CHAPTER VII
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.