The Lansdowne Letters: Adapting to Changes

In my last Lansdowne Letters post, I shared part of a letter
my father wrote to our extended family describing our early days together
in the remote northern community on Lake Attawapiskat.

My parents were really happy to have us together as a family again;
but even more so, I think, they were delighted to be a couple once more.

Sometimes in the busyness of our lives, we make the mistake
of taking ordinary life and its comforting rhythms for granted.
Much of life is everyday moments, and we should remember
that it is these small moments with our loved ones that come to mean the most.

Path to Our Water Hole

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada 

Winter 1961

Painting by Donald MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Thursday, March 2, 1961 ~ Continued...
My father wrote to our extended family:

Sara is looking, and I think feeling, a whole lot better since she arrived in the North.
She is not so jumpy, and in spite of all our entertaining, she is more rested.

She has adopted about two or three of the Indian dogs and feeds them every day!
How those dogs love Sara.
They really recognize a sucker when they run across one.
Seriously though, they are starved,
and we only feed them what we would otherwise throw away.

Canadian Inuit Dogs:  by fgiamma  (can share on social media)

The children are a great help to me
carrying up the water every day, especially Louise.

Roy has begun to find the whole procedure something of a bind.
The ingenuity he displays in inventing excuses
to get out of carrying water amazes me.
I have never seen anyone who can dig up more aches and pains
than he can at water hauling time.

I make him do his share though, for I don't think it hurts
for children to have certain chores at home.

I never allow the children to go to the water hole alone,
and I always fill the buckets for them.
I wouldn't let them near it alone, for it is quite big,
and I am afraid that they could fall in.
They are forbidden to go near it except when I am with them.

A Strategic Roy

Notice how he has pulled the blanket to bring his toys closer.

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, Summer 1952

Photo by Sara MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

A Different Approach to Life

I, on the other hand, had to be constantly tied down with my ubiquitous harness and rope.

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, Summer 1952

Photo by Sara MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Thursday night is regular weigh-in time for the MacBeaths.
Sara has gained between two and three pounds since she came up here.
We are stuffing food into her just about every time she turns around,
and in addition, I have her taking Cod Live Oil twice a day.

My weight shot up seven pounds the first week Sara was here.
I couldn’t resist Sara’s home cooking I guess,
especially her lovely homemade bread.

However, the intensity has worn off such temptations now,
and I have gone back on my diet.
In the last two days, I have managed to shed
over a pound of what I had gained back.
I am going to loose it all, for I feel so good when I am light
that I don’t want to ever be heavy again.

Honeymoon Days

My father always struggled to take weight off,

while my mother struggled to keep it on.

Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, Early September 1948

Photos by Don and Sara MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

For the benefit of my Island subscribers, I should mention
that Sara has become an aunt again.
Louise gave birth to a baby girl the last of January.
Most likely Sara has written everyone about it,
but just in case she hasn’t, I thought I would let you know.
At the same time, I want to send
belated congratulations to the proud mother and father.

It has been snowing quite heavily for the last two or three days.
The damned stuff is just cascading down.

Going to school today I was plowing knee deep in the snow,
and this is on a beaten path yet.  
If I strayed off the path, I would sink almost to my waist.
I know, I made this blunder once today when I was going for water.

You should see poor Gretchen in the snow.
She literally swims through it.
Even Gretchen seems to like the North and
is looking better since she arrived up here.


Bark Post










Louise has bought some beads at the Bay, and she is getting
Anne O’Flaherty to show her how to do Indian beadwork.
She is all excited about the whole thing.
Poor Louise, she gets so excited about things like this, doesn’t she?

We have really been isolated since Sara arrived.
I sent for some aerial wire, but it hasn’t arrived yet.
I haven’t the foggiest idea what is going on in the world.
For all I know, there could be a war in progress.
Even when I do get the papers and magazines, the news is a week old.
I will be glad when we get the radio functioning again.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Chicago Black Hawks 

Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, circa 1961

Wikimedia

Amphibious Assault Ship USS Boxer (LPH-4) 

at Norfolk, Virginia (USA), in 1961

Wikimedia

Two things have happened simultaneously.
I have run out of things to say,
and I have remembered that I have to put oil in the stove,
so I’ll just let the distaff side of the team take over from me.

Bye now,
Love, Don. 

In defense of Roy,  I feel I should set the record straight regarding hauling water.
At first Dad did accompany us to our water hole,
clambering down the hill on the snow-packed path to the frozen lake below.

He would grab the ice pick
stashed upright by our water hole
and chop up the inch or so of ice
that had frozen over it
since the day before.

Then he would fill our metal buckets
and send us on our way
back up the hill
to the forestry shack.



Flickr:  Thirteen of Clubs   License 





This did not last very long.  
Hauling water for a family of seven is a time-consuming task,
as well as physically challenging.
My father soon developed a bad back.

Dad fortuitously realized that Roy and I were
responsible enough and capable of hauling water on our own,
and we two very different people soon inherited the task.

Roy, from his earliest days, had demonstrated
an aptitude for accomplishing tasks

by expending the least amount of energy possible.

One of our family stories is how Mom first realized that Roy was very smart

by observing him pulling his blanket toward him so he could reach his toys.

For him, hauling water was a chore and there were better ways to spend his time.

I, from my earliest days,

had demonstrated an aptitude for

covering a lot of territory very fast.

It was Roy, just a few years ago,

who pointed out to me

that almost every photo of me as a child

has me harnessed to a rope

trailing out of the photograph.

Me in My Harness Carrying My Coiled Rope
Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, Summer 1952
Photo by Sara MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

For me, hauling water was an adventure, and I loved the thrill

of chopping the ice hole open and filling the buckets.

At first Roy tried to wiggle out of the chore, 

but soon he had a legitimate reason for avoiding the task.

He developed serious ear infections and tonsillitis
after arriving in Lansdowne House,

so he was frequently too sick to haul water.

These bouts worsened and resulted in an operation to treat his mastoiditis

and remove his tonsils in the Sioux Lookout Hospital about a year later.

Meanwhile I carried on hauling the family water,

sometimes with the help of my younger sisters Donnie and Barbie.

Barbie, like me, had a lot of fun hauling her tiny buckets up from the lake.

Every bucket had to be strained through cheesecloth
draped over the water drum near the door in our kitchen.

Then my mother would purify it
with a few drops of Javex liquid bleach.

Soon I took over the purification job too.

I would haul every drop of that water again,

if I could go back

and relive those days with my family.

They were the best of times;

but then, being with my family is always wonderful.

Together at Christmas

Donnie and Roy, Louise (me) and Barb, with Bertie in front.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 12/25/2016

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue


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

All Rights Reserved

Notes:  
1.   Louise's Baby:  
      My mother's sister Louise and her husband Carl Lindholm
      added daughter Julie to their growing family at the end of January, 1961.

2.   Isolation:  
      As I recall there were several short wave radios in Lansdowne House at the time, at
      the Hudson's Bay post, the Roman Catholic Mission, the Nursing Station, and the Department of
      Transport weather station.  These short wave radios were the only means of communication
      with the Outside between bush plane flights.  The white people all had transistor radios, and
      as soon as Dad's aerial wire arrived, our transistor radio provided us with current news and music.
      I might as well have been on the dark side of the moon, for my world had shrunk to the visible
      horizons of white ice and black spruce against the sky.  I didn't pay much attention to the
      transistor radio until I became a fan of WLS Chicago and it's Hit Parade a few months later.

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Lansdowne House

The Hudson's Bay Post and Department of Transport Buildings and Houses, 1960

Photo by Sara MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

A Quick Sketch of Lansdowne House by My Father

It shows the location of the Hudson's Bay, the Department of Transport, 

and the Roman Catholic Mission on the Father's Island.

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Lansdowne House, Ontario

Wikimedia

Map of Canada

Wikipedia