A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

A Trip to Manitoba

M >> Mary FitzGibbon >> A Trip to Manitoba




The track was not ballasted for the first forty-five miles, and the car
rocked frightfully. The wind was bitterly cold, and we crouched down
closer under the blankets, but were unable to keep warm until after ten
o'clock, when Mr. F---- stopped the train at Whitemouth and borrowed a
roll of blankets from the engineer there. With this additional covering,
we succeeded in warming our wet clothes. The dear little baby slept all
the time in its mother's arms, as cozy and comfortable as possible. Her
only dread was that it might be smothered, and many an anxious peep was
taken under its many coverings to make sure of its existence. We talked
in snatches; and until after eleven amused ourselves with learning some
railway technicalities, in order that we might be able to talk of "when
we were out on the line." But as the moonlight faded, we grew very quiet
and drowsy. Once, when I was just dropping into a little nap, Mrs. F----'s
caution, "Don't go to sleep, or you will roll off!" roused me to the
consciousness of not having a sofa or even _terra firma_ to repose
upon.

On that part of the line the country is flat and uninteresting, entirely
muskeg or marsh, with the exception of one small rock cutting, where the
necessary drainage formed the principal item in the cost of construction.
On each side we could see the long "take offs" glittering in the
moonlight, like silver ribbons thrown at random on the grass. The Jules
muskeg, about two miles across, was at first only passable when frozen in
winter, except for pedestrians, and we heard of several gangs of men who
were sent there to work, digging all day and being unable next morning to
find any trace of their labours. The only breaks in this monotonous marsh
are Whitemouth and Broken-Head Rivers, flowing between wooded shores. The
former is about forty miles from Ingolf, and the latter nearly seventy.
Both are small streams flowing into the most southerly end of Lake
Winnipeg. At the junction near Selkirk are a small store and bar-room,
apparently well patronized, if one may judge from the mental and physical
wanderings of a man who asked the way to Winnipeg, and the wild notes of
a fiddle issuing from the open doorway. While the train waited for the
switch signal, we were too tired to take much note of our surroundings,
the appearance of a rail fence between the track and the outlying country
being more suggestive of approaching civilization to our Ontario eyes
than anything else.

Receiving the signal, the train backed down the Pembina branch. There the
wind was less trying, the road smoother, and we were getting accustomed
to our cramped position. Gradually the train slackened, until it was
almost at a footpace. Scarcely had we begun to wonder what was wrong,
when the speed suddenly increased, and after rushing madly along for a
few minutes slackened again, without any apparent cause. The man who had
held a lantern at the back of our truck from the junction now began to
grumble. "What can the driver mean by going at such a rate?" he
exclaimed. Then, when the train slackened, he growled, "Hang the fellow,
he's gone to sleep!" At last Mr. F---- said he would go in the engine-car
and keep the man awake. When we stopped to take in water a few minutes
afterwards he left us, and we reached the station at St. Boniface, the
terminus of the railway, at three o'clock, without any further anxiety.
There were only a couple of sleepy porters at the station, so we left the
blankets, etc., lying on the platform until one porter found the man who
had the key of the storehouse. Picking up our satchels, and shivering as
the cold morning air came in contact with our wet clothes, we went over
the prairie a hundred yards or so to a hotel, hastily put up for the
accommodation of benighted travellers, there being no means of crossing
the Red River for Winnipeg before seven.

The house was crowded to excess, the bar-room was full of noisy
revellers, the landlord was in bed, and there were no rooms to be had. We
waited at the head of the narrow flight of stairs, while a sleepy porter
roused five men from their slumbers in the sitting-room, and heard a
very grumbling discussion going on behind a half-open door near us, a
woman in an injured tone protesting that, "It weren't no good wakin' her!
She couldn't help the house not bein' big enough, nor more people coming
nor it would hold;" while the man said, "It weren't his'n, neither; but
places must be found to put 'um in."

Presently the sitting-room door opened, and a young man, looking as if he
had slept in his hat and used his coat for a pillow, emerged, staring at
us as if taking an inventory of our wardrobe, and disappeared downstairs.
With a great yawn, and a muttered remark about something being "a d----d
shame," a man who looked like a cattle-dealer followed. Then his partner
appeared, an energetic, scrubby-looking little man, who informed us that
we might enter: which we did, glad to get a place to sit down in; but
hastily retreated, on discovering another man just getting up from the
floor, and one busy lacing his boots. When the latter raised his head we
recognized our clergyman from the Contract. He had come in over the
Dawson route with the poor man who had lost his eyesight and arm by
striking the rock where nitro-glycerine had been spilt. His fellow
workmen had among themselves collected eleven hundred dollars towards
supporting him, or getting him into some asylum, and he was now returning
by the line.

Mr. M---- went back to the station to fetch a robe and some blankets,
which we spread on the floor, and lay down, to wait for morning. The room
was small--eight by ten feet--the furniture, a short uncomfortable sofa,
two chairs, a table, and a couple of pictures, of Pope Leo IX. and St.
Joseph. Daylight seemed a long time coming.

Mr. M---- looked more like a ghost than anything else. The poor man had
walked up and down the station platform all the time. Neither storekeeper
nor key being found, he had feared to leave our luggage lying about
unguarded. Crossing the river in the clear bright morning among
tidy-looking women going to market, and natty men in clean white shirts
and well-brushed clothes, made us feel more disreputable than ever. And
we _were_ disreputable! Our skirts, draggled and muddy half-way to
our waists, clinging and wet still; our hair un-brushed, our faces
bespattered with mud, and blackened with smoke and dust from the engine
and our night's travel--the railway hotel not having afforded us
sufficient water to wash them; while the fatigue and wakeful night gave
us a haggard, wobegone, been-out-on-a-spree appearance quite
indescribable.

It is a long walk from the Red River ferry to the Canada Pacific Hotel,
but our anxiety to arrive there before Winnipeg was abroad, made us get
over it as quickly as possible. Haverty, the manager, received us,
regretting that until after breakfast he could only let us have one room.
Fortunately, I had some friends whom I did not mind disturbing at that
early hour, so leaving my satchel to be sent after me, and taking the
back streets as much as possible, I went in search of them. The maid who
answered my knock was a stranger to me, and, putting on a very forbidding
expression of decided refusal, was not, until I told my name, inclined to
let me in. My friend was not up, but a few minutes afterwards I was
warmly welcomed and given a bath and clean clothes before any one but her
husband saw me.

We were detained in Winnipeg nearly a week, waiting for our luggage.
Fortunately for me, the friend with whom I took refuge was about my own
height, and very kindly lent me what I needed until I could procure
garments of my own. This was, however, a great cause of trouble to a
little English terrier, of which she made a pet. Recognizing her
mistress's slippers and dress, she rubbed her head against my feet and
was very affectionate, but glancing up at my face and discovering that of
a stranger, she jumped back growling. Shortly afterwards, tempted by the
familiar clothes, she again made friendly advances, only to snarl out her
disapproval upon hearing my voice, evidently feeling so puzzled and
imposed upon, that, until I had my own clothes, she declined to make
friends with me at all. Every one was so kind that the days in Winnipeg
were all too short, but the luggage arriving on Wednesday, October the
10th, left us no further excuse to remain, and with many regrets at
parting, I said good-bye.




CHAPTER XIX.

The _Minnesota_ again--Souvenirs of Lord and Lady Dufferin--From
Winnipeg by Red River--_Compagnons du Voyage_--A Model
Farm--"Bees"--Manitoba a good Field for Emigrants--Changes at Fisher's
Landing--A Mild Excitement for Sundays--Racing with Prairie
Fires--Glyndon--Humours of a Pullman Sleeping Car--Lichfield.


We came up the Red River in the _Minnesota_, the vessel in which I
had gone down two years and a half before; the same, too, used by Lord
and Lady Dufferin, with their party. Some Americans who were with us
good-temperedly vied with each other in their efforts to get the
state-rooms occupied by the vice-regal party, and the steward was asked
many questions as to their sayings and doings. All the Americans took
great interest in everything about them; carrying their admiration to the
extent of making birch-bark-covered needle-books of the coarse red
flannel spread upon the ground for Lord Dufferin to walk upon--intending
them as valuable souvenirs for their friends.

We left Winnipeg about noon, for three days' monotonous trip on the
river. Novel or work in hand, we went into the saloon to read or work,
furtively study our fellow-travellers, and by-and-by make acquaintance
with them. We were a motley group. Round one table gathered a knot of
chatty Americans, evidently travelling together, and quite as much at
home on board the boat as in their own drawing-room. Besides this party
of friends, there were plenty of solitary units, of more or less amusing
characteristics: a pretty, merry woman of about thirty, mother of three
children; a handsome old lady, hard at work on an embroidered
table-cloth--a present, she told us, for a friend, to whose wedding she
was going; a young clergyman, whose walk, expression, and general
appearance betrayed his ritualistic tendencies, and who strolled up and
down, now and then stopping to join in the ladies' conversation. A
sad-looking woman lay on the sofa, trying to hide her tear-stained face
behind a newspaper which was never turned, the columns to her containing
only regrets for dear friends left behind. A fussy old lady in a
fashionable cap and cannon curls, after informing us that she was Mrs.
B----, of ----, drew her chair near every _tête-a-tête_ couple, and,
politely requesting to be allowed to take part in the conversation,
gradually usurped it all, till, before she had apparently quite satisfied
herself upon every one's private affairs, she was left at liberty to join
another group. A tall, delicate, sad-looking man, the defeated candidate
for ----, was returning to Ontario, where he was soon after elected for
another constituency. A sleepy-looking young Frenchman and his more lively
friend, an energetic speculator, who had gone to Manitoba prospecting for
land, was returning disgusted, having seen, "dem' it, nothing but mud." A
poor old lady was kept in subjection by a tall daughter, with a face so
closely veiled, that our curiosity was aroused. Not until the third day
did I come upon her--suddenly--while her face was uncovered, and then no
longer wondered that she tried to conceal the dreadful squint nature had
given her. There were, also, a would-be-fast-if-she-could young lady of
eighteen, who had apparently read in novels of flirtations on board
steamers, until she hoped to make the same experiences her own, and had
not woman's wit enough to hide her disappointment; and a nice-looking
girl going home to get her wedding garments ready, who moaned over the
long journey to be taken again in six weeks, hoping to be asked "why the
necessity?" Finally, a professor and his pretty, lady-like wife, and one
or two other nice people, made up our _compagnons du voyage._

I have already mentioned Red River and its many windings, which it is
needless to allude to here. We passed Grand Forks at midnight on
Saturday, and, leaving an order for stages to be sent on in the morning
to overtake us, got off the steamer at ten o'clock on Sunday, saving more
than a day on the river by driving to Fisher's Landing. The farm, where
we went ashore, is owned by an Ontario emigrant. The house is situated in
the midst of a beautiful grove of oak and birch, among which grassy
avenues, with huge branches meeting overhead, formed roads to the neat
farmyards and granaries. A big bell hung on cross poles at the entrance
to one of the avenues leading to what was once the rolling prairie, now
fields of grain--six hundred acres, without a fence, stump, or ditch to
mar the effect. The clear line of the horizon was broken only by another
farmhouse, owned by a brother-in-law, whose farm lay beyond. The man
told us he had emigrated six years before to Manitoba, and had gone as
far as Emerson, where the mud frightened him; and, turning back, he had
taken up this land, paying a dollar and a quarter an acre for it, and had
succeeded so well, that at the end of the second year it had paid all
expenses. Since then he had built a good house and barns, and bought
extra stock, and he was putting money in the bank. The only trouble he
had was the difficulty of getting men at harvest-time, the farms being
too scattered to be able to follow the Ontario plan of "Bees;" [Footnote:
"Bees" are gatherings from all the neighbouring farmhouses to assist at
any special work, such as a "threshing bee," a "raising" or "building
bee." When ready to build, the farmer apprises all his neighbours of the
date fixed, and they come to his assistance with all their teams and men,
expecting the same help from him when they require it. They have "bees"
for everything, the men for outdoor work, and the women for indoor; each
as quilting or paring apples for drying, when they often pare, cut, and
string several barrels in one afternoon. When the young men join them,
they finish the evening with high tea, games, and a dance.] and he often
had to work eighteen or twenty hours running, the late and early
daylight, as well as the bright, clear moonlight, helping him.

The Yankee emigration agents have a powerful assistant in the Pembina
mud, in persuading Canadian emigrants to remain in Dakota or Minnesota.
But if these emigrants were less impatient, or less easily persuaded,
they would find quite as good, if not better land, in Manitoba than on
the American side of the line, besides being under our own Queen and
laws.

The stage was so long in coming, that some of our party took advantage of
the farmer's offer to drive them to Fisher's Landing for seventy five
cents a head. We were not long in following them, and after jolting for
an hour and a half over a rough road, most of it through farms, we
reached Fisher's. How changed the place was since we stopped there on our
way up! We found a uniform row of painted wooden houses, shops, offices,
ware rooms, and boarding houses, besides several saloons and billiard
rooms. Up the slight hill to the south, where had been rude board
shanties, mud, and chaos, one or two pretty cottages had been built,
having green blinds, and neatly arranged gardens and lawns. A medium
sized wharf and gravelled banks had arisen where was only a dismal swamp,
while away over the prairie lay the iron rails of the St. Vincent and St.
Paul extension line, soon to be running in connexion with the Pembina
branch of the Canada Pacific at the boundary, when the tedious trip upon
Red River can be avoided. The side tracks were full of loaded freight,
and cars waiting to tranship at the wharf, the steamer which left
Winnipeg two days before we did having only just arrived.

In spite of the external improvement in the Landing, it had not improved
in morals, and is quoted in all the country round as the refuge of all
the thieves, gamblers, drunkards, and cut-throats from both Canada and
the United States. Certainly the men we saw lounging about looked
anything but prepossessing. Hearing some shots fired during the afternoon,
I was told with a shrug--

"There's some one got a bullet in him! There's always something of that
sort happening on Sunday. They can't work, so need some excitement. It
does not matter much, as there is no law in the place, and they manage to
bring their scores out pretty even in the end, without any fuss about
it."

Probably, however, the town is not quite so black as it is painted, and
though not a desirable place of residence, it might be worse.

All the afternoon we heard at intervals the whistle of the boat we had
left--so near that we began to regret the two dollars' additional expense
of the stage. But we were told that, although scarcely a mile off as the
crow flies, it was, such are the windings of the river, at least twelve
or fourteen hours' journey from the Landing. We left at a little after
four, and until dark, when rain fell, we raced with numbers of prairie
fires; some great walls of smoke and flame, others mere narrow strips of
fire, all travelling in straight lines, and not interfering with each
other. A tiny spark from the engine would ignite a fresh spot, and before
our car had passed it had begun its race with the others. The driver, who
was a new hand, and ignorant of the road, dashed over it at a breakneck
pace, the cars swaying from side to side like a ship in a storm. At
Glyndon we took on a Pullman sleeping car, when there was a scramble for
berths; a section containing two, an upper and lower, costing four
dollars for one night. Mrs. F---- and the baby taking the lower one, I
prepared to climb into the upper. Divesting myself of my hat, dress, and
boots in the dressing room at the end of the car, I put on an ulster, and
mounting the steps, held by the shining darkey attendant, went aloft. The
space between the bed and the roof was so small that it was impossible to
sit upright, but the difficulties of getting comfortable were compensated
for by the amusement afforded me by my neighbours, separated only by a
thin slide, or the heavy curtains hung on poles in front.

From one side came the expostulations of an elderly man with a young
Frenchman upon his demand for a berth, it being more proper that ladies
should be provided for first, all his eloquence being answered only by a
fretful, "But I wants my sleep, I have vera much fatigue!" On the other
side a choleric old man growled anathemas at his boots and the absence of
a boot jack, which gradually changed into fierce snorts and rumblings as
of approaching earth quakes, terminating in startling explosions.

Opposite me, some one, after turning and twisting about for a while, at
last thrust a dishevelled head between the curtains, and in shrill
accents requested the porter to open the ventilator--"she was just
melting!" Scarcely was her request complied with, than a night-capped,
grizzled head appeared from the other side, and in stentorian tones
demanded, "Where the deuce the wind was coming from? Shut that confounded
thing, or I'll break your bones;" to which, however, the porter paid no
heed, and the grizzled head grumbled itself to sleep again, muttering
threats of reporting him in the morning.

It was very hot, and I found it impossible to sleep. The strangeness of
my surroundings, and the occasional thinking aloud of my neighbours, kept
me wakeful. We stopped at seven, at Lichfield, to breakfast, where, for
the moderate charge of seventy-five cents each, a cup of bad coffee, a
roll, and some fat bacon were served.




CHAPTER XX.

Lakes Smith and Howard--Lovely Lake Scenery--Long Lake--The Little
American--"Wait till you see our Minnetaunka!"--Minneanopolis--Villa
Hotels--A Holiday Town--The Great Flour-mills--St. Paul's--Our American
Cousins--The French Canadian's Story--Kind-hearted Fellow-passengers--A
New Way of Travelling together--The Mississippi--Milwaukee, the Prettiest
Town in Michigan--School-houses--A Peep at Chicago--Market
Prices--Pigs!--The Fairy Tales of Progress--Scotch Incredulity--Detroit
Ferry--Hamilton--Good-bye to my Readers.


On leaving Lichfield our road lay through some beautiful, slightly
undulating country. Between lofty bluffs, the train emerged along the
shores of a lovely lake, and before its beauties had disappeared, another
and another followed in rapid succession. The first two, Smith and
Howard, are very much alike. Then we passed through two or three pretty
little villages, their streets avenues of trees, the roads as well kept
as the drive of an English park, the houses and gardens marvels of
neatness, and glorious with flowers, and the orchards laden with ripe
fruit. As we passed Long Lake, a narrow sheet of water that called forth
expressions of admiration from us all, a bright little American child,
with whom we had made friends, said shyly--

"You think that pretty. Wait till you see our lake--our Minnetaunka: they
call it Wayzata now!" she added sadly.

We did see it about noon, and its beauties justified the preference.
Minnetaunka--let us keep the old name which the child seemed to love so
well--about twenty-five miles long, is full of islands kept in perfect
order. Their natural beauties are developed with the taste and skill that
characterize the American nation, by the inhabitants of the beautiful
villas scattered along its shores. Tiny yachts and skiffs lay at anchor,
or, with all sails set, skimmed the glistening water, bearing, no doubt,
pleasure-parties from the pretty villa hotels, which could only be
distinguished from private houses by the numerous chairs and
newspaper-readers on their verandahs. A little steam-yacht lay at the
wharf, while a merry party of young people, laden with picnic baskets,
embarked. When the train sped on, and we had strained our eyes for the
last peep, the child, watching our faces, asked--

"It _is_ beautiful, isn't it?"

We had no words to tell her how lovely we thought it. Cedar Lake, which
we passed before reaching Minneanopolis, could not bear the comparison.
An old man, pointing out some large flour-mills near the road, told us of
a terrible explosion there in 1877, when many lives were lost. The
machinery and mills were shattered to pieces, and thousands of pounds'
worth of damage was done; yet in 1878 they were again in full working
order, and as celebrated as ever for the fineness of their flour.

At St. Paul's we changed trains, and said good-bye to the charming
Americans who had been the pleasantest of travelling companions.

On the Chicago and Milwaukee line which we now took, we saw more of the
American element, and felt Uncle Sam's land a greater reality. Every man
was a colonel or general; every woman was neat and pretty, but painfully
slight. All were perfectly at home; no matter how long the journey, they
did not get so tossed and travel-stained as we Canadians.

Before the train left St. Paul's we heard the story of a poor little
French Canadian woman. She was returning to Quebec from Fort McLeod,
eleven hundred miles from Winnipeg, in the North-west territories. She
had gone there to settle, but a terrible home-sickness for her own people
had impelled her to spend nearly her last shilling in the payment of her
passage back. Now she came in great distress to tell of the loss of her
pocket-book, containing her tickets, and all she had to buy food and
lodging on the way. A generous compatriot said he would see that she was
provided for; and the railway officials offering to give her a through
ticket for less than half-price, the money was soon collected from
amongst the passengers, the Yankees being the most liberal. The poor
thing, drying her eyes, acknowledged her gratitude with all the
expressive gesticulation of her race.

Comedy and tragedy jostle each other in life. At St. Paul's, also, our
sleepy Frenchman and a friend, who had left Winnipeg together to be
travelling companions to Ottawa, discovered that their tickets were for
different routes, and they had to separate. They met again at Chicago,
only to say good-bye once more, their routes still not agreeing. At
Toronto they again encountered, to separate at Brockville. One went by
the "Canada Central," and the other the "St. Lawrence and Ottawa" at
Prescott; so each entered Ottawa at opposite ends. And, as one of them
said, "The best of the fun is, my baggage goes with T----, and I travel
_sans_ everything."

From St. Paul's our road lay along the banks of the most beautiful part
of the Mississippi river, which, shallow though it is, is also broad,
bright, and clear. The surrounding country was in the height of its
summer beauty. Charming villages nestled under the high banks; houses
were built on projecting shelves of rock, with so little space between
them, that it seemed as if a slight shove would precipitate them over the
edge. Every foot of ground was utilised, and there was none of the
_débris_ that hangs about the back yards and odd corners of Canadian
villages. At every wharf were numbers of small craft and river steamers,
seemingly plying a thriving trade.

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