FROM WINNIPEG TO REGINA
The first night we camped near a farmhouse so as to be able to get
water. We did this whenever it was possible. Going to bed in a caravan
proved to be an acquired art. First we had to put all the camping
equipment, etc., either in front of the driving seat or outside the van
covered over with a waterproof sheet (there was always a very heavy dew
at night); then we let down the mattresses and arranged the bedding.
Next came the difficulty of undressing, there being barely 12 inches
between the mattresses when they were let down. We could not make a
dressing-room of the prairie because we generally camped near a farm,
and anyhow the clarity of the atmosphere and the flat ground made one
visible from a long distance. This first night we sat on our mattresses
and wriggled out of our clothes, there being no room in the van to stand
upright. Afterwards we adopted the plan of going to bed one by one. We
put up the tent for a second room whenever we stayed long enough in a
place to make it worth while. We had been obliged to do this trip
without our sleeping-bags, and so were very cold at night, as the
temperature then falls very low even in the summer. You really need a
sleeping-bag as well as blankets on the prairie. Our excellent health
throughout the tour was probably largely due to our precautions in this
matter. My sleeping-bag had already done much service, having been lent
me by a cousin who had used it on the French and Italian fronts, and my
mosquito net was a loan from a padre who had served at Salonica. This
preserved me from much discomfort and blood-poisoning, as later in the
summer the mosquitoes were very ferocious, especially to us newcomers.
We started on our tour with a due regard for appearances, both of us
armed with travelling looking-glasses. But these soon got smashed in our
bumpy progress, and henceforth we contented ourselves with tidying our
hair from our shadows cast on the ground or our reflections in the
wind-screen, or, Hyacinth-like, gazed fondly into the sloughs.
I turned out first in the morning, as I was going to cook the breakfast,
and found it decidedly cold. When I went to the farm for milk and eggs
the nice woman would not let me pay for them. We found great generosity
wherever we went. We had brought sufficient water from Winnipeg in the
ferrostate flask for tea, but this was too precious to use for washing
up, so we had our first experience of getting water out of a prairie
well. This shortage of water and the expense of boring very deep wells
is one of the farmers' great trials. In certain places you have to go
down forty feet for water. If there is no gasolene engine or windmill it
has to be drawn up with a bucket and rope. This is by no means easy, the
problem being to prevent the bucket from floating empty on the surface
of the water. To avoid this you have to swing the bucket so that it
falls in sideways and fills itself, but if you are not very careful when
drawing it up it will sway violently and spill half the contents. On
this first occasion, having proudly drawn up my water, I essayed to take
it away in our canvas bucket, but not knowing the habits of the latter
it turned over just as I had got it filled. Afterwards I circumvented
it by weighting it with a stone or propping it up.
When at last we were all ready to start, the engine unfortunately
wasn't. I thought that the sparking plugs had probably got damp with the
heavy dew, or had got oily, so I took them out and cleaned them and also
cleaned the carburetter. In the meantime Winifred went off to the
neighbouring town to fetch help from a garage, but they were all too
busy with motor tractors to come. Presently two farm men came and talked
to me and helped to undo screws, but did not seem to know much about a
car. The small boy from the farm saved the situation by his cheerful
chatter. He kept telling me that the radiator was like a letter-box.
At last I got the car to start, and then it went very well. The trail
was very sandy, bordered with coarse grass and prickly scrub, and there
were hills at intervals. The car skidded badly in the sand, and once
swung round broadside on up a bank, and nearly turned over. We had to
cut down some of the thorny bushes in order to get it out without
damaging the headlights. We had not gone much further before the car
stuck in the sand again, going up a hill. Some men came by in a car and
advised me to tighten the gear pedal, which I did. New cars need
continual adjustment at first, of course. When we had done about fifty
miles I thought that the engine smelt hot and found that the fan was not
working, so I screwed up the belt and it was all right for a time. We
passed through several towns that day, and stopped for the night near a
slough, outside Alexandra. For the first time we were hushed to sleep by
the "Canadian Band," as the frog chorus is called.
The next day was Ascension Day, and we hoped to reach some town in time
for a service, but difficulties beset us from the first. I had to get
some gasolene out of the side tanks, and this meant siphoning it, an
exceedingly unpleasant performance, no less than sucking it through a
tube to start the flow. Then the electric starter went wrong, and the
engine was terribly hard to crank, as the starting-handle had not been
used. At last we were off, but the trail was heavy with sand, and the
engine got very hot and presently stuck fast at a hill. I found that the
fan had gone wrong again, and took it down, and while trying to put it
right found that a nut had not been properly adjusted. A man came along
in a car and at once went to my aid. Then two more men came by and also
stopped to help, and when we had adjusted the fan they all three pushed
the van off and we went up the hill.
But our troubles were not over yet. An immense hole, about five feet
deep, yawned across our path as we topped the hill, and there was
nothing for it but to plunge through it and down the hill beyond. The
caravan swayed so violently that I expected every moment that we should
be upset, but it always righted itself just in time, though everything
on the shelves was hurled to the floor--a continual occurrence until we
put up the netting. The sand was so thick here that we got on to a grass
track beside the trail, hoping for better going, but this soon ended,
and we had to bump back on to the trail again. In so doing we stuck fast
in the ditch. By racing the engine I got her out, but we soon stuck fast
again, this time up to our axles in sand. After we had tried in vain for
an hour to get the car out, we gave it up and sat down by the roadside
to read the service for the day in our prayer-books. It was easy to
enter into the spirit of the festival out there on the wide prairie,
with its immense distances and glorious blue sky. We were about thirty
miles from any house.
After a time we started to dig out the wheels with our hands, but just
then two of the men who had helped us before came back along the trail.
"How many more times shall we have to help you two girls out of a hole?"
they cried, and with much good nature proceeded to assist us, until at
last, with reversing and pushing and putting our blankets under the
wheels, we got out. We had to go half a mile back and along another
trail, but at last reached Verdun. We only did twenty-seven miles that
day.
We didn't stick fast anywhere next day, but the trails were very bad,
and we were shaken to pieces. My arms became very stiff with the
vibration from the steering-wheel, and sometimes it was nearly knocked
out of my hands when a front wheel struck big clods. One had to hang on
like grim death. After a time, however, I quite got into the way of
driving in ruts. We stopped for the night at Wapallo, and were just
going to have supper when the vicar came along and saw our van,
whereupon he promptly took us home with him. His wife was most kind to
us, and at once supplied our greatest (and most obvious) need by
inviting us to wash. A real wash is a great treat on the prairie, where
water is so scarce. After supper we went to evensong in the pretty
little prairie church, near which we afterwards camped. We had done
ninety-two miles that day.
Next day, when we stopped at Medicine Hat for gasolene, a man came out
of a store close by, and, seeing the van, introduced himself as the
superintendent of the Anglican Sunday School there. He was most anxious
that we should stop over Sunday, but we thought it best to get to Regina
as soon as possible. As we neared the town we had a narrow escape from a
slough. Going into Regina there was a very bad turn, in negotiating
which the car swung round and one of the front wheels went into a muddy
ditch. By putting on the brake with great force, I managed to stop her
from plunging farther in. I think I was getting a little tired. We had
done 120 miles that day. Winifred went off to find help, but a big motor
lorry came along as I sat waiting with the car, and stopped at once,
seeing I was in difficulties. The driver called out that he would pull
me out if I had a rope. I always carried one, and with its aid he soon
towed me out backwards. When I thanked him he said: "You're Scotch,
aren't you? I was in a hospital in Scotland during the War, and the
nurses were so good to me that I'm glad to help any girls from the Old
Country."
Everyone seemed both pleased and surprised to see us back, though
unfeignedly astonished that one so "green" should have been able to
bring the car through alone. It is 412 miles from Winnipeg to
Regina--farther than from London to Glasgow. Far from being exhausted by
our adventures, we felt braced up by the glorious sunshine and
invigorating air of the prairie, and we did full justice to the feast of
welcome prepared. Folks were interested in the caravan, and various
remarks were made about it. Even to our fond eyes it could not be called
exactly beautiful, but it was rather cruel of Canon X. to observe: "Ah!
a Black Maria, I see."
On the Monday following, while I was in the midst of preparations for
our start that week, Nona Clarke rang me up to say that Aylmer Bosanquet
was very ill, and could I come at once to help to bring her into Regina.
I had about ten minutes in which to catch the train. Helped by kind Mrs.
W., I bundled a few things into a suit-case and ran. But I had to stop
at a drug-store to get some sort of stimulant for Aylmer, as Nona had
said that she seemed on the verge of a collapse. It is in a case like
this that prohibition is so inconvenient. I could get neither brandy nor
sal-volatile without a doctor's certificate--and yet I had often seen
people who did not _look_ ill produce a certificate and get the
stimulant they asked for. "Is there nothing you can give me?" I asked in
desperation, and the shopman handed me some kind of ammonia, saying that
was the only thing he could let me have. The bottle bore no directions,
and when I asked how one should take it, and whether the dose would be
about the same as sal-volatile, he replied indifferently: "Oh, yes, I
think so."
I just caught the train, which then steamed out of the station and
waited an hour at North Regina.
I found Aylmer very ill indeed, hardly able to speak, and without any of
those little comforts which mean so much in sickness. The shack was all
in disorder, too, as they were packing up to go on the prairie in the
Ford roadster. Although she was so weak and ill she was full of interest
in our work, and made me describe the journey from Winnipeg, but I soon
saw that conversation was too much for her. Nona telephoned to a doctor
in Regina, asking him to come out next day to see if the patient were
fit to travel, in which case he was to accompany her back by the next
train.
All that night a dust storm raged, succeeded next morning by torrential
rain. I went out to get milk and bread for breakfast, buying the latter
from the Christian Chinaman, who inquired anxiously for Aylmer, and
said, when I wished to pay for my purchase, "Eef it ees for de
missionarees you need not pay." Then there was the problem of how to get
the invalid to the station, as the shack was by this time surrounded
with a sea of black mud which no car could traverse. But Nona found a
man with a dray who promised to come if needed. The doctor's train was
so late that there was only a quarter of an hour between his arrival and
the departure of the return train. But he made a hasty examination, and
said that though she was very weak it would be better to take her into
Regina. It is so difficult to get nurses or medical attendance out on
the prairie.[4]
I dressed her with difficulty, and she lay on the bed while we all
combined to lift it bodily on to the dray. But the rain and wind were
still so strong that Nona had to kneel beside the bed holding on fast to
the rugs, while I held an umbrella over Aylmer's head. It was pathetic
to see the people waving good-bye from their houses as she passed, for
though they did not guess how ill she was, they knew that she was
leaving them, perhaps for ever. Arrived at Regina, we took her to the
Grey Nuns' hospital.
I had now only three days in which to complete our preparations if we
were to start on the date fixed, which it was necessary to do if we were
to fulfil our engagements. I went to see Aylmer as often as I could, and
of course drove the caravan up to the hospital for her to see from her
window. It grieved me very much (apart from my anxiety about her
illness) to think that she could now take no part in this adventure, the
idea of which was all her own. Indeed, this was to prove her only
glimpse of our van, in the details of which she would have revelled, for
before we returned from the prairie she had been ordered to British
Columbia and then on to California. I never saw her again.
[Footnote 4: See Appendix II.]