THE PRAIRIES AGAIN
I
In cold weather and through a snowfall that had powdered the slopes and
foothills of the Rocky Mountains the Prince, on Thursday, October 2nd,
reached the prairies again. Now he was travelling well to the south of
his former journey on a line that ran just above the American border.
In this bleak and rolling land he was to call in the next two days at a
series of small towns whose very names--McLeod, Lethbridge, Medicine
Hat, Maple Creek, Swift Current, Moose Jaw and Regina--had in them a
savour of the old, brave days when the Red Man was still a power, and
settlers chose their names off-hand from local things.
McLeod, on the Old Man River, just escapes the foothills. It is
prairies, a few streets, a movie "joint," an hotel and a golf course.
In McLeod we saw the dawn of the Mackinaw, or anyhow first saw the
virtues of that strange coat which seems to have been adapted from the
original of the Biblical Joseph by a Highland tailor. It is a thick,
frieze garment, cut in Norfolk style. The colour is heroic red, or
blue or mauve or cinnamon, over which black lines are laid in a plaid
tracery.
We realized its value as a warmth-giver while we stood amid a crowd of
them as the Prince received addresses. Among the crowd was a band of
Blood Indians of the Blackfeet Tribe, whose complexions in the cold
looked blue under their habitual brown-red. They had come to lay their
homage before him and to present an Indian robe. The Prince shook
hands and chatted with the chiefs as well as their squaws, and with the
missionary who had spent his life among these Red Men, and had
succeeded in mastering the four or five sounds that make up the Indian
language.
We talked to an old chief upon whose breast were the large silver
medals that Queen Victoria and King George had had specially struck for
their Indian subjects. These have become signs of chieftainship, and
are taken over by the new chief when he is elected by the tribesmen.
With this chief was his son, a fine, quiet fellow in the costume of the
present generation of Indians, the cowboy suit. He had served all
through the war in a Canadian regiment.
At Lethbridge, the next town, there was a real and full Indian
ceremonial. Before a line of tepees, or Indian lodges, the Prince was
received by the Chiefs of the Blood Tribe of the Blackfeet Nation, and
elected one of them with the name of Mekastro, that is Red Crow.
This name is a redoubtable one in the annals of the Blackfeet. It has
been held by their most famous chieftains and has been handed down from
generation to generation. It was a Chief Red Crow who signed the
Wolseley Treaty in '77. Upon his election the Prince was presented
with an historic headdress of feathers and horns, a beautiful thing
that had been worn by the great fighting leaders of the race.
There were gathered about the Prince in front of these tall, painted
tepees many chiefs of strange, odd-sounding names. One of these
immobile and aquiline men was Chief Shot on Both Sides, another Chief
Weasel Fat, another Chief One Spot, another Chief Many White Horses.
They had a dignity and an unyielding calm, and if some of them wore
befeathered bowler hats, instead of the sunray feathered headdress, it
did not detract from their high austerity. Chief One Spot--"he whose
voice can be heard three miles"--was a splendid and upright old warrior
of eighty; he had not only been present at the historic treaty of '77,
but had been one of the signatories.
The Prince chatted with these chiefs, while the Lethbridge people, who
had shown extraordinary heartiness since the public welcome in the
chief square of the town, crowded close around. While he was talking,
the Prince asked if he could be shown the interior of one of the
wigwams, and his brother, Chief Weasel Fat, took him to his own, over
the door of which was painted rudely the emblem of the bald-headed
eagle.
The wigwam is a fine airy home. Its canvas walls are supported by
tall, leaning poles bound at the top. There is no need of a centre
pole, and a wood fire burning on a circular hearth sent up a coil of
smoke through the opening at the top of the poles.
The floor was strewn with bright soft rugs, on which squaws in vivid
red robes were sitting, listening to all that was said with impassive
faces. The walls were decorated with strips of warm cloth upon which
had been sewn Indian figures and animals. The wide floor space also
held a rattanwork bed, musical instruments and the like; certainly it
was a more comfortable and commodious place than its bell-tent shape
would suggest.
Leaving the exhibition grounds, on which the encampment stood, the
Prince passed under an arch made of Indian clothes of white antelope
skin, beads and feathers, and after reviewing the war veterans, went to
the town ball that had been arranged in his honour.
Lethbridge is a mixture of the plain and the pit. It is a great grain
centre, and there is no mistaking its prairie air, yet superimposed
upon this is the atmosphere of, say, a Lancashire or Yorkshire mining
town. Coal and other mines touch with a sense of dark industrial
bustle the easy air of the plain town. It is a Labour town, and a
force in Labour politics. That, of course, made not the slightest
difference to its welcome; indeed, perhaps it tinged that greeting with
a touch of independent heartiness that made it notable.
As a town it impresses with its vividity at once. That, indeed, is the
quality of most Canadian cities. They capture one with their air of
modernity and vivacity at first impact. True, one sometimes finds that
the town that seemed great and bustling dwindles after a few fine
streets into suburbs of dirt roadways, but one has been impressed. It
may be very good window dressing, though, on the other hand, it is
probably good planning which concentrates all the activity and
interests of the town in the decisively main avenues.
II
Friday, October 3rd, saw the Prince visiting a string of three towns.
Medicine Hat was the first of these, an attractive, park-like place
full of "pep." Medicine Hat's claim to fame beyond its name lies in
the fact that, having discovered that it was sitting upon a vast
subterranean reservoir of natural gas, it promptly harnessed it to its
own use. Now, that elemental thing is in the control of humanity, and
heats the town, and tamely drives the wheels of industry.
The outstanding ceremony was the way little boys suddenly took fright
on a roof. In the middle of the town, beside the street, is a tall,
thin standpipe, and this standpipe was to demonstrate a "shoot off" of
the gas. Scores of small boys climbed on to the roofs of neighbouring
sheds to see the fun. First there was a meek, submissive flame burning
at the top of the pipe, and looking weak in the fine sunlight. Then,
abruptly, the flame shot up a hundred feet, and there was a loud
roaring. Not only was the roaring a terrifying thing, but the force of
that rush of gas made the ground, the roof and the little boys tremble.
Little boys came off that roof in record time, and with such a clatter
that the effort of the standpipe almost lost its place as a star turn.
This tremendous pressure is not habitual; it is, I believe, obtained by
bursting a charge in one of the gas wells.
The Prince also saw the uses to which the gas was put in a big pottery
mill. The kilns here were an incandescent mass of fire, the work of
the easily controlled gas that does the work with a tithe of the labour
and at a mere fraction of the cost necessitated by ordinary baking
kilns.
Maple Creek and Swift Current were stepping-off places, with all their
populations packed in the square about the station to give the Prince a
hearty greeting. At Maple Creek the pretty daughters of the township
were very much in evidence, and held His Royal Highness up with
autograph albums.
Moose Jaw, one of the few towns where a quaint name is traceable, for
it is the creek where the white man mended the cart with a moose
jaw-bone, which the Prince reached on the morning of October 4th, is a
bigger town and proud of its position as a grain, food and machinery
distributing centre for Southern Saskatchewan. In its station
courtyard it had built up an admirable exhibit of its vegetables and
fruit, its sides of bacon, its grain in ear, its porridge oats in
packets, and its butter and cream in drums and churns; while chiefest
of all it showed ramparts of some of the two million sacks of flour it
handles annually. The whole of the exhibit was set in a moat of grain
and potatoes.
The Prince went to the University Grounds, where a mighty crowd
attended the welcoming ceremony, and where a wild and timeless
waltz-quadrille of motors which straggled all-whither over the grounds,
marked the attempts of people to locate and follow him when he drove
away to the hospital and a big packing factory. At the packing plant
he saw the whole process of handling meat, from the moment when cowboys
in chaps drove the herd to the pens to the final jointing of the steer.
From Moose Jaw he went to Regina, which he reached that afternoon.
Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan, but an accidental capital.
Somewhere about 1880 it was decided to start itself in quite another
place. Qu'Appelle, where there was a Hudson Bay Fort and the country
was attractive, was the site chosen. And Qu'Appelle opened its mouth
too wide--or, anyhow so the version of the story I was told goes. The
land-owners there asked an outside number of million dollars, and the
townplanners went to Pile o' Bones instead.
Pile o' Bones was a point near Wascana Lake where there had been a big
slaughter of buffaloes. It was a point of no importance, but Canadians
don't mind that sort of thing. When they make up their minds to build
a city, a city arises. Regina arose, broad and bustling, a trifle
chilly as becomes a city of the prairie, rather flat and not altogether
attractive, yet purposeful.
It also gained another reason for regard by becoming the headquarters
of the "Mounties," the Royal North-West Mounted Police, whose main
barracks are here. We saw something of the discipline of that fine
service in the way the big crowds were handled, for the Prince drove
through the streets in the order and state of a London or New York
pageant.
The Parliament Buildings are beautifully situated before a wide stretch
of water. They are the semi-classical, domed, white stone buildings of
the design of those at Edmonton and other cities--a sort of
standardized parliament building in fact. Before them, on the terraces
and lawn that shelved down to the water, the big throng made a scene of
quick beauty. There were ranks of pretty nurses, rank upon rank of
khaki veterans, battalions of boy scouts mainly divorced from hats
which were perpetually aloft on upraised and enthusiastic poles, aisles
of sitting wounded whom the Prince shook hands with, and thick,
supporting masses of civilians. Lining this throng were unbending
fillets of scarlet statues, the "Mounties" of the guard. And
humanizing the whole were solid banks of school-children who sang and
cheered at the right as well as the wrong moment.
The presentation of medals--one to a blinded doctor, who, led by a
comrade, received the most poignant storm of cheers I have ever heard
in my life--and a giant public reception finished that day's
ceremonies. Sunday, October 5th, was a day of rest, and Monday was the
day of the "Mounties."
The Prince showed a particular interest in his visit to the
Headquarters of this splendid and romantic corps. The Royal North-West
Mounted Police is a classic figure in the history of the Empire. The
day is now past when the lonely red rider of the wilds stood for the
only token of awe and authority among Indian tribes and "bad men"
camps, but though that may be there are no more useful fellows than
these smart and sturdy men, who, scarlet-coated, and with their
Stetsons at a daring angle, add a dash of colour and bravery to the
streets of Western Canada.
In his inspection the Prince saw the reason why the physique of the men
should be so splendid and their nerve so sure. The training of the
R.N.W.M.P. makes no appeal to the weakling of spirit or flesh. He saw
their firm discipline. He saw them breaking in the bucking bronchos
they had to ride. He saw them go through exhausting mounted tests.
His congratulations on their wonderful show were expressed with great
warmth.
III
From Regina the Prince took a holiday. He went up to the sporting
country near Qu'Appelle for duck and game shooting, spending from
Monday, October 6th, until Friday, October 10th, there. This district
abounds in duck, and the Prince and his staff had very fair sport.
During his stay the weather suddenly turned colder, the rivers froze
over and snow fell. So sudden was the cold snap that one of those with
the Prince was caught napping. He woke up to find that his false teeth
were frozen into the solid block of ice that had been water the night
before. He had to take the tooth glass to the kitchen of the house
where he was staying, and thaw it before he could even articulate his
emotions adequately.
Riding in a fast car from the scene of the sport to the station gave
the Prince an indication of what winter would be like in the prairies,
where the wind from the north sweeps down unresisted, and with such a
force that it seems to go right through all coats, save the Canadian
winter armour of "coon coat" or fur.
Brandon and Portage la Prairie, two determined little towns, gave the
Prince a snow welcome. The weather kept neither grown-ups nor children
away from the liveliest of greetings. They were attractive halts in a
run that took the Prince to Winnipeg.
In Winnipeg we appreciated the virtues of central heating, for the wind
made the whole universe extraordinarily cold. Up to this I had
considered central heating a stuffy subject, and I am yet not fully
converted, for though there are those who say it can be controlled
quite easily, I have yet to meet the superman who can do it.
All the same, steam heating has its virtues. On those cold days in
Winnipeg we lived in a world that knew not draughts. It was almost a
solemn joy to sit in a bath, and to feel that though half of one was in
hot water, the other half was also comfortable and not the prey of
every devilish current of icy air such as sports itself in those damp
refrigerators, the British bathrooms. Naturally, since we are staying
in a Canadian hotel of the up-to-date kind, a bathroom was attached to
our bedroom as a mere matter of course. But if we had had to wander
Anglicanly along corridors in search of a bathroom we should still have
been draught free, for central heating deals with corridors, and
stairways, and halls and lounges with one universal gesture.
Not merely in so fine an hotel as the "Royal Alexandra," but in the
private houses and the "apartments" (English--"flats"), central heat
and good bathrooms are items of everyday--though many Canadians burn an
open fire in their sitting-rooms for the comfortable look it gives.
These things are not merely for comfort, but they are, with the
hardwood floors, the mail chutes in "apartment" houses and the rest,
part of the great science of labour-saving, which the whole of America
practises.
One realizes the need of labour-saving when one sees in a theatre
vestibule the following notice:
"ALL CHILDREN NOT LEFT WITH THE
MATRON MUST BE PAID FOR"
As nurses are rare, and servants are rare, the Americans have to
organize themselves to simplify the task of housekeeping.
The "apartments" are compact and neat, arranged for easy handling. The
rents are not cheap. One very pleasant little "apartment," "hired" by
a newly-married couple, was made up of three rooms, a kitchen and a
balcony. It was in the suburbs. The rent was thirty-five dollars a
month, say eighty-four pounds a year, for a flat, which, under the same
conditions (rates included) could be obtained for thirty-five pounds a
year in England in pre-war days. For this, however, central heating
and perpetual hot water are included. My friend told me that his
electric light bill came to three dollars a month, and his gas bill
(for cooking) to rather less than that. In Calgary a friend of mine
had a pretty "apartment" even smaller in a suburban district, was
paying about ninety-six pounds a year over all, _i.e._, rent, light and
gas (central heating being included). Most of these "apartments" have
an ice house (refrigerator) attached, blocks of ice being left on the
doorstep every morning, just as the milk is left.
Winnipeg is an attractive town to live in. It has plenty of
amusements, including several good theatres and music halls--fed, of
course, mainly from American sources. Mrs. Walker, whose husband owns
the Walker Theatre, told me that Laurence Irving and his wife acted on
their stage just before sailing on the ill-fated _Empress of Ireland_.
She went up to his dressing-room to say "Good-bye" to him, the night
before he left, and in answer to her knock he suddenly appeared before
her, dressed in black from head to foot, for the character he was
playing that night. His appearance filled her with dread--it seemed to
her, as she looked at him, that something terrible was to happen. Both
Laurence Irving and his wife were, however, in excellent spirits.
Canada treated them royally, and they were going back home full of
optimism, confident that the play that Laurence Irving was then
finishing--one dealing with Napoleon--was to prove the greatest success
of their careers.
We met at Winnipeg, also, a number of the brilliant men and women
journalists whose energy and brains are responsible for the many fine
papers that focus in this city. We had met such companions of our own
dispensation in other cities, in Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto
and Quebec. They were not merely keen and accomplished craftsmen, but
their hospitality to us was always of the most delightful generosity.
The Princess visit to Winnipeg was undertaken to give him the
opportunity of saying _au revoir_ to the West. At the vivid luncheon
he gave in the attractive Alexandra Hotel to all the leaders of the
West, men and women, he insisted that it was _au revoir_, and that so
well had the West treated him, so attractive was its atmosphere, that
he meant not merely to return, but to become something of a rancher
here in the "little place" he had bought in Alberta. He spoke of the
splendid spirit of the West, and the magnificent future that was the
West's for the grasping, and he left on all those who heard him an
impression of genuine affection for the people and the land with which
his journey had brought him in contact.
He himself left the West a "real scout." It is a mere truism to say
that his personality had conquered the West, as it had won for him
affection everywhere. His straightforward masculinity and his entire
lack of side, his cheerfulness and his keenness, his freedom from
"frills," as one man put it, had made him the friend of everybody. I
heard practically the same expressions of real affection from all
grades, from Chief Justice to car conductors. I heard, I think, but
one man pooh-pooh, not so much this universal regard for the Prince, as
a universal enthusiasm for something royal. A labour-leader, who
happened to be present, administered correction:
"That chap's all right," he insisted, and his word carried weight. "I
saw him in France, and there's not much that is wrong with him. If
you're as democratic as he is, then you're all right."
The brightest of dances, a game of squash rackets, and the Prince left,
undaunted by the snow, for week-end shooting. On Tuesday, October
14th, he was in the train again, travelling East, in the direction of
the Cobalt mining country, buoyed up by the prophecy of the local
weather-wise that the cold snap would not endure, but would be followed
by the delightfully keen yet warm weather of the "Indian Summer." The
local weather-wise were right, but it took time.