MOTORING TO ATHABASCA LANDING
"I'll tell the tale of a northern trail,
And so help me God, it's true."
I dreamed three times that I was taking this trip, and here it has come
to pass.
Our party consists of an editor from Vancouver; an editor from
Edmonton; a Member of Parliament, a chauffeur, and myself. I feel
guiltily feminine.
The road is one hundred miles long and connects Edmonton with the
North. Over it are hauled all the supplies for the settlements and
trading posts clear down to the Arctic. Once arrived at Athabasca
Landing, the supplies are loaded on to scows or, in the winter, to
sleighs, and from thence carried to their destination. I secretly call
this the Trail of Sighs, for to the freighter it is a long and weary
way, especially in these later days when editors, M.P.'s and graceless
witty bodies whirl past him at forty miles the hour in motors that are
quite mad. Some day a teamster will kill a chauffeur for sheer spite.
Even now the fuse is fizzing round the magazine, or whatever you call
the gasoline receptacle under the seat.
It would be hard to declare how long this trail has been used, but I
would say for a century at least. From Edmonton for a few miles out,
it is called the Fort Trail because--allowing for a slight
divergence--it goes to Fort Saskatchewan, the head-quarters of the
Mounted Police in this district. From thence, it is called the Landing
Trail.
But soon this whole country will be shod with steel, for, even now, you
may see navvies building grades as you pass along the trail, and next
week the first railway to the Landing will be opened for traffic. I
tell you, these railways are creating a new heavens and a new earth
however much the freighters may object. It is true, the trail will
lose in interest once the lumbering stage coaches and heavily laden
"tote" wagons have disappeared. When there are no long whips that
crack like pistol shots; no night encampments around blazing fires, and
no browsing cattle with tinkling bells, much of its picturesqueness
will have been surrendered to the implacable cause of civilization.
From this time forth, the men who travel the trail will work for a
wage. They will forget the feel of frozen bread in the teeth; the hard
earth underneath them and the rough blanket against their chins. Yes!
and they will also forget the fine elemental thrill that comes from
hitting a running moose at long range, or a slithering wolf that lurks
privily in a covert of kinikinnic. The pity of it!
No longer will our trail know the tired huskies, and still more tired
runners, who each year, come February, make this homestretch to the old
fur-market. The enormous bundles of fur that each spring sell for a
million dollars to the bidders from Vienna, St. Petersburg, London and
Chicago, will, for the future, figure as only so many untanned hides,
as per bill of lading, instead of precious peltry or--supposing you to
have sight and insight--"the lives o' men."
Our first stopping place is Battenberg, by the Sturgeon River. The
place is not named for the lace as you might conjecture, but in honour
of the son-in-law of her late Majesty, Queen Victoria. It is here the
rural telephone wire comes to an end but if you are inclined to be
finicky, it is not well to telephone. I tried it and had a
conversation with Central in the which she expressed her opinion of me.
I cannot complain that it was not informing.
The motor in which we travel has a record, not for speed, but as having
made the farthest north trip on its own power. Last winter, Jack Kydd,
our chauffeur, took it down the Athabasca River, on the ice, as far as
the Pelican Rapids--that is to say, 225 miles north of Edmonton. "The
make of the car?" you ask. I would tell you straight off and, later
on, would endeavour to collect a bonus from the manufacturers were it
not for the uncompromising prejudice of the publishers and their
editors. Men are like that.
But I was telling you about Jack Kydd! His talent as a chauffeur is
one that trails no feathers and he is a fine, likely looking lad. This
day, I saw him pull the remains of a stump out of the road without
breaking the axle. Such a performance should be rated as a religious
act like the planting of the pipal tree in India.
All the way along, our road is contested by farmers' dogs who surge out
from the shacks in a vain endeavour to regulate our speed. The dog is
an incurable motophobe who says everything profane about motors that
can be said.
Here is a morose young bull contesting the high way with us, refusing
to budge an inch, and facing the motor with a menace. He is a
grim-visaged brute and built for battle like an ironclad. His
challenge to combat is a very dagger stroke of sound. Although the
M.P. wagers fifty dollars on the motor, we do not try conclusions, but
discreetly take to the side of the road at an angle that is truly
appalling.
Even the calves are not afraid of the car and make their perilous bed
in the middle of the road, thus causing us to reduce our pace to a
legal one. Indeed, the only animals frightened of it are the horses.
Its huge black snout and great goggle-eyes must make it seem to them
like some monstrous, unthinkable brute. And, all considered, the
horses are the wisest of the animals---wiser even than men--for the
yellow peril--is as nothing to the black one.
Still, we are having a mighty good time. When the road is clear, the
car spreads her wings and flies. Her gentle pliancy seems incompatible
with her hurtling force. Each moment, she accumulates momentum so that
we feel a sensation of tremendous power without pity. For the nonce,
we are potential murderers and pigmy men had better have a care how
they lounge across our paths. This mad car doesn't know a hill when
she comes to it and even sings a long-metre song on the ascent. She
might fairly be considered to have conquered gravitation. On! On!
with bird-like swoop she goes, fairly skimming the ground and taking
the corners just as if she knew what was there.
You can never believe how stretched out the world is till you motor
this way north and see the long ribbons of road that unfold at every
turn, the silver illimitable distances that suggest both a mystery and
an invitation. I love these open trails, and to be of the earth earthy
is not so wicked after all.
Gur--r--r--umph! Our 50 H.P. had dwindled to less than one-pony power
and we haven't a leg to stand on. I will never say we burst a tyre: we
cast a shoe.
"It is neither, Madam," said the Vancouver editor who was helping to
prise up the wheel. "It is a valvular disease. Our viary accident is
the result of a vicious valve that, of its own volition, has put a veto
on our volacious voyage."
"Avant!" retorts the editor from Edmonton. "I will vouch that the
accident to the vitals of our vehicle was a voidable one and arose from
violent vibrations and vulgar velocity."
"Your verbose verdicts will never make the vamp or fill the vacuum,"
says the more practical M.P. "Bring me the vade-mecum this instant,
you vacillating vagabonds."
I cannot think of any assonant words so I am content with fining each
man a "V" or "vifty" days. I told you I was guiltily feminine.
Sitting at the side of a road, waiting for a plaster to dry on a valve,
is about as exciting an occupation as knitting. Men should see to it
that women learn to smoke if only that the women may take breakdowns
more placidly. I can understand smoking becoming a means of grace.
Besides, the sun is very hot this day and burns my face and neck to a
vivid scarlet. Each man in the party produces a talcum tin for my
alleviation. "Sunny _Alberta_!" snorts the British Columbian, "_Sunny_
Alberta! a place of sun, believe me, for people who would prefer shade."
This newly acquired habit of the modern man in carrying a talcum tin is
one that, hitherto, has escaped print. I here set it down for your
consideration.
While we are at work, three handsome boys drive up and stop to talk
with us. I take their photograph while they pose for me on a stump.
They are real-estate fans, so that their heads are full of
"propositions," their pockets full of maps. They have imagination,
unflagging industry, facility of expression, and love of
country--qualities which are sure to bring them to the front in their
gainful pursuit.
The illustrious financiers who come yearly to this province to deliver
much kind advice and sage instruction, warn us to beware of these boys
whom they are pleased to call "wildcatters," just as if we were the
first to spend our money on the evidence of things hoped for, the
substance of things not seen. The trouble which follows from
over-investment in real-estate futures is attributable, not so much to
the wildcatters, as to the unknown author of the multiplication table.
Multiplying is our favourite occupation in Alberta even as it is in
some other provinces I know of. Up here, every one who has a tongue
talks about his "turn-over"; his "c'mission"; his "stake." Those who
haven't tongues are the listeners. And it is a good thing to have a
stake in this North-West Canada--very good. I have never yet met a
person who regretted having one, but there are many regret they have
not. I could tell you more about the real-estate situation only Jane
Austen says if a woman knows anything she should strive superlatively
to conceal it.
Fifty miles from Edmonton, we cross the Arctic watershed, so that from
this point it is strictly proper to say down North, although the fall
is only two feet to the mile. It is at this height of land that we
look around and mentally spy out the country. We talk about the
incomparable wheat fields of Grande Prairie; the water-powers of the
Peace River; the oil-fields at Fort McMurray; the natural gas at
Pelican Rapids; the timber berths and asphaltum of the Athabasca; of
the coal, salt, fisheries, furs, and minerals spread all over and under
this new and unrivalled Northland. And all this riches lies at our
very feet--_ours for the taking_. "Hungry and I feed them," says the
North. "Naked and I clothe them; thirsty and I give them----"
"No, it doesn't," says our chauffeur. "You can't get anything to drink
beyond the Landing. The North is strictly a prohibition country."
"Dear me!" whines a person in the back seat, "and we are dreadfully out
of tea."
At five o'clock, we stop at Eggie's for supper. Eggie broke land here
fourteen years ago, and ever since has kept a stopping place for
travellers. There is no need of his transporting eggs, butter, meat,
grain, and vegetables to market, for the market comes to him. He makes
hay when the sun shines, and also in the dark. As a result, he has
accumulated sixty thousand dollars in money and gear. So far as I
know, there is no eating-house with a record in any way comparable.
Eggie Jr. is a telegraph operator. His instrument is back of the cook
stove over against a window. When he is away from home his young
sister works the code. She picked it up while tending the stove. You
can never tell what is up the sleeve of these pioneering women. I told
her she was the sixth wise virgin. "The other five?" she queried with
a glint of laughter in her eyes. There are other folk having supper at
Eggie's. The man with the long slouchy stride is a land surveyor.
They grow on every bush here.
That crisp-mannered youth with the honey-coloured hair is going down
north to cap a gas well. In what better task can a youth engage than
to conserve power, heat, and light for humanity? Dear young man!
Their driver quotes Cicero, and swears in Cree. He is a living example
of what whisky can do for a Bachelor of Arts who entirely devotes
himself to it.
By six o'clock we are again on the road, and passing through a rolling
park-like country dotted with clumps of cottonwood, birch, poplar, and
spruce. Sometimes, we pass lush meadow upon which graze full-fleshed
cattle and comfortably rotund sheep. On one farm, a man is burning
dead brushwood. There is no keener pleasure than, here and there, to
thrust a core of fire into long grass or brushwood, and to watch the
red tongues of flame as they greedily lap it up. As yet, no farmer has
written about it, but this is only because farmers are afraid of
literary critics. It is a pity the workers are so frequently
inarticulate, thus leaving their joys and sorrows to be imperfectly
sensed by onlookers. But, Hear, Oh Men! and rejoice with me for at
this game I am not a mere onlooker, having once burnt over twenty-eight
acres. In making these fires, there is a kind of madness that takes
possession of you so that you pay no heed to the shrivelling of your
shoes; to the scalding cinders on your hands; or the inky blackness of
your face and clothes. Indeed, it would not be surprising to
ultimately learn that the direful task assigned to Lucifer is not
wholly without its compensations.
At long intervals, we pass fat little shacks that spread over the land
instead of stretching up. At one of these, we stop to get cold water
in the engine.
"Any news moving?" asks the bachelor who is overlord to the shack.
He does not wait for an answer, but proceeds to inform us that the
prime knowledge a man needs for homesteading is the art of cooking in a
frying pan.
His homestead is a ranch; not a rawnch. The difference, he explains,
is that the former pays sometimes; the latter never.
He very kindly invites me to see his swineyard, the special pride of
which is a heavy thoroughbred called "Artful Belle" ... O la! la! la!
As he upholsters his pipe with a stuffing of cut-plug, her master would
have me observe that Belle's face is "dished" and that her eyes are
free from wrinkles of surrounding fat. Indeed Belle is no waddling,
commonplace sow; no mere animated lard keg, for she has been bred to
the purple with great care.
"A bacon hog?" I ask.
"Yes, madam," he replies, "but in order that her bacon may be of the
desired streakiness I feed and starve her alternately."
It makes a vast difference to a sow whether her ears stand up or lie
down. Belle's ears are 'pliable' and 'silky.' Her hair doesn't comb
straight either, but tends to swirls and cowlicks which are
proof-positive of her blue blood in the same way that a cold nose is in
a woman.
I made a grave error, too, in speaking of Belle as red. Every swine
husbandman knows the technical word for her particular colour is
"mahogany." She has already farrowed two litters of six, the members
of which inherit their mother's fatal beauty. He tells me other things
but I forget them, except that pigs can see the wind, and that they are
older than history.
We take a photograph of this bachelor homesteader and promise to print
it in a city paper under the caption, 'Wife Wanted.' In the North, we
call a bachelor, 'an anxious one.'
The last miles of our journey are heavy going because of the hills and
stones, and our motor makes a lugubrious noise internally that is
wholly at variance with her velvet wheels, well lubricated machinery,
and the comfortable roundness of the corner seats, as if a plump and
smiling matron had suddenly started to swear.
We reach Athabasca Landing at half-past ten while daylight still
lingers. Our complexions are somewhat impaired, but the man who
settles the bill for the steaks and coffee says there is nothing wrong
with our appetites.