Canadian Transport Sourcebook

Chapter XII

The Englishman

Being an Englishman myself, I hope it will not break the hearts of any of my English readers if I mention some of the peculiarities of my countrymen.

I have met all sorts, particularly in the West, and many of that genus homo known as the "greenhorn": thousands of first class, well born, well educated, well intentioned manly men, but absolutely useless in a new country, also hundreds of "rotters," no use in any country. Then there was the "Remittance man," usually a younger son, without any prospects, a harmless casual creature, who thoroughly enjoyed himself every time the remittance arrived and was no doubt horribly miserable while waiting for the next.

Sometimes the Remittance men herded together and made a "Jack Pot" of it, when there would be a keg of rum and a glorious jollification. Generally somebody had some sort of a "shack" where the others trailed along in and visited, and they did what they pleased to call their own cooking, and when the plates and dishes came to an end they would have a general "wash up" on Sunday, in which all hands participated, and start fresh again on Monday morning if there was anything to eat. Somebody always had a saddle horse, or a cricket bat and tennis racquets, and I think they enjoyed themselves somehow while waiting for the regular remittance. One of them would dress up in most immaculate English toggery and ride into the nearest town, bringing out the mail, when they would all devour the latest English sporting and illustrated papers. They were a care-free, happy lot in those days, but seem now to have disappeared.

I once had the luck incidentally to save the lives of two helpless Englishmen who would otherwise have starved or been frozen to death. It happened in this way. I was on my way East after a very hard summer, locating the main line, when in passing near a Hudson Bay post at Qu'Appelle, I foolishly went in to get my letters, and there found an order from General Rosser to go to the mouth of Red Deer River on the South Saskatchewan to discover what had become of an engineer who had been sent there to examine a river crossing and from whom nothing had since been heard. It was very late in the Fall and quite impossible to take my whose outfit, particularly as the prairie for 150 miles had all been burned over and there was no wood or water. So I decided to make a rapid attempt at it, with a few horses and only one man. I sent my party home to Winnipeg and with Jerome St. Luc, described elsewhere in these memoirs, a couple of carts and about half a dozen ponies, started for Red Deer, via Moose Jaw, 150 miles distant. Forage and water were hard to find the whole way, but these native ponies are hardy and can live on next to nothing and find it themselves. There were occasional patches of snow in the gulches that were useful in the absence of water, and in four or five days we arrived at the mouth of Red Deer River, which falls into the South Saskatchewan.

I made a rapid examination of the topography and learned that the missing engineer had trekked for Edmonton, as the Winter was approaching. There were a handful of land-sharks camped here, amongst whom I found my two greenhorns, who had been decoyed there that Summer in the belief that the main line of the C.P.R. would probably cross the Saskatchewan at that point, and they would make a fortune in town lots. Hearing that I was about to go East next morning they asked if they might come down with me.

I knew it was a tough proposition and at first demurred, knowing that my methods of travelling, to which they were unaccustomed, were hard and rough—but at last I consented to take them along. They had two gaunt Canadian horses, with very little grain to feed them on, and a spring waggon. I started next morning at three o'clock, an hour to which they strenuously objected, wondering why I did not wait till the sun rose; but as it was getting well on to November, I had to make long drives, being about six hundred miles from home.

My only rations consisted of Pemmican and Hudson Bay Rum, with biscuits and tea for a change in the menu. I remember passing round a tin cup with a tot of rum at four a.m., to the utter horror of my two poor pilgrims who would have none of it. They wondered what "my people" would think of me for drinking "raw spirits" at four o'clock in the morning. I reminded them that they were not in London now. Pemmican is undoubtedly the most portable and sustaining food on earth. It was made by the half-breeds in those good old days when Buffalo were plentiful:—the meat is cut in strips, dried in the sun, then pounded into dust, mixed with the tallow, flavoured with a few berries and tightly sewn up in fifty-pound bags made out of Buffalo hide. When frozen, you hack off a chunk with an axe and either eat it raw, when on a "trek," or fry it when in camp. This was all a terrible novelty to my two tenderfeet, one of whom was an ex-professor of Oxford and the other a retired naval lieutenant.

After running into a bad blizzard in crossing the Salt Plains, I at last landed my countrymen at the Hudson Bay Post at Tonchwood Hills, and heaved a sigh of great relief as I handed them over to the tender mercy of the old Scotch Factor with my compliments, but not before one other those gaunt giraffes of theirs had dropped dead in harness, for which they blamed me, although we had only made about forty or fifty miles a day. Having got them safely under cover, I left the same night for Fort Qu'Appelle where I got a couple of sleds or jumpers as the snow had come, and hit the end of the track soon after and all the comforts of the Superintendent's private car.

A real jolly bunch of Englishmen once hit Montreal in the early days of the gold rush to the Klondyke and interviewed Van Horne at the C.P.R. Head Office. They were a typical group of four ex-officers from Merrie England, a colonel, a major, and two captains. The wealth of the Golden Klondyke had attracted their fancy, and it did not take long to assemble the necessary capital for the venture, so that one fine day four well-groomed Englishmen set sail for New York and put up at the "Waldorf." After many consultations over the walnuts and wine, the overland route via Edmonton was selected. Nothing like discipline, "deah boy, dontcherknow." So our brave heroes divided up into departments. The colonel took command, which was said sinecure. The major had charge of the purchasing department. One captain acted as supply officer, and the other as director of transport. After having sampled the hospitalities of the "Waldorf" for several days, the commanding officer notified his staff that they were now in America; the supply officer, who was furnished with a list of the necessities required, notified the purchasing department that under the head of "S," he had come across "Stove, cooking, American," hence, since they had arrived in America, this was the place to purchase the stove. So, at a well-known hardware store, a magnificent cooking range, guaranteed real American, was secured (weighing something over a ton) at a fabulous price, and shipped by the transport officer to Montreal, "a town on the C.P.R. in Canada."

This being considered sufficient exertion for one day, the quartette adjourned to their hotel and sampled many curious cocktails indigenous to the soil. The supplies for the expedition had been purchased in London, and although the expenditure was most lavish, the outfit, no doubt, was generally unsuitable. Money will do almost anything, but a little experience mixes well with it when you are going into almost a "terra incognita" in quest of fortune.

However, here were our four heroes, safe across the ocean. They weathered the perils of New York, and departed for Montreal, the metropolis of Canada. The portly magnate of a great railway corporation sat in his office at Montreal, behind a long black cigar; ever and anon he pressed a button that summoned a trusty henchman to his side, who would receive an order and depart as silently as he came. Four visiting cards announced the arrival of our Englishmen, who were promptly ushered into the presence of the great mogul.

He scanned the cards sharply, and swinging around in his revolving chair, quickly scrutinized the visitors with a practised eye.

"Sit down, gentlemen; glad to meet you. Now what can I do for you?" said the man behind the cigar.

"Oh, really you are awfully good, but I don't think there is anything you can do for us. We've got everything we want. Just thought we'd drop in and pay our respects as we were passing through to Klondyke."

The colonel was spokesman for the party of intrepid explorers.

"Oh, indeed, and so you are all off for the Klondyke? And what route are you going to take?"

"Oh, we are going by the C.P.R."

"Well, gentlemen, I may be of some assistance to you in this. For instance, as a matter of fact, it might interest you to know that the C.P.R. does not go to the Klondyke."

"Ah, just so. Now, Charlie," turning to the director of transport, "That's what I always maintained. We have to change carriages at some bally place—can't remember now whether it's Winnipeg or Quebec."

Charles thought it might possibly be Calgary. The other two distinguished officers gave it up. The railway magnate came to the rescue, and explained that the C.P.R. would be only too proud to carry them as far as Edmonton, which was the end of that branch.

"How do you propose going on from there?" asked the great man seriously.

"Oh, that's easy enough. We're going to get a lot of horses and snowshoes and things. By the way, do you think snowshoes are better than those other Indian arrangements? You know, Harry, that Canadian chappie we met on the ship told us about; those, what's his names? Mocassins, don't-cherknow? We've ordered a whole lot of tents, too."

The magnate, becoming interested, enquired whether they were well provisioned for their proposed long and hazardous trip.

"Oh, rather," observed the commanding officer, gaily, turning to the supply department. "George, just show him what we are taking with us." Whereupon George produced a small lozenge out of his waistcoat pocket, about the size of a pea, and proudly handed it to the railway chief.

"Now, then," said the spokesman, "you can't guess what that is," and in the same breath excitedly, "That's a mutton chop! Eh, what? When we go into camp, you know, just drop that harmless-looking little thing into a cup of hot water, and in two minutes it swells up and there you have a mutton chop."

The magnate was much interested by the enthusiasm of these misguided argonauts with their condensed luxuries, but ventured to ask how they would provide forage for their numerous horses.

"Ah, simple enough. Show him one of those other things, George." When, sure enough, another lozenge was exhibited, this time as large as a bean. "Now, then, sir, what's that? Ah! ha! That's oil cake, you know! Put one of those on a horses' tongue, close his mouth, and in a few minutes it swells into a good-sized ration of oil cake—very fattening, and much better than oats, you know. Saves carrying hay and grain, too. One man can carry enough food for twenty horses for a month in his waistcoat pocket. Good idea, rather, eh, what? Awful smart! Johnnie invented that. He'll make all sorts of 'oof' out of it."

Before leaving the head man of the greatest railway corporation on earth, they got some good advice. He suggested that they should proceed to Edmonton, where there was a nice comfortable Hudson Bay Fort, to pitch their camp some six or eight miles ahead, and start in on the condensed mutton chop tablets. Then practise walking in to the Fort and back every day for several weeks; but by no means to get too far away from headquarters and human help.

I was told that, after doing Montreal thoroughly, the purchasing department being in great demand, this joyful, guileless quartette arrived safely at Edmonton, where carloads of English supplies awaited them. Amongst other luxuries unheard of in those latitudes were several dozen cases of champagne, also many hundred bottles of pickles and sauces. The winter having set in, these congealable commodities, of course, all burst, except, perhaps, a few frappe cocktails saved out of the general wreck. They did not forget the advice of the Montreal magnate, and having pitched their camp some distance from the Fort, they took it in turns, sleeping in a tent. Three of them would stay inside the Fort, while the other poor devil who had lost the toss would camp outside. This was supposed to accustom them to camp life, and with the aid of the homœopathic chop, inure them to the hardships of the trail.

What eventually became of these pioneers I never heard. A good story was told of their many eccentricities, for it appears that when one of these intrepid adventurers tried to put snowshoes on the after feet of a mule, the animal objected and the operator had several ribs stoved in. I suppose that the party eventually broke up and meandered back to England. They certainly never got anywhere near the golden goal, although the expedition cost many thousand good old golden British sovereigns.

There was another rather pathetic case that I recollect in Manitoba. He was a retired British General who took up about a square mile or so of land for farming purposes. The land was very stony with many acres of boulders, which I heard he considered a great advantage as the pirate who sold it to him had told him that "there was stone enough on it to build a house, barn and stable"; and he actually did build them.

This noble ex-warrior had some very original ideas about the general principles of farming, and when it came to planting potatoes, he developed an amazing inventive genius that was calculated to revolutionize the ancient methods then still in vogue.

He took a cart and had sharp spikes affixed to the broad tyres of the wheels, just eighteen inches apart. He then cut up a large number of potatoes and, sitting in the cart, proceeded to arm each deadly spike with a section of potato, the theory being that this method would mean mathematical precision in the planting and a great saving of labour and backache. All we even merrier than the proverbial marriage bell, as the General drove gaily down the ploughed potato patch, followed by the giggling multitude of open-mouthed villagers.

That year they say the General's potato crop was a marvel, and most miraculously distributed; sometimes a magnificent plant appeared, then an interval of ten or twelve feet with nothing in sight, then a whole bunch of vegetables and so on. It was not what one would call a success from an agricultural point of view. The seed impaled by the old General on the spikes sometimes failed to come off at all or else half a dozen concluded to come off at once. However, he managed to dot the landscape with flowering potato plants in a highly picturesque and original manner, and gave his more practical neighbours food for laughter, which is something to be thank for on a lonely prairie farm.

On another occasion, he decided to paint the barn red, but not by the old laborious process of brush and paint-pot—Oh, dear no!—that was far too slow—he would show them. He mixed up several barrels of bright scarlet paint and attached a hose with a strong pressure behind it, then, armed with a long brass nozzle, he proceeded to attack the enemy.

But he must have been out of practice, for his markmanship was extraordinarily bad. Occasionally he hit that barn right in the midriff with gallons of the bright mixture, and some of it stuck, but a good deal rebounded and painted the General himself a bright scarlet. The surrounding crops also received a generous coating and after the engagement was over and the General ordered the "Cease fire," the entire complexion of the landscape was changed and decidedly rubicund; green cabbages blushed and yellow corn was now of a ruddy hue. He painted two or three of the dogs who failed to get out of the way, and a few ponies who also got under fire. All the trees within gunshot received their dose, and when the General had finished the whole farm looked like a beautiful sunset.

In spite of all their peculiarities and ignorance, however, there were many hardy English pioneers in the early days who settled in Canada and "made good" under most disheartening circumstances. This is particularly true of the Settlers in the Eastern parts, long before the "Wild and Woolly West" was discovered, who had to clear the land by cutting down the primeval forest with an axe they had never seen before;—they probably called it "felling the trees with a chopper." The descendants of those emigrants from England are now some of the very best American citizens, and may well be proud of the deeds of their ancestors who conquered the Canadian forest, boldly faced the cruel winter, and made a smiling home for their children.

Last, and least, we have, of course, the "rotter," who never assimilates "with the Colonials, dontcherknow," who knows it all and continually reminds everybody that "that isn't the way we do it at 'ome." He is not a success here or anywhere else. He is simply a nuisance. . . .