The Lansdowne Letters: Life Disrupted

In my last post, I shared the letter
my mother had written to her mother-in-law
on Thursday June 8, 1961.

She had spent that evening writing letters and stressing over completing the grocery list 
going out on the next day's mail plane.

She would never see those groceries arrive in Lansdowne House on Friday, June 16th.

Wading in Attawapiskat Lake, June 4, 1961
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue All Rights Reserved

By Monday afternoon, June 12th, Lansdowne House was a memory
for Mom, us five kids; and Gretchen, and Uno and Dad
were going to have a well-stocked larder by the end of the week.

Back to the Brown Cabin

by the Church for My Father

The Father's Island

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada

Photo by Father Maurice Ouimet

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

On Wednesday, June 14, 1961
My mother wrote to her mother-in-law,
Myrtle MacBeath:

Dear Mother:
Well, here we are in Lac Seul.
I imagine that Don gave you
all the details.

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

I arrived in Sioux Lookout and Mr. Caswell told me Mike had a place for us
at Lac Seul which we could have until we could find a place in Sioux.

It is very rugged here, but very beautiful.  Lac Seul is a huge lake with many islands.
There are beautiful birch trees on the islands, not as much scrub as at Lansdowne House.

We have a little house with three rooms in it,
a large one for a bunkbed, a double bed, and a crib.
In the living room is a cot for me.

The kitchen is large with cupboards, a table, and a wood stove.
It is something like in Margaretsville.
There is a nice sandy beach near here.

We are staying in a little cottage near Anne's home (Mike, the nurse's wife).
There are two of Anne's brothers home now, so they get us whatever we need.
They brought me in an icebox tonight.

The Garrick Home

Fritz Garrick, Mrs. Daley (Minister's wife),

Mina (Fritz's sister), various nieces and nephews

Summer, 1961

Two Point, Lac Seul, Northwestern Ontario, Canada

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Anne's uncle made sling shots for all the children.
They are so good to the children, and so the children are having a marvelous time.
Today they helped them paint a canoe.

I want to get this off in the mail tomorrow.
I know you will want to hear how we arrived, etc.
There is a boat that comes with the mail on Mondays and Thursdays.

We are all very easy here anyway.
I will be glad when Don is through school and finds a place for us all.

Love,
Sara.

On the Beach not far from Our Cabin

with Anne's Brothers

Fritz Garrick, flanked by Bertie on the left and Barbie on the right

John Garrick on the rock

Summer, 1961

Two Point, Lac Seul, Northwestern Ontario, Canada

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserve

The devil is in the detail it is said.

In the case of my mother's letter to Nana,

the devil was in the details she omitted.

To make a long story short,
the Department of Lands and Forests evicted us,
not for cause but for fire, a huge forest fire.

On Saturday the forestry department radioed my father
and told him its fire fighters were on their way:
We had forty-eight hours to vacate, by 6 p.m. on Monday, June 12th.

A fire with a fifty-mile front was burning through the boreal forest,
and the forestry department needed the house to coordinate part of the response.
My parents scrambled to make contingency plans,
for the school year didn't finish until the end of June.

Then my parents caught a break first thing Monday morning.
Mike O'Flaherty, who had rescued us from the island just before
accompanying his wife Anne to Sioux Lookout for the birth of their baby,
wired to say he had found a place for us to stay.
By early afternoon we were on a plane to catch the night train
from Nakina to Sioux Lookout and our new life.

But things didn't go the way we expected.
Mike didn't meet us at the station.
Instead he sent the town's taxi driver, Mr. Caswell, 
who broke the news that he was taking us to catch a flight
to Lac Seul where Mike had a place for us.

Lac Seul?

My brain was foggy.  It had been a very long night on the train.
I have a vague memory of Mike at the dock seeing us off,
assuring my mother that everything would be fine,
that he was sending us to Anne's family
in Two Point just outside Sioux Lookout,
and that a nice little cottage was waiting for us.

Mom managed to get a wire off before we left
to let Dad know that we were not staying in Sioux
but flying to some place called Lac Seul.
It was the last word my father heard from anyone in over a week.

"Just outside Sioux" proved to be a fifteen minute flight;
and exciting, for we flew in a real seaplane,
a seaplane that landed on its belly in the water.
Before I knew it, almost before I had time to be afraid,
the plane was plowing through the water on its belly
and racing for the shore by the Hudson's Bay post on Lac Seul.

A Grumman Goose

I don't know what we flew on, but it might have been a goose.

Flickr:  Alan   License

   
Anne's brothers, Fritz and John Garrick, met us with their fishing boat
and told my mother they would take us to Two Point about eight miles away.

I never forgot that first trip to Two Point; neither did my mother.
The old fishing boat owned by "the boys," as we came to call Fritz and John,
chugged through silver waters on a lake as smooth and reflective as a mirror.
As we headed deeper and deeper into the silent bush, the world slipped away.

For the next two months we had limited contact with the Outside.  
In Lansdowne House there was always a plane flying in
or neighbors stopping by.  Here there was no one,
except for Fritz, John, and their mother Kokum.
The closest short-wave radio was eight miles away by boat
at the Hudson's Bay post.

By the time the wilderness of lake, spruce, poplar, and birch
had swallowed up the Hudson Bay post, my mother had entered
a state of semi-shock.  She was exhausted by recent events,
and she was utterly appalled at being alone in the wilderness
with five young children and three Indians she knew nothing about.

Reaching "home" didn't help either.
We clambered onto the dock by a fish house and a few other weathered buildings,
and the boys helped us carry our few belongings
up the long path through a rough meadow
to the nice little cottage waiting for us:
a three-room log cabin whose walls were riddled with a variety
of animals including several weasels and a family of chipmunks.

My mother came to a sudden stop outside the cabin.
I thought she had spotted the outhouse some thirty yards
or so in back of the log cabin toward the trees;
but, no, instead she asked, "Why is all that heavy wire nailed over the windows?"

"To keep the bears out," Fritz answered.

Black Bear

Northern Ontario, Canada

Pixabay

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue



On the Shore of the Annapolis Basin
Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada
July 24, 2016
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Notes:

1.  Forest Fires 1961:
     We didn't know it at the time, but 1961 would be a record year for forest fires in northwestern
     Ontario with 1,534,917 acres or 621,159 hectares burning.  That record wasn't broken until 2011.
     ottawa.ctvnews.ca

2.  Mr. Caswell:
     We got to know Mr. Caswell very well doing our time in Sioux Lookout.  He was the town
     taxi service.

3.  Margaretsville:
     This is a small Nova Scotian village on the Fundy Shore where we lived in 1958-1959.

4.  Icebox:
     This was a very old icebox even in 1961.  I think Roy had the job of getting a chunk of ice for
     it every day or so from the fish house.

5.  Anne's Uncle:
     Kokum's brother was a trapper who came and went throughout the summer.  We all called him
     Uncle Pipe, because he frequently smoked a pipe.  Once he showed us a treasured and beautiful
     antique Ojibwa clay pipe that he kept wrapped in a thick, soft cloth.

6.  Two Point:
      It was Two Point River, but we all called it Two Point.  I have no clue where it was.  I haven't
      been able to locate it on any map ~ yet.

7.  Lac Seul:
     Lac Seul is the second largest lake completely within the province of Ontario.  Technically,
     it is a reservoir of the English River, and it stretches about 150 miles (241 km) in a large crescent
     from Ear Falls in the west to Sioux Lookout-Hudson in the east.  A power generating station is
     located at Ear Falls.  Lac Seul has a surface area of 640 square miles (1658 sq. km).  The lake is a
     maze of islands, bays, rocky points, shoals, and narrow channels.  The water is clear, but has a
     distinctive tea color.  It is famous for its sport fishing.  sunsetcountry

8.  Fritz, Bertie, and Barbie:
     Fritz, John, and Kokum loved children, like many of the First Nations people and Métis of
     Northern Ontario.  My younger sisters adored Fritz, especially Barbie.  Wherever Fritz was,
     Barbie was, and Bertie was not far behind.  He had a special way with small children.  John was
     shyer, but equally kind-hearted.
     

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Location of Lansdowne House, Nakina, and Sioux Lookout

Northern Ontario, Canada

Wikipedia

Lac Seul

Northern Canada

Google Maps  Map Data 2018

To See a Photo of Lac Seul Click Here