The Lansdowne Letters: Nubile Sons and Daughters

When I arrived in Lansdowne House in late February, 1961,
I was a month shy of eleven, and my parents were already concerned about my age.

The Hudson's Bay Post
Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario
Winter 1960-61

Photo by Don MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

They were looking ahead and anticipating one of the most difficult problems
they would have to solve, a problem that troubled all white families
with growing children in the remote communities of northern Canada.
What to do with nubile sons and daughters?


        

Roy and I

Not Quite Nubile, But Getting There

School Photos, Fall 1960

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

In my mother's letter of March 9, 1961
that I shared in my last post,
she wrote a little about the background
of the Hudson's Bay manager's wife
Mrs. Mitchell.

Mrs. Mitchell, Wife of  Bill Mitchell
Photo by Don MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

My mother mentioned that the Mitchell's had three children,
a boy and a girl in their twenties and a twelve year old son.
What Mom didn't relate was that the young Mitchell boy
did not live with his parents in Lansdowne House.

I have no idea where their son was living
whether with relatives or at a boarding school,
but guaranteed, he was away attending school on the Outside.
It wasn't just a question of their son obtaining a better education.
It was also about allowing him to associate with white children.

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

My father addressed
the problem
of older children
in his handbook, 
The Northern School Teacher:   














One of the biggest drawbacks a married teacher
faces in the bush is the rearing of his children.  
The teacher is faced with one of two equally onerous choices.
He can keep the children with him in the bush,
or he can send the children out to a boarding school.  

If he keeps them with him, he deprives them of
the association with young people of their own race and kind,
and of educational advantages which are just not available in the bush.  

If he sends them out to boarding school, he deprives himself and his wife
of that wonderful relationship between parents and children,
which should be the God-given rights of parents and children the world over.

This particular problem and these dreadful choices
are not peculiar to the Indian teacher.
They are the lot of all married couples who elect
to spend their lives in isolation,
people like Hudson’s Bay personnel,
Department of Transport employees,
free traders, and missionaries.

Apparently association with one’s own kind is considered more vital
to a child’s upbringing than association with parents,
for it is always the choice of sending children out to school which is finally taken.

It would have been my decision, too, if fortune had decreed
that I was to spend the rest of my life in the bush.

The problem is always intensified,
and the decision takes on a sense of greater urgency,
if one has a nubile son or daughter;
for, wonderful as the bush Indian is,
and some of them are very fine people,
white children from educated families and Indian youths from the bush
have nothing in common except sex.  

A union of two young people from such wildly divergent
racial, religious, and socioeconomical backgrounds
can only lead to heartbreak and tragedy.

A Growing Family

We Five Just Before Heading North

Photo by Sara MacBeath

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

My parents were confident that my father could meet Roy's and my educational needs,

and they assumed they had several years before they were forced 

to send Roy and me to live with relatives or to boarding school.

What they didn't anticipate was that their sensitive young daughter

would form close friendships with Ojibway members of the opposite sex  

and that those friendships would have long-lasting consequences. 

  

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue


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

All Rights Reserved

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Lansdowne House Lies in the Wilderness

West of James and Hudson Bays

Flickr:  Stuart Rankin   License

Lansdowne House 
Northern Ontario, Canada

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