Standing Into Danger

Friday, June 9, 2017

The Lansdowne Letters: Empty Skies

When I heard on the radio that the Air Force was parachuting
food supplies into northern Ontario for the starving Indians,
I ran to the McRaes' kitchen window and searched the bright blue sky.

I was excited to think that my Red Cross Project
had moved the government to help
my Ojibway friends and neighbors.

I hoped that the Air force would
parachute my clothing cartons
into Lansdowne House
along with the emergency food.

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

I could see those cartons hanging from canopies
and drifting lazily down to land on the ice
between the Father's Island and the mainland.

I could see people dashing to the ice, opening the cartons, and passing around
the winter clothing that the people of Smith's Cove had generously donated
to the Red Cross clothing drive at school.

I could see them wrapping coats around themselves
and pulling on mittens and scarves,
some knitted by my grandmother's friends in Smith's Cove.
I could hear their excited chatter and laughter.

Between the Father's Island and the Mainland

At this time my father lived in the brown shack

between the church and the white rectory on the island.

Photograph by Father Maurice Ouimet, Fall 1960

That bright blue sky remained empty in all directions.
I searched it for several days, but nothing blossomed to mar that crystalline blue.
I came to the shocking conclusion that some news reports might not be accurate.

Empty Skies Above Northern Ontario

"Neighboring" Webequie

Northern Ontario, Canada, December 1960

Photograph by Donald MacBeath

Oh, I was aware that the world could be unfair, unjust, and cruel
and that lies, deceit, and evil existed. But that was Elsewhere.

Canada's Flag 1957-1965
Wikimedia

This was Canada:
The True North Strong and Free.

As I grappled with a growing sense of disappointment,
my father's worries began to ease.
Unexpectedly new hope appeared on his horizon.

On Thursday, March 23, 1961
my father wrote to the extended family:

My Father, Donald MacBeath
Fall 1960
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

How's everyone today?
I haven't had too much time for private writing this week,
so this will be a short one.

Well, so far I haven't received any of the expected blasts about press the releases.
In fact, the only official letter that I received last week
was one telling me that my name was being considered for a nice promotion.

I received word from R. F. Davey, Chief of the Education Branch,
that my name was being considered for appointment
as supervising principal for the Sioux Lookout Indian Agency.

In this position I would be responsible for the administration
and supervision of about fifteen schools, most of them accessible only by air.
My immediate superior would be the district supervisor at North Bay.
My headquarters would be in Sioux Lookout.

I would get a good increase in salary, but I would loose my isolation allowance,
so my actual increase would be about $500.00 a year.

I would also be responsible for a crash building program
that the department is undertaking for the next five years.
They plan to replace nearly all the schools with new ones.

It would be just wonderful if I got this job,
because it would mean that I would be in the north
or near enough to indulge in my love for the north;
and at the same time my family would be able to indulge in their love
for the pleasures and advantages of civilization.

Sioux Lookout is a town about the size of Wolfville, N.S.,
and is on the northern CNR trans-continental line about 250 miles west of Nakina.
The town has excellent educational, residential, and medical facilities.

Train Station

Sioux Lookout, Ontario, Canada

Flickr: Seán Ó Domhnaill License

I was very favorably impressed with the town the only time I was there,
which was just about Christmas, when I went out as an escort for that sick Indian woman.

Well, I guess you've had it for this week.
It is quite late, and I still have to teach at Lansdowne House tomorrow.
I will try to write a longer letter next week.

The reason I am so pressed for time this week
was that I spent this week making up the annual requisitions.
I only received the forms last week,
and they had to be in by this week's mail.
Since my name is being considered for a promotion,
I couldn't afford to be late submitting them.

Well, bye for now,
Love, Don.

My Parents in More Carefree Days

Dating at Acadia University

Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada

It's true. It never rains but it pours.
Although my parents kept it carefully hidden from me and my siblings,
they must have been under great stress.

In the middle of the scandal over the press releases,
the hurried trips in and out of Lansdowne House by the Indian agent and my father,
and dealing with the real fear of my father loosing the job they desperately depended upon,
Dad gets a letter about a potential promotion
and has to scramble to get together requisitions for the next school year,
plus pump fuel and carry water.

My parents must have been agonizing over
whether my father would get a promotion or be drummed out
of the Education Division of the Indian Affairs Branch in disgrace.

Meanwhile I was still searching the skies with lessening hope,
and learning the bitter taste of disillusionment.

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

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

Notes:

1. R. F. Davey, Chief of the Education Division:
The Education Division was part of the Indian Affairs Branch which in turn was part of the Department
of Citizenship and Immigration. Mr. Davey, the Chief, worked in Ottawa.

2. Miles to Kilometers:
250 miles = 402 kilometers

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Canada

with the Provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia

Wikimedia

Location of Smith's Cove and Wolfville

Wikimedia

Communities in Ontario

Wikimedia edited

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

IWSG: Wednesday, June 7, 2017 ~ I Quit! Not!

It's the first Wednesday
of the month ~
the day when members of the
Insecure Writer's Support Group
share their writing struggles
and offer their encouragement
and support to other members.

To visit the IWSG website, click here.

To become a member of the IWSG, click here.

Our wonderful co-hosts who are stepping up to help IWSG founder Alex J. Cavanaugh are:
J.H. Moncrieff, Madeline Mora-Summonte, Jen Chandler, Megan Morgan, and Heather Gardner.

I hope you have a chance to visit them and thank them for co-hosting.
I'm sure they would appreciate an encouraging comment!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Every month the IWSG announces a question
that members can answer with advice, insight,
a personal experience, or story in their IWSG posts.

Or, the question can inspire members
if they are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional!!!
This month's IWSG featured question is:

Did you ever say “I quit”?
If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When it comes to writing, I have never said, "I quit."
Never, ever.

On occasion I have had to defer working on certain pieces,
but I have never quit one forever.

During the years that I was working, I had to put aside my goal
of writing my memoir about my family's time
in the North among the Ojibway people.
My career was all consuming, and I couldn't find
the time and energy to devote to such an undertaking.

But I am writing it now, slowly, but surely.

Memoir Writing: A Learning Process
One of Many Temporary Writing Spots

Bullhead City, Arizona, USA

When I said that my career was all consuming, it was no understatement.
It was slowly killing me, much as I loved teaching elementary children.
I retired early, thanks to the urging of my husband, my sister-in-law, and my siblings.

Heading in for My Last Day of Work

June 6, 2012
Aurora, Colorado, USA

When I woke up five years ago today on my first day of retirement,
I was mentally and physically exhausted.
I had often thought about waking up on that day,
but it wasn't like I had imagined: Whoo hoo! Freedom!
No, I was shot.
I went back to sleep and slept the better part of Day 1 and Day 2.

Tackling that deferred memoir was not #1 on the list.
The thought of it was terrifying.

I started with walking, with regaining my health.
I decided to walk to St. Anthony, Newfoundland
from Aurora, Colorado, metaphorically speaking,
by recording all my actual walks, day by day.

The Finish Line I'm Headed For

Me, St. Anthony, Newfoundland, Canada, July 2011

As of last night, June 6, 2017,
I have walked 3,274.7 miles or 5,270 kilometers.

I'm about 1.7 miles shy of River of Ponds, Newfoundland,
with 140 miles to go to reach the finish line.

I'm closing in on St. Anthony!!!!!

Closing in on St. Anthony!!!!!

Blue Route, The Great Northern Peninsula, Newfoundland, Canada

Bullhead City, Arizona, December 15, 2016

If I can walk to St. Anthony, I can do anything!!!!!

I was retired for over five months before I confronted
the goal of writing my memoir. I began on November 27, 2012.
It has been a slog through the muskeg, and I've got a ways to go.
But I'll get there!

IWSG Reads:
This year I set a goal of reading at least five books
by fellow Insecure Writer's Support Group members.

This month I've read two more.

IWSG

The first was the latest IWSG Anthology,
Hero Lost: Mysteries of Death and Life.

It has been great fun reading the stories
of authors I have come to know
through the IWSG.

I enjoyed each of the twelve stories in the anthology,
but I particularly connected with The Wheat Witch by Erika Bebee.
It has such a sense of place, and I have often found
my way into reading and writing through landscapes.

Kansas has a subtle beauty in all seasons,
and it was among the winter, stubbled, wheat fields of Kansas
that I began to come back to life after a devastating divorce.
I fell under the spell of the wheat witch as quickly as Ethan,
and remained in it after Ethan's return to life.

It's Rhyme Time

The second was Pat Hatt's latest novel,
The Connective.

This is the third Pat Hat novel
that I've read,
and what I have learned for sure
is that his books are going to be a wild ride.
You have to let go of all expectations and hang on!

This is the story of Travis and Sally and their widowed mother
who move to a small community in rural Nova Scotia
to rebuild their lives after their tragic loss.

On the first evening a neighbor boy Billy taps on Travis's bedroom window
and whispers a sinister warning to Sally and him:
"Get out now ... Go before The Connective makes you a part of them."
Sally and Travis dismiss Billy's warning as a little weird,
but they are about to find out that their new town
is weirder than they could possibly imagine.

Overnight Sally and her mother are merged into The Connective,
and Travis discovers they are radically changed in the morning.

It is up to him, along with Billy and a few others who have not been merged,
to find a way to destroy the ancient power behind The Connective.
They all want to rescue their families and friends
and escape with their lives, which is easier said than done!

No Confusing the Two Sides in The Connective

Good Versus Evil ~ Jordan Fall: Deviant Art

License

The farther I got into The Connective the faster I read,
until I was racing through the final 50 or 60 pages.

Wild is an understatement,
but Pat captured how kids think
and how they tackle scary mysteries
with imagination, derring-do, and half-baked plans.

In their conversations, I heard echoes of words and idioms
from my own childhood in rural Nova Scotia,
and I was reminded of the wild escapades my brother and I got into.

If you, as a reader, have difficulty suspending disbelief
or have an inner Grammar Nazi, then this book may not be for you.

If Samuel Tayler Coleridge could suspend disbelief
in a fantastic tale for sheer enjoyment,
then it works for me ~ I like letting go for the ride.

And, after decades of teaching young kids
and communicating with my family's NexGen,
it's a relief to retire my inner Grammar Nazi.
English is in flux, and I'm in flux with it.

Pat is the most prolific writer I know,
and half the fun is seeing what on earth he is going to do next.
He knows no boundaries and enjoys tackling all sorts of genres
just for the fun and challenge of it.

Pat has a work ethic as a writer and blogger that doesn't quit,
and he has published dozens of books of all lengths, rhymed and unrhymed.
He doesn't agonize over the perfect sentence or the perfect subplot;
he's done and on to the next adventure.
I find it fascinating to watch Pat grow as a writer from book to book.

Guaranteed I'll be reading the next book in this series.
I can't resist the fun!

Happy writing in June!

Along Piney Creek
Where I Have Racked Up Hundreds of Miles
Walking to St. Anthony

Aurora, Colorado, USA

Friday, June 2, 2017

The Lansdowne Letters: No Skip, No Lie!

After my father left for Nakina on March 16, 1961

in an effort to calm down Mr. Gowan the Indian Agent
and save his own job, a wall of silence regarding
“The Starving Indians of Lansdowne House Incident"
dropped down around me.

It was as if all the white adults in the community had agreed
to say nothing about it in my presence.

Living in a remote northern community
as a ten-turning-eleven-year-old meant
that the world largely ceased to exist beyond the horizon.

My family had no telephone and no television.
Without an aerial, the only transistor radio reception
we had was intermittently via atmospheric skip.
The newspapers and magazines that came
in by plane were at least two weeks old.

My only contact with the Outside was by letter.
So there was little opportunity for me to find out more
about the cartons of clothing my class had gathered
for the Ojibway people in Lansdowne House.

Duncan McRae in Isolated Lansdowne House

Looking Toward the Father's Island

Northern Ontario, Canada, Winter 1961

Photograph by Donald MacBeath

Life rolled along, and no one would ever guess what was happening
by reading Mom’s newsy letter to Nana:

On Thursday, March 23, 1961
my mother wrote to her mother-in-law, Myrtle:

My Mother, Sara (MacDonald) MacBeath
Circa 1948
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Dear Mother:
Most of the birthdays are over now.
The children all loved the things you sent.
The blouses were lovely.
The overalls you sent for Roberta
will come in very handy.
We will save them for special occasions.

My Grandmother, Myrtle (Pratt) MacBeath
Circa 1958
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

Roberta has gained a pound since we arrived.
She doesn’t want to stay in the house at all.
Every day she brings her boots and coat for me to put on her.
She roars if I won’t.

She spends the whole morning outside,
and after her nap, the rest of the day.
She has learned to walk in her boots.

Duncan Jr. came over and spent the day with us today.
Roberta and Dunc had a great time together.
However every once in a while,
Roberta would take his boots and coat to him
as if to say, “It’s time to go home now.”

Baby Dunc and Baby Bertie

Lansdowne House 1960 and Montreal 1961

Photo of Duncan by Donald MacBeath

Photo of Roberta by Dawn White

Louise had a three decker birthday cake,
two layers chocolate and one white.

Louise made a white cake for Barbara.

Of course, they both had flashy icing.

My One Birthday Photo

Mom with Me (center)

Sister Donnie (lower right)

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada 1956

Don and I went over to the school last night,
and Don worked on his inventories.

We went to Dunc and Maureen's for coffee.
Anne, Mike, and little Kathie were there.

When they were getting ready to go home, they put her in her tikinogin.
Kathie loves it, and no wonder. It’s lined with fur and a flannelette blanket.
They can stand them up and rock them or lay them down like a bed.
They are much better than a baby carriage.

Ojibway Woman with Baby in Tikinogin

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada, 1960

Photo by Donald MacBeath

All in all we’ve had a very peaceful week.
Donnie and Roy also enjoyed the things you sent.
The girls like their barrettes and wear them all the time.

Maureen is going to shampoo and set Louise’s hair with a Toni, I think.
Louise is spending Friday and Saturday with them.

Maureen is going to teach Louise how to sew and use a sewing machine.
They are going to make a skirt for Louise out of a pretty floral grey and blue material.
I must close for now and get at the grocery order.

I hope you and Aunt Maude are both well. We all miss you.

With love,
Sara

P.S. The plastic panties will certainly come in handy.
Thank you for your thoughtfulness.
Sara

Roy, Donnie, and Barbie

My mother’s letters remind me always of the happy childhood I had,
and it’s fun to hear her anecdotes about us as children.

Fortunately for Bertie, who loved playing outdoors so much,
every Ojibway adult in the neighborhood kept a sharp eye on her.
Once Bertie learned to walk, she covered territory fast.

If she stumbled in her boots, they came running with a stick of wood,
a shovel, anything they could grab in case the Indian dogs went for her.

They made sure she didn’t wander too far from the back door.
I remember one time in the spring when she started off
on the path through the bush to school with her dolly.
An Ojibway man found her sitting in a puddle and washing her dolly
and immediately carried toddler and dolly back to Mom.

This letter vividly brings back my overnight stay at Duncan and Maureen’s home.
Maureen, even though she was married and the mother of Baby Dunc,
was only ten or eleven years older than I.
Since there were no white girls my age in the village,
she took me under her wing and spent many hours with me sewing,
baking cookies, and talking so that I wouldn’t feel lonely.

Maureen McRae Pulling Groceries on a Toboggan
Father's Island, Lansdowne House, Winter 1961
McRae Home, Mainland, Lansdowne House (right)
Photos by Donald MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

But the things I remember most from that weekend
were the radio which played constantly thanks to the DOT aerial
and the astounding news report I heard.

The broadcast which came out of Winnipeg
reported that the situation among the starving Indians
in northern Ontario was so dire that
the Air Force was parachuting emergency food supplies
into the isolated communities.

To be continued ...

Notes:

1. Mr. Gowan: As the chief administrator for the Department of Indian Affairs in Nakina,

the Indian Agent managed the lives of all First Nations people in his jurisdiction

which included the native people in Lansdowne House.

2. White Adults:

As a white girl turning eleven, I had little occasion to interact with Ojibway adults other than at the weekly

movies or if I crossed paths with them around the community.

3. Atmospheric Skip:

Wikipedia:
"In radio communication, skywave or skip refers to the propagation of radio waves reflected or refracted
back toward Earth from the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. Since it is not
limited by the curvature of the Earth, skywave propagation can be used to communicate beyond the horizon,
at intercontinental distances. It is mostly used in the shortwave frequency bands.

"As a result of skywave propagation, a signal from a distant AM broadcasting station, a shortwave station,
or—during sporadic E propagation conditions (principally during the summer months in both hemispheres)—
a low frequency television station can sometimes be received as clearly as local stations.

Most long-distance shortwave (high frequency) radio communication—between 3 and 30 MHz—is a result
of skywave propagation. Since the early 1920s amateur radio operators (or "hams"), limited to lower transmitter
power than broadcast stations, have taken advantage of skywave for long distance (or "DX") communication."

Skywave or Skip hf / Shortwave Propagation

Wikipedia

4. Duncan, Maureen, and Duncan Jr. 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.
Their infant son Duncan "Duncan" Jr. (about 11 months old) often played with my sister Bertie
(almost 24 months old).

5. Mike, Anne, and little Kathie: Mike O'Flaherty was the nurse at the Nursing Station.
Anne was his wife and Kathie their daughter (about 5 months old).

6. Toni Hair Home Perm: What every straight-haired young girl longed for.

7. News Report:

This was one of two media reports I heard or saw at the time. The other was a newspaper clip I saw
on a table at a later time at the McRae house. The newspaper clip also reported the parachuting of supplies
for the starving Indians into Northern Ontario. I don't know what newspaper the clip came from.

For Map Lovers Like Me: