Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

CHAPTER XIX

THE PRAIRIES AGAIN

I

In cold weather and through a snowfall that had powdered the slopes and foothills of the Rocky Mountains the Prince, on Thursday, October 2nd, reached the prairies again. Now he was travelling well to the south of his former journey on a line that ran just above the American border.

In this bleak and rolling land he was to call in the next two days at a series of small towns whose very names—McLeod, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Maple Creek, Swift Current, Moose Jaw and Regina—had in them a savour of the old, brave days when the Red Man was still a power, and settlers chose their names off-hand from local things.

McLeod, on the Old Man River, just escapes the foothills. It is prairies, a few streets, a movie "joint," an hotel and a golf course. In McLeod we saw the dawn of the Mackinaw, or anyhow first saw the virtues of that strange coat which seems to have been adapted from the original of the Biblical Joseph by a Highland tailor. It is a thick, frieze garment, cut in Norfolk style. The colour is heroic red, or blue or mauve or cinnamon, over which black lines are laid in a plaid tracery.

We realized its value as a warmth-giver while we stood amid a crowd of them as the Prince received addresses. Among the crowd was a band of Blood Indians of the Blackfeet Tribe, whose complexions in the cold looked blue under their habitual brown-red. They had come to lay their homage before him and to present an Indian robe. The Prince shook hands and chatted with the chiefs as well as their squaws, and with the missionary who had spent his life among these Red Men, and had succeeded in mastering the four or five sounds that make up the Indian language.

We talked to an old chief upon whose breast were the large silver medals that Queen Victoria and King George had had specially struck for their Indian subjects. These have become signs of chieftainship, and are taken over by the new chief when he is elected by the tribesmen. With this chief was his son, a fine, quiet fellow in the costume of the present generation of Indians, the cowboy suit. He had served all through the war in a Canadian regiment.

At Lethbridge, the next town, there was a real and full Indian ceremonial. Before a line of tepees, or Indian lodges, the Prince was received by the Chiefs of the Blood Tribe of the Blackfeet Nation, and elected one of them with the name of Mekastro, that is Red Crow.

This name is a redoubtable one in the annals of the Blackfeet. It has been held by their most famous chieftains and has been handed down from generation to generation. It was a Chief Red Crow who signed the Wolseley Treaty in '77. Upon his election the Prince was presented with an historic headdress of feathers and horns, a beautiful thing that had been worn by the great fighting leaders of the race.

There were gathered about the Prince in front of these tall, painted tepees many chiefs of strange, odd-sounding names. One of these immobile and aquiline men was Chief Shot on Both Sides, another Chief Weasel Fat, another Chief One Spot, another Chief Many White Horses. They had a dignity and an unyielding calm, and if some of them wore befeathered bowler hats, instead of the sunray feathered headdress, it did not detract from their high austerity. Chief One Spot—"he whose voice can be heard three miles"—was a splendid and upright old warrior of eighty; he had not only been present at the historic treaty of '77, but had been one of the signatories.

The Prince chatted with these chiefs, while the Lethbridge people, who had shown extraordinary heartiness since the public welcome in the chief square of the town, crowded close around. While he was talking, the Prince asked if he could be shown the interior of one of the wigwams, and his brother, Chief Weasel Fat, took him to his own, over the door of which was painted rudely the emblem of the bald-headed eagle.

The wigwam is a fine airy home. Its canvas walls are supported by tall, leaning poles bound at the top. There is no need of a centre pole, and a wood fire burning on a circular hearth sent up a coil of smoke through the opening at the top of the poles.

The floor was strewn with bright soft rugs, on which squaws in vivid red robes were sitting, listening to all that was said with impassive faces. The walls were decorated with strips of warm cloth upon which had been sewn Indian figures and animals. The wide floor space also held a rattanwork bed, musical instruments and the like; certainly it was a more comfortable and commodious place than its bell-tent shape would suggest.

Leaving the exhibition grounds, on which the encampment stood, the Prince passed under an arch made of Indian clothes of white antelope skin, beads and feathers, and after reviewing the war veterans, went to the town ball that had been arranged in his honour.

Lethbridge is a mixture of the plain and the pit. It is a great grain centre, and there is no mistaking its prairie air, yet superimposed upon this is the atmosphere of, say, a Lancashire or Yorkshire mining town. Coal and other mines touch with a sense of dark industrial bustle the easy air of the plain town. It is a Labour town, and a force in Labour politics. That, of course, made not the slightest difference to its welcome; indeed, perhaps it tinged that greeting with a touch of independent heartiness that made it notable.

As a town it impresses with its vividity at once. That, indeed, is the quality of most Canadian cities. They capture one with their air of modernity and vivacity at first impact. True, one sometimes finds that the town that seemed great and bustling dwindles after a few fine streets into suburbs of dirt roadways, but one has been impressed. It may be very good window dressing, though, on the other hand, it is probably good planning which concentrates all the activity and interests of the town in the decisively main avenues.

II

Friday, October 3rd, saw the Prince visiting a string of three towns.

Medicine Hat was the first of these, an attractive, park-like place full of "pep." Medicine Hat's claim to fame beyond its name lies in the fact that, having discovered that it was sitting upon a vast subterranean reservoir of natural gas, it promptly harnessed it to its own use. Now, that elemental thing is in the control of humanity, and heats the town, and tamely drives the wheels of industry.

The outstanding ceremony was the way little boys suddenly took fright on a roof. In the middle of the town, beside the street, is a tall, thin standpipe, and this standpipe was to demonstrate a "shoot off" of the gas. Scores of small boys climbed on to the roofs of neighbouring sheds to see the fun. First there was a meek, submissive flame burning at the top of the pipe, and looking weak in the fine sunlight. Then, abruptly, the flame shot up a hundred feet, and there was a loud roaring. Not only was the roaring a terrifying thing, but the force of that rush of gas made the ground, the roof and the little boys tremble. Little boys came off that roof in record time, and with such a clatter that the effort of the standpipe almost lost its place as a star turn. This tremendous pressure is not habitual; it is, I believe, obtained by bursting a charge in one of the gas wells.

The Prince also saw the uses to which the gas was put in a big pottery mill. The kilns here were an incandescent mass of fire, the work of the easily controlled gas that does the work with a tithe of the labour and at a mere fraction of the cost necessitated by ordinary baking kilns.

Maple Creek and Swift Current were stepping-off places, with all their populations packed in the square about the station to give the Prince a hearty greeting. At Maple Creek the pretty daughters of the township were very much in evidence, and held His Royal Highness up with autograph albums.

Moose Jaw, one of the few towns where a quaint name is traceable, for it is the creek where the white man mended the cart with a moose jaw-bone, which the Prince reached on the morning of October 4th, is a bigger town and proud of its position as a grain, food and machinery distributing centre for Southern Saskatchewan. In its station courtyard it had built up an admirable exhibit of its vegetables and fruit, its sides of bacon, its grain in ear, its porridge oats in packets, and its butter and cream in drums and churns; while chiefest of all it showed ramparts of some of the two million sacks of flour it handles annually. The whole of the exhibit was set in a moat of grain and potatoes.

The Prince went to the University Grounds, where a mighty crowd attended the welcoming ceremony, and where a wild and timeless waltz-quadrille of motors which straggled all-whither over the grounds, marked the attempts of people to locate and follow him when he drove away to the hospital and a big packing factory. At the packing plant he saw the whole process of handling meat, from the moment when cowboys in chaps drove the herd to the pens to the final jointing of the steer.

From Moose Jaw he went to Regina, which he reached that afternoon. Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan, but an accidental capital. Somewhere about 1880 it was decided to start itself in quite another place. Qu'Appelle, where there was a Hudson Bay Fort and the country was attractive, was the site chosen. And Qu'Appelle opened its mouth too wide—or, anyhow so the version of the story I was told goes. The land-owners there asked an outside number of million dollars, and the townplanners went to Pile o' Bones instead.

Pile o' Bones was a point near Wascana Lake where there had been a big slaughter of buffaloes. It was a point of no importance, but Canadians don't mind that sort of thing. When they make up their minds to build a city, a city arises. Regina arose, broad and bustling, a trifle chilly as becomes a city of the prairie, rather flat and not altogether attractive, yet purposeful.

It also gained another reason for regard by becoming the headquarters of the "Mounties," the Royal North-West Mounted Police, whose main barracks are here. We saw something of the discipline of that fine service in the way the big crowds were handled, for the Prince drove through the streets in the order and state of a London or New York pageant.

The Parliament Buildings are beautifully situated before a wide stretch of water. They are the semi-classical, domed, white stone buildings of the design of those at Edmonton and other cities—a sort of standardized parliament building in fact. Before them, on the terraces and lawn that shelved down to the water, the big throng made a scene of quick beauty. There were ranks of pretty nurses, rank upon rank of khaki veterans, battalions of boy scouts mainly divorced from hats which were perpetually aloft on upraised and enthusiastic poles, aisles of sitting wounded whom the Prince shook hands with, and thick, supporting masses of civilians. Lining this throng were unbending fillets of scarlet statues, the "Mounties" of the guard. And humanizing the whole were solid banks of school-children who sang and cheered at the right as well as the wrong moment.

The presentation of medals—one to a blinded doctor, who, led by a comrade, received the most poignant storm of cheers I have ever heard in my life—and a giant public reception finished that day's ceremonies. Sunday, October 5th, was a day of rest, and Monday was the day of the "Mounties."

The Prince showed a particular interest in his visit to the Headquarters of this splendid and romantic corps. The Royal North-West Mounted Police is a classic figure in the history of the Empire. The day is now past when the lonely red rider of the wilds stood for the only token of awe and authority among Indian tribes and "bad men" camps, but though that may be there are no more useful fellows than these smart and sturdy men, who, scarlet-coated, and with their Stetsons at a daring angle, add a dash of colour and bravery to the streets of Western Canada.

In his inspection the Prince saw the reason why the physique of the men should be so splendid and their nerve so sure. The training of the R.N.W.M.P. makes no appeal to the weakling of spirit or flesh. He saw their firm discipline. He saw them breaking in the bucking bronchos they had to ride. He saw them go through exhausting mounted tests. His congratulations on their wonderful show were expressed with great warmth.

III

From Regina the Prince took a holiday. He went up to the sporting country near Qu'Appelle for duck and game shooting, spending from Monday, October 6th, until Friday, October 10th, there. This district abounds in duck, and the Prince and his staff had very fair sport. During his stay the weather suddenly turned colder, the rivers froze over and snow fell. So sudden was the cold snap that one of those with the Prince was caught napping. He woke up to find that his false teeth were frozen into the solid block of ice that had been water the night before. He had to take the tooth glass to the kitchen of the house where he was staying, and thaw it before he could even articulate his emotions adequately.

Riding in a fast car from the scene of the sport to the station gave the Prince an indication of what winter would be like in the prairies, where the wind from the north sweeps down unresisted, and with such a force that it seems to go right through all coats, save the Canadian winter armour of "coon coat" or fur.

Brandon and Portage la Prairie, two determined little towns, gave the Prince a snow welcome. The weather kept neither grown-ups nor children away from the liveliest of greetings. They were attractive halts in a run that took the Prince to Winnipeg.

In Winnipeg we appreciated the virtues of central heating, for the wind made the whole universe extraordinarily cold. Up to this I had considered central heating a stuffy subject, and I am yet not fully converted, for though there are those who say it can be controlled quite easily, I have yet to meet the superman who can do it.

All the same, steam heating has its virtues. On those cold days in Winnipeg we lived in a world that knew not draughts. It was almost a solemn joy to sit in a bath, and to feel that though half of one was in hot water, the other half was also comfortable and not the prey of every devilish current of icy air such as sports itself in those damp refrigerators, the British bathrooms. Naturally, since we are staying in a Canadian hotel of the up-to-date kind, a bathroom was attached to our bedroom as a mere matter of course. But if we had had to wander Anglicanly along corridors in search of a bathroom we should still have been draught free, for central heating deals with corridors, and stairways, and halls and lounges with one universal gesture.

Not merely in so fine an hotel as the "Royal Alexandra," but in the private houses and the "apartments" (English—"flats"), central heat and good bathrooms are items of everyday—though many Canadians burn an open fire in their sitting-rooms for the comfortable look it gives.

These things are not merely for comfort, but they are, with the hardwood floors, the mail chutes in "apartment" houses and the rest, part of the great science of labour-saving, which the whole of America practises.

One realizes the need of labour-saving when one sees in a theatre vestibule the following notice:

"ALL CHILDREN NOT LEFT WITH THE
MATRON MUST BE PAID FOR"

As nurses are rare, and servants are rare, the Americans have to organize themselves to simplify the task of housekeeping.

The "apartments" are compact and neat, arranged for easy handling. The rents are not cheap. One very pleasant little "apartment," "hired" by a newly-married couple, was made up of three rooms, a kitchen and a balcony. It was in the suburbs. The rent was thirty-five dollars a month, say eighty-four pounds a year, for a flat, which, under the same conditions (rates included) could be obtained for thirty-five pounds a year in England in pre-war days. For this, however, central heating and perpetual hot water are included. My friend told me that his electric light bill came to three dollars a month, and his gas bill (for cooking) to rather less than that. In Calgary a friend of mine had a pretty "apartment" even smaller in a suburban district, was paying about ninety-six pounds a year over all, i.e., rent, light and gas (central heating being included). Most of these "apartments" have an ice house (refrigerator) attached, blocks of ice being left on the doorstep every morning, just as the milk is left.

Winnipeg is an attractive town to live in. It has plenty of amusements, including several good theatres and music halls—fed, of course, mainly from American sources. Mrs. Walker, whose husband owns the Walker Theatre, told me that Laurence Irving and his wife acted on their stage just before sailing on the ill-fated Empress of Ireland. She went up to his dressing-room to say "Good-bye" to him, the night before he left, and in answer to her knock he suddenly appeared before her, dressed in black from head to foot, for the character he was playing that night. His appearance filled her with dread—it seemed to her, as she looked at him, that something terrible was to happen. Both Laurence Irving and his wife were, however, in excellent spirits. Canada treated them royally, and they were going back home full of optimism, confident that the play that Laurence Irving was then finishing—one dealing with Napoleon—was to prove the greatest success of their careers.

We met at Winnipeg, also, a number of the brilliant men and women journalists whose energy and brains are responsible for the many fine papers that focus in this city. We had met such companions of our own dispensation in other cities, in Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Quebec. They were not merely keen and accomplished craftsmen, but their hospitality to us was always of the most delightful generosity.

The Princess visit to Winnipeg was undertaken to give him the opportunity of saying au revoir to the West. At the vivid luncheon he gave in the attractive Alexandra Hotel to all the leaders of the West, men and women, he insisted that it was au revoir, and that so well had the West treated him, so attractive was its atmosphere, that he meant not merely to return, but to become something of a rancher here in the "little place" he had bought in Alberta. He spoke of the splendid spirit of the West, and the magnificent future that was the West's for the grasping, and he left on all those who heard him an impression of genuine affection for the people and the land with which his journey had brought him in contact.

He himself left the West a "real scout." It is a mere truism to say that his personality had conquered the West, as it had won for him affection everywhere. His straightforward masculinity and his entire lack of side, his cheerfulness and his keenness, his freedom from "frills," as one man put it, had made him the friend of everybody. I heard practically the same expressions of real affection from all grades, from Chief Justice to car conductors. I heard, I think, but one man pooh-pooh, not so much this universal regard for the Prince, as a universal enthusiasm for something royal. A labour-leader, who happened to be present, administered correction:

"That chap's all right," he insisted, and his word carried weight. "I saw him in France, and there's not much that is wrong with him. If you're as democratic as he is, then you're all right."

The brightest of dances, a game of squash rackets, and the Prince left, undaunted by the snow, for week-end shooting. On Tuesday, October 14th, he was in the train again, travelling East, in the direction of the Cobalt mining country, buoyed up by the prophecy of the local weather-wise that the cold snap would not endure, but would be followed by the delightfully keen yet warm weather of the "Indian Summer." The local weather-wise were right, but it took time.