The Lansdowne Letters: A Difficult Day

Thursday, March 9, 1961 must have been a quite day for my parents.
They went from an uneventful and enjoyable evening
playing bridge with Bill and Rhea Mitchell the night before
to the "Starving Indians of Lansdowne House" story
exploding in their lives on the 9th.

Events happened quickly, and I have been trying to piece them together
based on my parents' letters and my fragmented memories.

A Rare Photo of Our Parents with Us (before Bertie)

Ready to Ride on the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, circa 1958

Dad and Mom (back) with Donnie, Roy, Louise (Me), and Barbie

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

As best as I can reconstruct at this point, 
Mr. Gowan, the Indian Agent from the Nakina Agency Office, 
flew into and out of Lansdowne House that Thursday morning
to question the community's two teachers, Uno Manilla and my father,
about the newspaper articles hitting the Canadian press.

Upon returning to Nakina a confused and frustrated Gowan
then read a newspaper article naming my father
as the Lansdowne House teacher writing letters
about the deplorable living conditions of the Indians.

My father said in his March 16th extended family letter
that Gowan immediately dispatched a "real snarly letter" to him.
In his unpublished handbook my father wrote
that Gowan got on the air and blistered the airways
because Gowan's opinion of him was "certainly not of the highest."

Since the only way to immediately dispatch a letter
to Lansdowne House at that time was by telegraph,
I'm guessing that Gowan fired off his letter by telegraph to the Hudson's Bay post
and followed it up by a blistering shortwave radio call to my father at the post. 

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

That prompted my sometimes fiery-tempered father
to write his own "snarly" and "sarcastic" letter
to Gowan which, fortunately, he decided not to mail.

I imagine him at his desk at school
hurriedly scratching it down on paper 
in his characteristic, almost unreadable handwriting,
then balling it up and pitching it into a wastebasket.







At that point he returned home to find out if his wife could shed any light
on how the content of his personal letters had landed in the press.

My mother was correct when she raised the possibility
that the "Starving Indians of Lansdowne House" story
had its origin in my fifth grade Red Cross Project
in tiny Smith's Cove Elementary School in rural Nova Scotia.

The realization was staggering to my parents.

They called me in from playing outside,
and in their panic they hit me with a barrage of questions:
"What did you say?  What did you do?  Who did you tell?"

My agitated father paced back and forth in our tiny kitchen,
unable to contain his nervous energy,
while my worried mother stood by the kitchen counter, 
her dark eyes large in her pale face.

  

My Parents' Graduation Photos

Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, 1950  

    My mother did not actually graduate until 1967 

because of the sudden death of Dad's father and my arrival.

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Their dismay was palpable, and I knew that something bad had happened,
something that shook my parents' confidence and could upend our lives.

"The Indians, what did you say about the Indians?" my father barked.

"In your speech to your class, during your Red Cross Project,"
my mother added more calmly.

My mind rocketed back to that first week in January
when I had won a prize in school for giving the best speech in my class,
that speech that initiated my Red Cross Project,
that speech that mentioned the starving baby in the tikinogin,
the one with a distended belly and matchstick arms and legs.

"I just raised clothes for the starving Indians,"
I cried, dissolving into frightened tears.

Drawing on the unfathomable reservoir
of strength and courage
she possessed throughout her life,
my mother went to me
and folded me into her arms.

"It's okay, Weesie.  
It's going to be okay.  
You've done nothing wrong."

Her soothing words calmed
my father down enough
that we were able to sit
at the kitchen table
and sort out what had happened.



Sara Margaret (MacDonald) MacBeath
Acadia University, Wolfville, Circa 1950
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved





I had been sharing my father's Lansdowne Letters in my class
at school throughout the fall and winter. 

I gave a speech about the starving Indians in Lansdowne House in early January.
It impacted my classmates and teacher enough 
that we decided to help the Indians as a Junior Red Cross project.

We wanted to collect food, but my teacher Miss Sidey suggested
that clothes might be more practical to donate to the Red Cross
because they wouldn't spoil and were easier to transport.
We organized a clothing drive and gathered
five huge cartons of winter clothing for the Indians.

Meanwhile Dad had obtained permission
from the Department of Lands and Forests 
for us to live in their house in Lansdowne House 
and suddenly we were on our way North,
just as my teacher was arranging to send the cartons of clothing
to the provincial Red Cross headquarters in Halifax.

Immigrant Children with Red Cross Port Workers

at Halifax's Famous Pier 21

Nova Scotia, Canada, 1948

Wikimedia

With all that my mother had to do to pack and to prepare
to travel to the North with five young children,
she never had a chance to talk with Miss Sidey before we left.
My parents weren't sure how the press got the story,
but it must have been through my teacher Miss Sidey.

Dad returned to the Hudson's Bay post to talk the situation over with Bill Mitchell
while Mom got my brother and sisters inside and fed.
That was my mother, comforting and serving food while weathering any storm.

When Mitchell suggested that Dad fly out to talk to Gowan personally,
he must have hitched a free ride on an Austin Airways flight
that happened to pass through Lansdowne House later that afternoon.
My mother wrote that the pilot flew low over our house
to bid us good-bye as the plane headed for Nakina.

A Modern DeHavilland DC-6 "Twin Otter"

The North Relied on Bush Pilots and Their Bush Planes

Flickr: Sahtu Wildlife   License

I think the way people rallied around my father
and helped our family during this difficult time
was a measure of how well-liked and well-respected he was.

They all pitched in:
from Mitchell and Austin Airways,
to Mike who came to light the kerosene lamps for us that evening,
to Maureen who watched Bertie the following day while my mother taught,
to Mike, Duncan, and Milt who were ready to bring water to us 
if Dad were delayed by bad weather in Nakina.

While Dad spent an anxious night at the Nakina Hotel,
Mom put Barbie and Bertie to bed
and organized Donnie, Roy, and me to write letters to Nana.
Then she kept her promise to Dad and wrote a letter to his mother
sharing the family news, but never mentioning why Dad had to fly to Nakina.

Anticipating her first time teaching she wrote to her mother-in-law:
"I am teaching school tomorrow morning, perhaps in the afternoon too.  ...  
It will be quite an experience for I imagine the Indian children won't talk to me.
All the Indians here are very friendly."

In my Lansdowne Letter posts, I've shared much more about my father than my mother,
largely because I am working with his letters, papers, and photographs
and because he was the Indian teacher with the career
and she was the one at home running the household.

My Mother and Father Leaving Smith's Cove Baptist Church

in a Rain of Confetti after Their Wedding

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, September 4, 1948

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

But, like many mothers around the world, my mother was remarkable.
In Lansdowne House she faced challenges from poor health,
to financial insecurity, to managing a home with with no running water or electricity.
Yet through it all she sheltered us in an environment rich with love, security, and happiness.

From the moment she told me, "It's okay, Weesie.  It's going to be okay," 
she acted as if it were, hiding all the worries swirling inside her.
She distracted us with letter writing, even as she anticipated walking into
a multi-grade classroom filled with Ojibway children and four of her own ~
with no training, no experience, and no time to prepare. 

The gift she gave me
that day was reassurance.

I was able to return to
more appropriate pursuits
like anticipating my birthday party
and tobogganing outside,
rather than worrying
about the newspaper scandal
and jeopardizing my father's job.

A Small Moment of Happiness
My Mother and Me
Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, Summer 1952
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

My Parents, Don and Sara MacBeath (right)

with Unknown Friends

Acadia University, Wolfville, Circa 1948

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Meanwhile "my" five large cartons had traveled
to Red Cross Headquarters in Halifax.
Unsure what to do with them, the Red Cross
contacted the RCAF Maritime Command in Halifax.

Because of the apparent urgency of the situation in Lansdowne House,
and because my father was a former officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force,
the Commanding Air Officer of Maritime Command
authorized the airlifting of the cartons of clothing to RCAF Transport Command
in Trenton in southern Ontario en route to Lansdowne House.

Modern Royal Canadian Air Force

Boeing CC-117 Globemaster

a military transport plane on approach to Canadian Forces Base, Trenton, 2009 

Wikipedia

Note:  To see an RCAF Maritime Command plane of 1961 vintage click here.

To be continued ...

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue


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

All Rights Reserved

Notes:  

1.  Bill and Rhea Mitchell:

     Bill was the manager of the Hudson's Bay Post in Lansdowne House and married to Rhea.

2.  My father's unpublished handbook:
     The Northern School Teacher:  A Hand Book To Be Issued To All New
     Entrants To The Teaching Profession In The Indian Schools In The Sioux Lookout Indian Agency, 1966.

3.  Telegraphs and Shortwave Radios:
     To the best of my knowledge, the only place that had both a telegraph machine and a shortwave radio
     in Lansdowne House was the Hudson's Bay Post.  Because of its nature, Bill Mitchell would have gotten
     the telegram to my father immediately. 

4.  Prize Winning Speech:  The Lansdowne Letters: Disappointing News
   

5.  My Red Cross Project:  The Lansdowne Letters: Keepers and Burners

  

6.  Distended Belly:  The Lansdowne Letters: Cruel Realities

   

7.  Miss Sidey:

     Miss Isabel Sarah Sidey, my fifth grade teacher at Smith's Cove Elementary School.  Obituary

8.   Mike O'Flaherty:  

      Mike was the nurse at the nursing station in Lansdowne House and a good friend of my parents.

9.  Duncan and Maureen McRae:

     Duncan worked for the Department of Transport, and one of his duties was running the weather

     station in Lansdowne House.  He and his wife Maureen were good friends with my parents.

10.  Milt MacMahon:

      Milt MacMahon was the other DOT employee in Lansdowne House.

11.  Airlift:

      Information from The Digby Courier article:  "Smith's Cove Residents Aid Family in the North,"  March 16,

      1961.

12.  Accuracy:

     I am not a trained historical researcher, but I am doing my best to track down accurate and corroborating sources.

     If there are any mistakes in facts I've presented in this post, they are mine alone.

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Route Map for Austin Airways, 1985

with Lansdowne House west of James Bay

Wikipedia

Location of Smith's Cove and Halifax

Wikimedia

Location of Canadian Forces Base Trenton

MLA 7th Edition:  Haycock, Ronald G.  Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

  The Canadian Encyclopedia.  Toronto:  Historical Canada, 2006.

Web 8 Feb 2006.

Canada   Wikimedia