Standing Into Danger: September 2016

Friday, September 30, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: Stressed to the Max

The Times Colonist in Victoria, British Columbia is full
of news and photos about the Royal visit,
and one of yesterday's articles reminded me of how much time
has passed since our family moved North in February, 1961.

Canada's Governor General David Johnston,

Prince William, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

September 24, 2016

(Yes, I took this photo!)

On Wednesday Prince William and Kate visited MacBride Museum

in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory.

While there, they sent a royal welcome on Twitter via a telegraph

that is part of a communications exhibit at the museum.

The exhibit shows how Whitehorse contacted the outside world

from the remote North more than a half century ago.

The royal couple were also the first to sign the museum's digital guest book

using telegraph-to-tweet technology developed by Make IT Solutions.

On hand to assist them was ninety-year-old wireless telegraph operator

Doug Bell, a legendary Yukon operator from that time.

Long before Twitter and the internet, Canadians all across Canada

used wireless telegraph technology to communicate important messages quickly,

like when my father telegraphed his wife and mother
to inform them that freeze-up had started.

The Telegraph Office

Nakina, Ontario, September 1960

Photo by Don MacBeath

Telegrams were flying back and forth between my parents

as they made arrangements to move our family north.

My mother was under a great deal stress over the move and its cost,

and my "Nana" MacBeath was worrying about us living

in such a remote place as Lansdowne House.

On Wednesday, February1, 1961
My mother wrote to her
mother-in-law, Myrtle:

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

Dear Mother,

I am afraid I worried you by telling you I had lost a lot of weight.
I didn’t mean to. It slipped out.

I was in to see the doctor today,
and actually he was pleased with my tests.
My blood and B.M.R. were normal.
Not only that, but my B.M.R. was 415,
and in Halifax last summer,
it was 414 which shows it is constant.

It’s the nervious strain I’ve been living under that has caused the loss of weight.
I have been worrying, so I haven’t been sleeping or eating properly.

He gave me a prescription for tranquilizers.
He says the Maritime Medical is the best.
It didn’t cost me a cent for the tests or doctor.

My Father Traveling in Snowshoes

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada

Winter, 1961

Don likes it up North,
and I’m sure that he wouldn’t ask us to come if it wasn’t all right.
It will give us a chance to live as a family instead of
everyone rushing their separate ways as they do so often nowadays.

Don is a far better teacher in my opinion than the children have had for a long, long time.
Extra curricular activities can become too much,
and I am sure the children would learn a lot up North.

Don sent me a picture of himself, and I haven’t seen him look
so rested in years, and he has lost a lot of weight.

So far as doctors go, the nurse can do as much as a doctor,
except for operations, and they have a flying doctor,
and in an emergency we would more likely get to the hospital faster.
Certainly it isn’t any more risky than
living near a street in most places or driving in a car.

Flying doctors reached remote places by bush plane.

Wikimedia

As far as Don’s pay goes, we would be doing fine
if we didn’t have to pay back old bills incurred last winter and summer.
Even though they haven’t paid him his full pay,
we have been able to pay back a lot of those bills.
Don just wasn’t able to manage things last winter.

It is certainly wonderful to know that we have more than enough
to live on which is a situation we haven’t known.
If Don’s pay had been through, we more likely would have spent
more at Christmas, and it has forced us to save.

However it has worried me, especially when I had expected it
to be through in time for us to leave.
I sent Don a letter today to see if he can prod them.
The government is just plain slow at paying.

The man in the telegraph office was saying
there just isn’t any way to speed them up.
They are that way with all their employees.

One consolation is you know you will get it eventually,
and most people realize this, especially up North
where most of the people are government employees.

I must get to bed.
With love, Sara.

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

An Old-Time Telegraph Office

Restored CN Telegraph counter on display at the Saskatchewan Railway Museum

Wikimedia

People can still send telegrams today,
and they are an effective communication method,
especially where there is no electricity or internet access.

Having a telegram delivered to your door was an exciting event;
but always an anxiety-inducing one until you knew what it said.
Too often a telegram carried news of illness or death.

My mother experienced a great deal of stress during her life,
and she constantly struggled to keep weight on.
My father likewise experienced great stress,
but he constantly struggled to keep weight off.

Money and financial stability were always issues,
but somehow my parents realized their dream
of all five of their children graduating from university.

I wish they were alive today to see how well each of us has done.
They would know their sacrifices and difficulties were worth it.
I am forever grateful for their love and support.

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. Victoria's Times Colonist newspaper:
Thursday, September 29, 2016, p. D1
(For press photos click here and here)

2. Basal Metabolic Rate:
The B.M.R. is the amount of energy needed to support the body’s most basic functions to stay
alive. The test is meant to be performed when a person is at rest in a neutral, or non-stressful,
environment. That likely explains why Mom spent the night in the hospital. One thing the test
measures is the status of the thyroid, always a concern for my mother who had Graves Disease.

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Location of Canada's Yukon, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island
Wikimedia

Location of Smith's Cove

where Mom and We Five Were Living

Harbourview Inn

Location of Lansdowne House

Where My Father Was Living

Northern Ontario, Canada

Wikimedia

Friday, September 23, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: Keepers and Burners

Readers of my northern posts sometimes remark on
how many letters I have from my past;
but I often think about how many are lost.

My "Nana" Myrtle Pratt MacBeath
was an inveterate letter saver, as am I.
It's because of her that I have so many letters preserved.

The New Mrs. Myrtle MacBeath

Royal Stewart and Myrtle Jane Pratt MacBeath

My "Grammie" Ella Cossaboom MacDonald
burned just about every piece of paper that came to her.
I can see her still, standing by an old oil drum
at the edge of her field in Smith's Cove,
feeding letters, newspapers, and receipts to the hungry flames.
I'm sure that she used that quiet time to mull over
her day and the lives of her children and grandchildren.

Grammie with My Brother and Me

In Her Backyard

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Circa1952

Dad, too, had the burning habit,
and I know that many letters from Mom, Roy, me, and others
started wood fires in Dad and Uno's cantankerous stove.
In a few letters I have, both Dad and Nana exhort each other
to burn certain private letters.
Boy, I'd like to get my hands on some of those!

Flickr: Sarah Wynne License

My mother wrote letters constantly,
but many of hers vanished into flames.
Thank goodness for Nana,
or I would have hardly any of Mom's from this time.

Thursday, January 26, 1961
My mother wrote to her mother-in-law, Myrtle MacBeath:

Dear Mother:
Another week has gone, and I must get a line off to you.
I went to the hospital Tuesday for the B.M.R.
(basal metabolic rate) and arrived home Wednesday.
I won’t know for a while what the result of the B.M.R. is,
but I imagine it is all right.

The children have had colds this week; the weather changed so quickly.
I am not sending them to school until Monday.
It has been so cold outside, the worst we’ve had this winter.
The children are fine now. Their colds weren’t much.

Don has been writing. He seems to be very contented with his work.
I have been packing dishes and summer clothes in case we leave.
Mostly though, I have been washing.
It’s a big problem without the dryer.

Uncle Cecil drops in to see how we are.
Grammy and Aunt Nan have both had colds.
Also Mary Lou and David. I guess it's on the go.

Louise is already talking about her birthday, and of course, Valentine’s Day.
She talked the school Red Cross into collecting clothes
for the Indians and sending them to the Red Cross.
The Red Cross evidently will send them wherever they request.

I must close now and write to Don.
With Love,
Sara

A Rare Photo of My Mother

on Lake Attawapiskat

Near Lansdowne House, 1961

Photo by Donald MacBeath

I don't know how my mother did it:
five kids, ten and under, down with colds,
drying clothes outside in the winter air
on a clothesline that ran to an old apple tree,
packing for a move she wasn't sure we'd make,
squeezing in an overnight hospital stay for a test,
no car, and a daughter crazy for parties and Valentines.

Thank goodness for my Great Uncle Cecil,
who was hoofing it up and down the road checking on
his mother-in-law, Sara Cossaboom,
and his niece, Sara MacBeath,
not to mention caring for his own wife, Nan,
and looking in on his daughter-in-law
Mary Lou and his nephew David.

Meanwhile Kelsey, Mary Lou's husband,
the one person in the bunch with a car,
was keeping four households going
with grocery and medicine runs
and taking my mother to and from the hospital.
I miss those times of multiple generations
close by and helping each other out.

As for my Red Cross project ~
Never under estimate the power of a ten-year-old idealist!!!

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

Kelsey and I
Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia
on the Annapolis Basin
off the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia
Photo Copy by Roy MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Notes:
1. Basal Metabolic Rate:
The B.M.R. is the amount of energy needed to support the body’s most basic functions to stay
alive. The test is meant to be performed when a person is at rest in a neutral, or non-stressful,
environment. That likely explains why Mom spent the night in the hospital. One thing the test
measures is the status of the thyroid, always a concern for my mother who had Graves Disease.

2. Smith's Cove People:
Grammy: My great grandmother, Sara Cossaboom
Aunt Nan: My grandmother Ella's sister (both were daughters of Sara Cossaboom)
Uncle Cecil: My Great Aunt Nan's husband; my substitute grandfather, since mine had died.
Mary Lou: My "aunt" who was married to Nan and Cecil's only surviving child, Kelsey.
David: My cousin, son of Mary Lou and Kelsey. I adored my "Uncle" Kelsey.

My Great Grandmother, Sara Cossaboom

In Her Backyard with Sweet Peas Running Amok

Smith's Cove, NovaScotia, Canada

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Canada Wikimedia

Location of Smith's Cove

Harbourview Inn

Smith's Cove on the Annapolis Basin

Birch Villa Cottages

Lansdowne House, Now Neskantaga

Northern Ontario, Canada

Wikimedia

Friday, September 16, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: It's a Go!!!

Well, here I am, temporarily writing from a new place,
smaller than my father's shack in Lansdowne House,
but with many more amenities than his fifty plus years ago:
Starting with awesome communication and hot running water!

Home-Away-From-Home

Helm's Inn,

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

September 15, 2016

In addition to the usual edition of his Lansdowne Letters,

my father sometimes wrote additional letters beyond his regular circle,

like to his cousins in Prince Edward Island.

This is one such letter ~

Forgive me if it includes some things written about in previous letters ~

But I've been traveling, plus celebrating our arrival in Victoria

with pizza and drinks at the Sticky Wicket ~

so this is the best I can do tonight!

Our Substitute for Parkway Bar and Grill

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

September 15, 2016

And it revealed something about Father Ouimet that I had long forgotten.

Father Ouimet was an iconic figure in my life,

and I will love and admire him always.

Saturday, January 21, 1961
My father wrote a group letter to several of his cousins:

Hi There:
It has been quite some time some time since I have been doing any writing to you.
The typewriter went on the fritz just as freeze-up started,
and I just received the necessary replacement parts about two weeks ago.
I have spent the ensuing two weeks catching up some
very pressing official correspondence that I had to attend to.

During the time I was without a typewriter,
I confined my letter writing to Sara, Mother, Sara’s mother, and Aunt Maude.

The reason for writing to the first on the list should be obvious
and to the second should be understandable.
As for the third, I am one of those lucky and unusual characters
that is on good relations with my mother-in-law.
Besides, I enjoy writing to and receiving letters from Mrs. MacDonald.

I see that I am still suffering from hoof and mouth disease
(every time I open my mouth, I put my foot in it),
for I have inferred that I don’t like writing to
and receiving letters from you, which is not the truth.
The thing I am trying to say is that Mrs. MacDonald is really
a member of my immediate family, like my mother.

Oh hell, let’s drop this subject -
I really shouldn’t have started it in the first place.
I think you all know what I am trying to say anyway.

As for writing to Aunt Maude, she has been very sick,
and letters are as beneficial to her as medicine.

I think that the big news in the MacBeath family
is that we are going to be reunited in the near future.
Sara and the children are coming up to Lansdowne House
to join me on 18 Feb 61.

I have managed to secure permission to occupy a house at Lansdowne House
which belongs to the Department of Lands and Forests. It is small, but adequate.
It has two bedrooms, a nice kitchen and living room, and a bathroom.
It is completely furnished, including a propane range,
a kerosene fridge, and a gasoline washing machine in the kitchen.

The Forestry Shack

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada

Sketch by Maureen McRae

I don’t have to pay any rent for it,
and the Department of Indian Affairs will supply the oil for the furnace.
The only thing I will have to pay for is the cost of the propane gas,
which should come to about $15.00 a month.

The house has no electricity or running water,
but I have arranged to get a line run over from the nursing station.
This will give me 110-volt power in the living room.
I should be able to use an electric kettle, iron, and a tri-light.

I’m wrong about the running water.
It does have running water – whenever I run to the lake after some.
However, everybody in Lansdowne House is in the same boat.
When they build my new teacherage next summer,
there will be running water and electricity.
There will also be three bedrooms in the house.

Incidentally, I like this place so much that
I’m going to stay up here for several winters.
I had a visit from the school inspector,
and he was most pleased with my work.
He said that I was a very successful Indian teacher,
and he would be delighted to have me stay
at Lansdowne House for as long as I wish to stay.

He told me that he has visited all the schools in his district
and that my pupils have made a showing equal to all of them,
and better than most. He also told me that my pupils were speaking
more and better English than most of the schools in his district.

Freeze-up was quite an experience for me.
It was the first time that I had ever been cut off from civilization,
and cut off we were.
The only way I could have gotten out during freeze-up
would have been by dog team.
It would have meant a trip of over 150 miles
and would have taken over a week.

I never saw water freeze over so quickly in my life as it did up here.
On a Saturday afternoon or late evening around the first of November,
I went across from the island to the mainland and back in a canoe,
and on the following Monday morning, I walked across the same stretch of water.
And I didn’t venture across till I saw a rather heavy Indian
cross it with a four-dog team and a heavily laden sleigh.
Most of the Indians were walking across on Sunday night.

I suppose that with a rapid freeze like this, you are wondering
why the freeze-up last for four or five weeks.
It is all on account of the airplanes.
They have to have either open water or nine inches of ice to land on.

It only requires two inches to support a man walking.
The first two or three inches form very rapidly,
but as the ice gets thicker, new ice forms more slowly.
Snow, of which we had several heavy falls,
also hinders the formation of ice.

We had a week of just perfect skating up here before the snow came.
All the whites, except Bill Mitchell who is an old country Scot
who never learned to skate, were out trying out their skills.

These skating skills ranged
all the way from mine,
which is almost non-existing
to the Father’s.

The Father had a chance,
before he became a priest,
to become a professional hockey player
with an N.H.L. team.

Father Maurice Ouimet
Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, 1960
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

However in spite of my limited ability, I enjoyed myself a whole lot.
One afternoon, after school, I skated about five miles
down the lake and back. It was wonderful.
There was no wind and the temperature was about five below.
It was just a perfect day to be alive.

A couple of paragraphs back I mentioned a dog team;
and now, I would like to relate to you something very funny
that I saw involving one poor Indian and his dog team.

This dog team was evidently just newly broken to the sleigh,
or the Indian was inexperienced at handling a team.
For sure, as you will shortly see, there was something amiss.

I watched the Indian load his team at the co-op store
on the island and head his team toward the lake.
Between the store and the lake there are twelve trees,
and each dog investigated each tree.
This made for 48 stops before they hit the ice.

After they got out on the ice, each dog decided to defecate,
and each one did it at a different time. This meant four more stops.
After this, there were a couple of more stops,
caused I think, by fights among the dogs.

The Indian must have been pretty exasperated by this time,
but when the team got up by my school, real disaster struck,
in the form of a female dog in heat
who happened to cross the path of the team.
The team must have been composed of young healthy males,
for the whole shebang took off hell-a-whooping after this poor little female.

The Indian couldn’t hold them back at all,
and the last I saw of the outfit, it had left the ice
and was heading into the deepest part of the bush -
dogs, sleigh, Indian, and everything.

I heard later that it was several days before that poor Indian
finally got his team rounded up, his sleigh repaired,
and was able to resume his trip to the traplines.

Dog Team Running on the Ice

Pixabay

I was quite amused watching an Indian training a young dog to the sleigh the other day.
The pup didn’t take too kindly to the whole thing,
and the Indian had one hell of a time getting him hitched in the team.
The Indian hitched him in the middle of an experienced team.
The pup was quite stubborn though and lay on his back
and stuck all four paws straight up in the air.
This didn’t hold up the team though, and they started off
at a real fast clip and dragged the pup about a half a mile on his back
before he managed to get his feet under him.

That cured him of that habit right quick.
For although he still runs away if he sees the Indian coming with the harness,
once he is in the team he behaves himself and pulls his share of the load.

I have not managed as yet, to drive a dog team,
but I have hopes of accomplishing this feat before too long.
When I do, I’ll let you all know about it.

I have, however, had my initiation on snowshoes,
and find that they are a novel means of locomotion to say the least.

Novel Locomotion

Dad on Snowshoes

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, 1961

I went out one Sunday with the nurse (male)
and one of the DOT boys taking water samples.
We only walked about five miles on snowshoes,
and although the temperature was 25 below,
I was soaked with perspiration by the time the afternoon was over.
I happened to weight myself before the trip started and after it was over.
I lost three pounds through perspiring.

Talking about weight, I have lost over forty pounds since I came to Lansdowne House.
I weighed 239 pounds when I arrived here, and I only weigh 192 pounds now.
Not bad, eh? I feel an awful lot better for it.

Well, I guess I have to sign off now and write a letter to Sara.
This has been one of my multiple letters (three copies),
and I hope the people who get the carbon copies can make them out.
I am including a map of Lansdowne House with this letter.
It is only a rough map, but the proportions are fairly good.
It should give you some idea of our fair community.

Bye now,
Love, Don.

Hi Don and Anna:
Hope you can make out this carbon copy.
I do believe that my typing is improving, eh what?
Don

Winter Night, Hudson Bay Lowlands

Flickr: J.H. License

I think the main reason I used this "summary-of-past-events" letter

my father wrote to his cousins is because of his mention

of Father Ouimet's skating abilities and his path not taken

to a career as a professional hockey player.

This was a new piece to the "mystery" of Father Ouimet,

for I had not read this letter before.

I've never understood the concept of being called to serve God,

not having experienced that pull myself.

I simply accept that some people have this powerful feeling

that overrides so many things most of us can't imagine living without.

The more I learn about Father Ouimet, the more I am intrigued by him.

I wish I could talk to him and ask him about what compelled him

to devote his life to a small Indian community in a very remote place,

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Location of Lansdowne House

Known Today as Neskantaga

Wikipedia

One of My Father's Sketched Maps of Lansdowne House

#15 is the location of our future home in the forestry shack.

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, 1961

Friday, September 9, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: Changes

That northern time, when my father wrote his Lansdowne Letters,
can feel as close as a breath I took a moment ago;
and then, suddenly, an ordinary sentence or two of my father's
can slam me with the weight of a half century of change.

Winter Night, Northwestern Ontario

Flickr: Jeremiah John McBride License

On Thursday, January 19, 1961
My father wrote to his extended family:

Hi There:
I can never seem to get a good edition off on Thursday,
because I usually have so much official correspondence
to do that night. This Thursday is no exception.

However, I think that this week’s output is quite respectable
considering the curse and everything.
It's not every editor that works with such a handicap, is it?

I’ll have to beg off tonight though,
because I am swamped with correspondence.
If I had my own typewriter,
I might be able to write more, because I could
bang out my correspondence on the typewriter.
I can really rattle along on one now.

However Uno wants to write one short letter on the machine,
so that means that it will be occupied for the rest of the evening.

I don’t see why he doesn’t write his official correspondence by hand.
It wouldn’t take him nearly so long, and they would look a whole lot neater,
considering the amount of mistakes he makes.
Either this, or allow me to type his official correspondence for him.

I type a lot for Mike and even compose his letters for him.
He just gives me a general idea of what he wants to say and sets me loose.

Well Uno is beginning to pace the floor, so I better sign off.
Bye now, till next week.

Love, Don.

Winter Night, Hudson Bay Lowlands

Flickr: Emmanuel Milou License

I type a lot for Mike ...
Mike was the only nurse in remote Lansdowne House,
and he provided basic medical services for people in the community.
Today it's hard for me to imagine that my father often went
to the nursing station and typed medical letters and records for Mike.

Just this morning I went to my doctor's office for an appointment.
I had to sign in on a sticker on a clipboard when I arrived.
That sticker was removed before another arriving patient could see it.
I usually take my medical privacy for granted
and forget how different things were even a few years ago.

Here was my father typing medical information
about people he knew in that tiny place.
That's how my father discovered the medical record
of the Indian woman possessed of a Wintigo,
whose tragic story I shared in a recent post.

Those remote nursing stations scattered across the North
may have operated with a rough-and-tumble casualness,
but they were no laughing matter.

Life was precarious in the far-flung First Nations villages,
and the presence of a nurse could mean life rather than death.

My Father Collecting Water Samples in the Bush

as He Works with Lansdowne House's Nurse

Photo by Mike O'Flaherty

Just two days ago,
I found a sadly prescient letter of Father Ouimet's,
as I browsed through piles and piles of old papers.
He wrote to my parents in his terse English
of the nursing station and community
on December 18, 1982:

"We lost our Nursing Station -
Government cutting on expenses.
The nurses moved to Fort Hope -
but they keep a clinic over here -
coming every 2 weeks for 3 days.

"School still going - lots of kids in town.
A few accidents -
a girl 21 years old committed suicide
(Tim W.'s daughter called Lynn).

"Another young fellow was drunk.
Made too much fire -
Burnt his home and himself on September 21/82.
He was 29 - Joe S. Married with a wife and two young kids..."

The Best of Friends: Father Ouimet with My Father

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Fall 1960

Now Lansdowne House has the Rachael Bessie Sakanee Memorial Health Center.
It coordinates health care services through the community's newest nursing station,
and it provides a variety of physical and mental health services,
including access to specialized medical care via videoconferencing.

From a single nurse with a shortwave radio
to a nursing station and modern health center with videoconferencing,
health care has dramatically changed in fifty years.

But all that change doesn't much matter
when someone commits suicide
or has a senseless, alcohol-fueled accident.

There is still a long way to go to resolve
the complex health issues in the Canadian North.

Notes:
1. "Considering the curse and everything"
My father was cursed by the grandmother of one of his Indian students: TLL: Cursed.

2. "possessed of a wintigo"
My father wrote of a mentally-deranged woman who lived and died tragically: TLL: Cursed.

3. Rachael Bessie Sakanee Memorial Health Center:
Services

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Location of Lansdowne House

Known Today as Neskantaga

Wikipedia