  I'll be back soon! 



For Map Lovers Like Me:

Lansdowne House

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Lansdowne House, Ontario

Wikimedia

Albany River on the left, Ogoki River Tributary on the right

The Ogoki River was part of a canoe route from Hudson Bay to Lake Superior: 

James Bay, Albany River, Ogoki River, portage, Ombabika River, Lake Nipigon, Lake Superior. 

Wikipedia