Sunday, November 22, 2009

Fort MacLeod [ctd]

Nov. 22nd. I was interrupted here & have not been able to write since. My birthday, Dear me how old I am getting 24 yesterday. My hair is not yet grey nor am I bald. Since I wrote last the trains are still out. There has been no news no letters. It has been storming again and snowing. We have moved our quarters from the Bell tent to two large square tents one pitched over the other for the sake of comfort we have much more room & the double canvass keeps out more of the wind & cold. The first night we moved in the wind was blowing a perfect hurricane & the tent flapped & creaked & strained & shook - & the wind whistled & shrieked about us coming in gusts that struck against the tent like solid substance. You can form some idea of the winds force by comparing it to the storm of last December – a little else violent but fearfull strong. I got not a wink of sleep – tho’ I was very sleepy. During the night the wind which was from the South West changed & clew from the North East and snow came with it. I had heard the next day that some of the men who had been removed to me of the trading posts about four miles away – were taken very bad so I set out in all the storm to make my way down to see them. I was in my black coat – the one I used to wear two or three winters ago – no vest a buffalo fur cap & moccasins. I ran all the way, the wind was on my left cheek and blew bitterly cold. The snow eddied and whirled about me blinding & obscuring objects within a hundred yards of me. a great cliff over 80 feet high I could not see until I was at its very foot and has begun to climb up it when finding it so steep I rolled down in a lull of the wind saw what it was. It was dark by the time I got back & tea was ready for which I was very thankful. The men were doing very well and tho’ very glad to see me yet in no great need of my attention. I have been down then twice since then but the wind was nothing only the cold was greater. The trader at the fort did not want me to come back that night he said he was afraid I would get lost or frozen but I persisted & feel proud in achieving a feat which old backwoodsmen did not dare & even Indians were sitting around their lodge fires. The men have all move into their quarters but our quarters are as yet unroofed and unmudded. I should not be surprised if we had to remain in tents all winter. This is not the earthly paradise it was represented to be[,] far from it. It is a howling wilderness & it remains to be seen whether civilization can do anything to turn it to a better country & make the wilderness blossom as the rose. I think this letter is getting too long so I will close it now and begin a new one. Remember me kindly to all – and Believe me to love you fondly if not more than ever. Goodbye – write soon.

Your own

Barrie

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Fort MacLeod [ctd]

Nov. 19th. It is now a week since I last wrote to you. The teams I told you of as being expected in with letters came & brought me a letter and a great disappointment. I got a letter from Father in answer to one I wrote him from Ft. Benton – this was dated from Savannah Oct. 7th. It took just 13 days for my letter to reach him from Benton. I expected one from you but I was disappointed there, however better luck next time. There are other teams some at Fort Hamilton – may be in any day – they also may have leters. The second are Conrads & are stuck in the snow which is over three feet deep – they have sent out about 60 oxen more to bring them along. They have no letters but a good deal of stuff for us & in such we stand in a great deal of need. Since I was last writing we have has some very cold weather the thermometer being down 26º & 28º below zero. The average temperature fr the past week has been only 2º.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Fort MacLeod [ctd]

Nov. 12th

I do not know when a mail will go out or when ours will come in. I had a letter written waiting for you also one for Frank Darling and one for Harry Stotesburg a large wagon train is now expected in every day – it was heard of the day before yesterday at the St. Mary’s River. Is only 3 days from here – whether this has letters for us no one can tell. Every night in the candles a large bunch of letters points to me I look at them & wonder if they will be soon here. We have made a checker board & checkers of gun wads & now pass the evenings in friendly contests. Euchre – poker – whiskey poker too – Fare – Vingteten playing for gun wads – whiskey poker was played for tobacco. I never played for anything but gun wads & they are always given back at the end of the game. We are now likely to get into our quarters before the six weeks I spoke of are out – we have changed the mode of building – from cross logs to pickets. The first of these little drawings is meant to represent the cross log mode the latter the picket – with pickets a trench is dug & the logs set up on end and the logs are much shorter & more easily handled than in the other cross log mode. I will try when the place is built to draw you a small sketch of the place and send it to you. In that you may have some faint idea of the appearance of things around me. you would laugh to see me handling the pick & shovel. I bet you I can beat the Corporatino workers in Toronto. I have become quite an expert in their use – the axe too I can handle quite deftly – at heaving logs I am a lumberman – sawing with the cross cut saw is child’s play. I feel my arms and legs & back very very sore and stiff but there is nothing like more work to take that out of a man. The hardest work of all is mudding the chinks – we bring a stiff blue clay that is found in profession here & mix it with water & slap it as hard as we can into the chinks between the logs – it is so cold that the mud & water freeze into great huge lumps or freeze on our hands – which have to be held in the fire until the outside coating of ice melts. The pain is sometimes almost unendurable till we get used to it – and every day now gets colder & makes it worse yet it has to be done – the outside work is the hardest – when we get to doing the inside we can have warm water to mix the mud & will be protected from the wind. I had to stop & sign the sick Reports & then went over to see some sick Indians. They gave me a pair of Buffalo moccasins with the hair inside very warm. This may be said to be my first fee in the great North West from the noble redman. I got one pair from a half breed for attending to her child. By the time I was through with the Indians it was dinner time & after dinner I walked up the river 4 miles to a traders - & heard that he expected a train in from Benton every day – he had heard they were only 25 miles from here yesterday. He thinks too they have letters for us they left Benton 20 days ago. I hope sincerely they have letters. Oh what a disappointment if they have not and what pleasure if they have. Conrad is going to send his ox teams back to Fort Benton and the remained of our horses go back with him. Most probably he will take our letters too. One of our mens quarters 100 feet long is all ready for the roofing – which will in all probability be done tomorrow – then the others will follow in quick succession but numerous things yet remain to be done. It has begun to snow again to night and how long it will keep up no one knows. The weather is pretty cold all the time never even at noon being above freezing point. I wonder what you are doing. This evening after tea at 6.30 I had a smoke. I know you did not do that. Then the Col. & Winder & the Adpt. Crozier – began talking of the Fort Garry times. The Winder and I had a game of checkers in which after a protracted game he beat me. now I am writing to you. Did I ever tell you of my tent mates since we came up here. We have a Bill Tent – round – and there are three of us in it. Capt. Winder commanding “C” Troop – a tall man with whiskers & beard of a reddish brown nearly bald – very quick in his way but full of jokes & a certain dry humor – he is from Compton near Lennoxville – and knows a good many of the people around there whom I used to know and heard about. He has been in California too & is quite a traveled man. Capt. Jackson is the very quintessence of fire the chance bristro Irishman he has red hair & a pair of fierce moustaches which he persists in curling he has strange coloured eyes – not green not grey but a mixture of grey & red. He is always playing a practical Joke on some one. He has command of the artillery we have. He is from Seaforth near Coderich. Very hot tempered but obliging. We get along together quite nicely. Our mess has an addition to it of Col. MacLeod – the Assist. Commissioner of the force – after every meal of course we have a smoke and discuss the affairs of the force & the probabilities of the weather but always fall back into talking of Homes & homie belongings. I believe I told you that he is connected with the Baldwins in Yorkville and also knows the Amour’s of Bowmanville in fact at one time he used to live in Bowmanville and was in partnership with Mr. Armour. He is a very nice fellow to have anything to do with. He is from Kingston and knows the Andersen’s & Fred Nelson quite well. So putting all together we have plenty to talk about. It is now nearly bed time so I will say goodnight for the present.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Fort MacLeod [ctd]

Nov. 2. Yesterday evening I took a short walk – but it was very cold – the thermometer being below freezing. We have been told time and again that this snow would only last for a day or two but now it has been on the ground for more than a week & the weather is getting colder and at the same time we hear stories of the extreme cold of winter which beat all that we have hitherto heard. At one time it was a most beautiful climate quite fairy like – now it beats that of Manitoba for extreme cold. It is strange what stories are told. My sick report for a day or two was very large no less than 26 being upon it – more than one sixth the whole strength of the force it has however dwindled down to a much smaller number only 12 this morning and 4 of them able to return to their duty. I wonder that more of the men are not sick – what with tramping around in the snow and slush in moccasins full of holes or boots without soles and sleeping in the cold tents. They must be pretty good men not to come in. When I come back to you I will be a hardy veteran and what is worse and awkward boor. I am sure I will have forgotten how to behave myself. I had at Fort Benton a slight inkling of how much I had forgotten and now with perhaps three years of loneliness and without womans’ refining influences can you imagine a more pitiable object than myself stuck down in a ladies drawing room? Don’t let us look so far forwards – unless you promise to take me under your protecting wing and before my appearance again in society teach me all the little kindly mannerisms of good behavior so I will not bring disgrace upon you by suddenly being turned loose. Very nearly four months of the thirty-six have gone by – that is about one ninth of the whole time – which leaves only eight ninths to be gone through. Is that not a great deal shorter than three years? I do not now even expect to get a leave of absence during the summer. If Kittson and the remained of the force come up next summer – I will probably be left at the fort with any sick there may be – or I may be moved up to Fort Edmonton or to the Bow River at old Bow Fort or anywhere that a new post may be established. So it will be good bye to all my big tour dreams. I must say good bye for the present. I don’t know when this will go – and will add a few lines before it does.

Your own

Barrie

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Fort MacLeod [ctd]

I forgot to date this letter at least this last sheet. All on this page was written on Sunday the first of November only three weeks now to my birthday and if I don’t get a letter from you by that time I shall indeed be bitterly disappointed. Now do try like a good girl and let me hear from you. Of course you have written but also this horrible mail we have been here nearly a month and there is no sign yet of hearing from you or from home. I am getting very much discouraged – almost a fit of the blues – only that would help me – as I have not got you to talk it out of me – or play softly and the blue devils out by the piano. Did you ever receive the letters I wrote to you on the march? And the one from Chicago in lead pencil? It is a queer country out here and the people themselves are queer. Last night Conrad finished a portion of his store and his men had a dance – a home warming over the event – the music was furnished by some men from the police in the form of a concertina and two pipes – the shouting and the sight of merriment were great. I did not go over to see them but judged only from the external signs. I supped at Trinity College the other day[;] the usual Sant Gimmons and Judas supper with James. Did you hear anything about them? If you see Frank Darling tell him that I will as soon as possible fulfil my promise of writing to him. I suppose he is getting along as well as ever. Tell him that he and Jack & Mannie had better make up a party next summer and come out and see me. come by the way of the Northern Pacific Railway to Bismarck and thence up the Missouri to Fort Benton then they will have to take their horses – and come on. I will promise them lots of hunting and fishing and we can pay some of the Indians visits. I may be able to take them up to St. Mary’s Lake where salmon Trout are as thick as the sands of the sea. Mr. Cameron’s mouth will water if he hears of such an abundance of fish that only require to be caught not only salmon trout but the ordinary speckled trout are in the greatest numbers. It is great sport I am told fishing for 1 hour through the ice. If you can get them before the snow falls – the ice is so clear you can see the fish in the water under your feet. But all the hunting and fishing does not in any way make up for the loss of the letters. It would be quite bearable if I could only hear from you. Of course when we expected to go to Edmonton we had made up our minds to a long long period of silence but here it is so aggravating to know that letters are on their way or are waiting for us within a known distance and still not be able to get them. ‘Pon my word, I would not hesitate to rou the mail if I knew it contained letters for me and I should meet it anywhere. I am afraid my letters are very egotistical and harp upon one complaining strain but human nature is often all human nature – and if I did not cry out about the letters I would find other causes of discontent. There is no news here to tell you the same regular course of work on the building goes on every day. We began on the stables 'for the horses were more able to be killed by any sudden cold. You will have some idea of the magnitude of the building when I tell you that the stables were to be 120 yds in length by 8 yds wide 7 ft. high at the eves. Then then mens quarters & hospital 80 yrds long the same width - & the officers quarters and quartermasters storehouse will be 80 yds long & the same width – then the powder magazine and force. When you consider too that the logs all had to be cut & set together and then the cracks filled up with bits of wood & then plastered with thick mud. The roof made of timber small round or larger split in half - & then on the left of this – a coating of mud six inches thick & thus on top of all six inches more of dry earth – then the chimneys to be built & the windows and doors made. It is an immense undertaking especially when begun so late in the season.