The _Minnesota_ again--Souvenirs of Lord and Lady Dufferin--From
Winnipeg by Red River--_Compagnons du Voyage_--A Model
Farm--"Bees"--Manitoba a good Field for Emigrants--Changes at Fisher's
Landing--A Mild Excitement for Sundays--Racing with Prairie
Fires--Glyndon--Humours of a Pullman Sleeping Car--Lichfield.
We came up the Red River in the _Minnesota_, the vessel in which I
had gone down two years and a half before; the same, too, used by Lord
and Lady Dufferin, with their party. Some Americans who were with us
good-temperedly vied with each other in their efforts to get the
state-rooms occupied by the vice-regal party, and the steward was asked
many questions as to their sayings and doings. All the Americans took
great interest in everything about them; carrying their admiration to the
extent of making birch-bark-covered needle-books of the coarse red
flannel spread upon the ground for Lord Dufferin to walk upon--intending
them as valuable souvenirs for their friends.
We left Winnipeg about noon, for three days' monotonous trip on the
river. Novel or work in hand, we went into the saloon to read or work,
furtively study our fellow-travellers, and by-and-by make acquaintance
with them. We were a motley group. Round one table gathered a knot of
chatty Americans, evidently travelling together, and quite as much at
home on board the boat as in their own drawing-room. Besides this party
of friends, there were plenty of solitary units, of more or less amusing
characteristics: a pretty, merry woman of about thirty, mother of three
children; a handsome old lady, hard at work on an embroidered
table-cloth--a present, she told us, for a friend, to whose wedding she
was going; a young clergyman, whose walk, expression, and general
appearance betrayed his ritualistic tendencies, and who strolled up and
down, now and then stopping to join in the ladies' conversation. A
sad-looking woman lay on the sofa, trying to hide her tear-stained face
behind a newspaper which was never turned, the columns to her containing
only regrets for dear friends left behind. A fussy old lady in a
fashionable cap and cannon curls, after informing us that she was Mrs.
B----, of ----, drew her chair near every _tête-a-tête_ couple, and,
politely requesting to be allowed to take part in the conversation,
gradually usurped it all, till, before she had apparently quite satisfied
herself upon every one's private affairs, she was left at liberty to join
another group. A tall, delicate, sad-looking man, the defeated candidate
for ----, was returning to Ontario, where he was soon after elected for
another constituency. A sleepy-looking young Frenchman and his more lively
friend, an energetic speculator, who had gone to Manitoba prospecting for
land, was returning disgusted, having seen, "dem' it, nothing but mud." A
poor old lady was kept in subjection by a tall daughter, with a face so
closely veiled, that our curiosity was aroused. Not until the third day
did I come upon her--suddenly--while her face was uncovered, and then no
longer wondered that she tried to conceal the dreadful squint nature had
given her. There were, also, a would-be-fast-if-she-could young lady of
eighteen, who had apparently read in novels of flirtations on board
steamers, until she hoped to make the same experiences her own, and had
not woman's wit enough to hide her disappointment; and a nice-looking
girl going home to get her wedding garments ready, who moaned over the
long journey to be taken again in six weeks, hoping to be asked "why the
necessity?" Finally, a professor and his pretty, lady-like wife, and one
or two other nice people, made up our _compagnons du voyage._
I have already mentioned Red River and its many windings, which it is
needless to allude to here. We passed Grand Forks at midnight on
Saturday, and, leaving an order for stages to be sent on in the morning
to overtake us, got off the steamer at ten o'clock on Sunday, saving more
than a day on the river by driving to Fisher's Landing. The farm, where
we went ashore, is owned by an Ontario emigrant. The house is situated in
the midst of a beautiful grove of oak and birch, among which grassy
avenues, with huge branches meeting overhead, formed roads to the neat
farmyards and granaries. A big bell hung on cross poles at the entrance
to one of the avenues leading to what was once the rolling prairie, now
fields of grain--six hundred acres, without a fence, stump, or ditch to
mar the effect. The clear line of the horizon was broken only by another
farmhouse, owned by a brother-in-law, whose farm lay beyond. The man
told us he had emigrated six years before to Manitoba, and had gone as
far as Emerson, where the mud frightened him; and, turning back, he had
taken up this land, paying a dollar and a quarter an acre for it, and had
succeeded so well, that at the end of the second year it had paid all
expenses. Since then he had built a good house and barns, and bought
extra stock, and he was putting money in the bank. The only trouble he
had was the difficulty of getting men at harvest-time, the farms being
too scattered to be able to follow the Ontario plan of "Bees;" [Footnote:
"Bees" are gatherings from all the neighbouring farmhouses to assist at
any special work, such as a "threshing bee," a "raising" or "building
bee." When ready to build, the farmer apprises all his neighbours of the
date fixed, and they come to his assistance with all their teams and men,
expecting the same help from him when they require it. They have "bees"
for everything, the men for outdoor work, and the women for indoor; each
as quilting or paring apples for drying, when they often pare, cut, and
string several barrels in one afternoon. When the young men join them,
they finish the evening with high tea, games, and a dance.] and he often
had to work eighteen or twenty hours running, the late and early
daylight, as well as the bright, clear moonlight, helping him.
The Yankee emigration agents have a powerful assistant in the Pembina
mud, in persuading Canadian emigrants to remain in Dakota or Minnesota.
But if these emigrants were less impatient, or less easily persuaded,
they would find quite as good, if not better land, in Manitoba than on
the American side of the line, besides being under our own Queen and
laws.
The stage was so long in coming, that some of our party took advantage of
the farmer's offer to drive them to Fisher's Landing for seventy five
cents a head. We were not long in following them, and after jolting for
an hour and a half over a rough road, most of it through farms, we
reached Fisher's. How changed the place was since we stopped there on our
way up! We found a uniform row of painted wooden houses, shops, offices,
ware rooms, and boarding houses, besides several saloons and billiard
rooms. Up the slight hill to the south, where had been rude board
shanties, mud, and chaos, one or two pretty cottages had been built,
having green blinds, and neatly arranged gardens and lawns. A medium
sized wharf and gravelled banks had arisen where was only a dismal swamp,
while away over the prairie lay the iron rails of the St. Vincent and St.
Paul extension line, soon to be running in connexion with the Pembina
branch of the Canada Pacific at the boundary, when the tedious trip upon
Red River can be avoided. The side tracks were full of loaded freight,
and cars waiting to tranship at the wharf, the steamer which left
Winnipeg two days before we did having only just arrived.
In spite of the external improvement in the Landing, it had not improved
in morals, and is quoted in all the country round as the refuge of all
the thieves, gamblers, drunkards, and cut-throats from both Canada and
the United States. Certainly the men we saw lounging about looked
anything but prepossessing. Hearing some shots fired during the afternoon,
I was told with a shrug--
"There's some one got a bullet in him! There's always something of that
sort happening on Sunday. They can't work, so need some excitement. It
does not matter much, as there is no law in the place, and they manage to
bring their scores out pretty even in the end, without any fuss about
it."
Probably, however, the town is not quite so black as it is painted, and
though not a desirable place of residence, it might be worse.
All the afternoon we heard at intervals the whistle of the boat we had
left--so near that we began to regret the two dollars' additional expense
of the stage. But we were told that, although scarcely a mile off as the
crow flies, it was, such are the windings of the river, at least twelve
or fourteen hours' journey from the Landing. We left at a little after
four, and until dark, when rain fell, we raced with numbers of prairie
fires; some great walls of smoke and flame, others mere narrow strips of
fire, all travelling in straight lines, and not interfering with each
other. A tiny spark from the engine would ignite a fresh spot, and before
our car had passed it had begun its race with the others. The driver, who
was a new hand, and ignorant of the road, dashed over it at a breakneck
pace, the cars swaying from side to side like a ship in a storm. At
Glyndon we took on a Pullman sleeping car, when there was a scramble for
berths; a section containing two, an upper and lower, costing four
dollars for one night. Mrs. F---- and the baby taking the lower one, I
prepared to climb into the upper. Divesting myself of my hat, dress, and
boots in the dressing room at the end of the car, I put on an ulster, and
mounting the steps, held by the shining darkey attendant, went aloft. The
space between the bed and the roof was so small that it was impossible to
sit upright, but the difficulties of getting comfortable were compensated
for by the amusement afforded me by my neighbours, separated only by a
thin slide, or the heavy curtains hung on poles in front.
From one side came the expostulations of an elderly man with a young
Frenchman upon his demand for a berth, it being more proper that ladies
should be provided for first, all his eloquence being answered only by a
fretful, "But I wants my sleep, I have vera much fatigue!" On the other
side a choleric old man growled anathemas at his boots and the absence of
a boot jack, which gradually changed into fierce snorts and rumblings as
of approaching earth quakes, terminating in startling explosions.
Opposite me, some one, after turning and twisting about for a while, at
last thrust a dishevelled head between the curtains, and in shrill
accents requested the porter to open the ventilator--"she was just
melting!" Scarcely was her request complied with, than a night-capped,
grizzled head appeared from the other side, and in stentorian tones
demanded, "Where the deuce the wind was coming from? Shut that confounded
thing, or I'll break your bones;" to which, however, the porter paid no
heed, and the grizzled head grumbled itself to sleep again, muttering
threats of reporting him in the morning.
It was very hot, and I found it impossible to sleep. The strangeness of
my surroundings, and the occasional thinking aloud of my neighbours, kept
me wakeful. We stopped at seven, at Lichfield, to breakfast, where, for
the moderate charge of seventy-five cents each, a cup of bad coffee, a
roll, and some fat bacon were served.