Chapter 2 - The
Railroad
As mentioned above North Bay is 200
miles by crow flight from Wingham but the C.P.R. routed me to North Bay by way
of Toronto, Smith Falls, Carleton Place and Pembroke to North Bay. Leaving Wingham
at 7 A.M. I reached Toronto in early afternoon and took the night train to
Carleton Place where I arrived early the next morning and had to stay there
until late afternoon to get the westbound train to North Bay. And here in the
little town of Carleton Place occurred my first real tussle with John
Barleycorn.
The local bus delivered me from the depot to the Queens Hotel
(which still stands). Feeling like a grown man, I walked into the bar. The
barkeeper looked over and down at me and said "what'll you have?”
"Whiskey" says I. So he pushed out a black bottle and a water
tumbler. Wanting to be sure I would get my money's worth I poured out a real
hooker and downed it, neat. I strolled out to the writing rooms and selecting a
comfortable bucket chair I spent the rest of the day in a very sound sleep. My
first jag, and a good one.
The hotel man woke me up to get on
the bus and get to the train for North Bay. I didn't seem to be remorseful
about this early downfall. Felt really grown up. It must have been good honest
whiskey. That evening I arrived in North Bay about dark and found me a place to
live with a Mrs. McDevitt at $4.50 per week for meals and lodging. I gave her
all the money I had, which wasn't much. Went to bed and had a good sleep. The
next morning I was ready to tackle my job whatever it was.
At the tender age of 15 past I was
just too young to be entrusted with a job as a telegrapher regardless of how
proficient I was. My job was in the general freight office and a dusty one it
was too. I was put to work in the records room which was just a disorderly mass
of paper. The problem was to sort it all out, destroy everything over seven
years old, bind the rest in order of dates and numbers and make a reference
index. The records room was a hot stuffy little box of a place with poor
ventilation. I finished the job but my health was turning bad. Then followed a
transfer to the yard office as a night checker, which in some ways was a mean
kind of a job for a youngster. In those days North Bay was the northern
terminus of the Grand Trunk Railway, the southern terminus of the Temiskaming
and Northern Ontario Railway, the eastern terminus of the Soo line to
Minneapolis-Moose Jaw and Spokane, and of course an important divisional point
on the Transcontinental line of the C.P.R. Here I learned some of the tough side
of railroading. North Bay was the jumping off place for all sorts of hard
characters including "high graders" working the high grade ore cars
enroute from Cobalt to Toronto. Those railway yards were not healthy at night
for a full grown man who might become curious about the "going's
on". I had many a scare as I went
about my work with a small lantern on my arm, but nothing serious happened. It
was impressed upon me that my work had to be accurately done in order to record
the movement through North Bay of thousands of boxcars, etc. Certain it was
that the importance of doing things right wasn't reflected in my pay cheque of
twenty- eight dollars per month. After paying Mrs. McDevitt $18.00 a month for
board and room, there wasn't much left. In fact there wasn't any left. But my
health improved some by being out of doors.
About this time there was a bad
train wreck near Azilda, a flag station near Sudbury. A trainload consisting of
seventeen coaches filled with harvest hands bound for Western Canada and which
I had checked out of North Bay a couple of hours later, was in a head-on
collision with eastbound #2, the crack passenger train from Vancouver.
Thirty-seven people were killed and equipment scattered all over the right of
way. No. 2 included a couple of express cars loaded with fresh fish from the
Pacific, and the wrecking crew hastily loaded a lot of loose fish in box cars
and rushed them to North Bay to be repacked in ice. I earned some overtime
money helping to pack those big halibut and succeeded in lugging a big one, say
about 20 Ibs. to the boarding house and we all ate fish for about a week.
My main
friend among the yard office staff was a great old railroader, named Fred
Hawker the yardmaster, a gruff hard-spoken but kindly man who seemed to take a
liking to me. Apart from him, my only pal was a crippled young fellow, Laurie
Fyfe, who hailed from nearby Callandar, the place that became internationally
known many years later as the birthplace of the famous Dionne
"Quints". In my leisure hours during late afternoons I learned to
fish for pike in Lake Nipissing and notwithstanding my chronic shortage of
pocket money I got quite a "bang" out of being on my own and on my
way as a railroader. But I had some other experiences ahead before I made
further progress.
I kept mother posted on my progress
by regular letters, but winter was coming on and I hadn't saved a cent. I
needed some new clothes but I felt it would be useless to ask for help from home.
So I began thinking of ways and means to travel further in search of my
fortune.
One night during my car checking
duties I stopped to chat with an elderly man who had 2 carloads of Settlers effects
including some livestock. He was traveling from near Collingwood, Ontario to
Kelowna, B.C. where he had a start in cattle ranching. The old gentleman seemed
to take a liking to me and asked me how I would like to go along with him and
help to look after his livestock. The next day I was on my way, tucked into a
hide-away in one of his cars. This was in early November, 1905. I will never
know why I didn't freeze to death on that famous trip. We were in the Winnipeg
yards for two days and the weather was below zero. My steady companions were
three blooded colts and a big shorthorn bull that weighed a ton. The horses and
the bull were stern to stern and when the freight train started banging around
the young horses would get excited and boy how they could kick that old bull’s
ass. As for the bull, all he could do was lower his head and beller. The owner
rode always in the train caboose, so I had the fun and the freezing all to
myself. Many a time I huddled up close to my old bull friend to keep warm. I forget
how many days it took to reach the Rockies, but I will never forget standing at
a narrowly opened car door watching with fascination the lofty Rockies and the
Selkirk Range.
At Secamius
Junction our cars were switched out for the run down to
Okanagan Landing, where all the stuff had to be trans- shipped on the lake
steamer Aberdeen for the 50 odd mile sail down to Kelowna. My meal in the
saloon of the Aberdeen was the first full dress meal I had had since leaving
North Bay about 2 weeks before. All my eats had been snacks and cold ones at
that. However, this was British Columbia. The scenery was grand and the weather
perfect. My health was surprisingly good and I was enjoying every minute of it.
At Kelowna all the stuff was unloaded again
and although it was getting toward sundown I was told to lead my friend the
bull out to Conklin's ranch on Scotty Creek, 10 miles away. So I set out with
the bull on the end of a ring chain and a steer pole. About 1 mile out of
Kelowna I met a couple of real cowboys ridin' hell for leather. They pulled up
and looked me over, asked me where I was going with the bull. I told them about
it and they insisted I ride the critter, assured me no bull would buck and one
of them grabbed me and set me up on its back. The bull rolled his eyes a bit,
gave a mild snort and then with the urging of these crazy cowboys it started
off at its slow waddling walk. I just sat there
crosswise on its broad back all the way to the ranch. I'll never forget that
big friendly shorthorn bull. I guess he
must have sensed that I needed a friend. During the ensuing weeks I came to
know those two cowboys very well, McClelland Bros. who had a ranch of sorts on
the slopes of Black Mountain.
My employer, Mr. Conklin, was a
queer mixture. Deeply religious around
the house, he was one of the world's best at cussin' when things went wrong on
the range. One day I was helping him
round up some stray horses to drive off his ranch. We got them cornered in a
high rocky bluff but they wouldn’t budge out of there. So telling me to head
them in the right direction he put his bay saddler up a very steep slope to
laze them down. He was just about to the top when the stray herd broke to go
down and his horse took a real tumble. Both he and horse just rolled over and
over all the way down down and I sat on my nag in fits of laughter. Whereupon
the good man let loose with a blast of profanity at me, at stray horses and
ranching in general.
I ate my meals in the ranch house but I
was given a little frame shanty up on a bench about five hundred yards away to
sleep in. Place had a little sheet iron stove and a couple of bunks. Scotty
creek, a noisy mountain stream was just below it. The siding had dried out and
I could lie in my bunk and count the stars. The shack had been used at one time
by a couple of Chinamen who made their living doing
placer gold washing in the creek. However the place was healthy for me,
sheltered by towering big pines. I breathed the fresh piney air all night long.
To be sure, I had an odd feeling of
homesickness because I was still a youngster in years and I was a long way from
home. Finally, I got up enough courage to write mother telling her where I was.
Her reply was full of alarm for my well-being. Indeed, she went so far as to
say that if I didn't come back nearer home she would ask the police to come and
get me. I didn't relish that idea, so I wrote to the General Superintendent of
the Canadian Pacific Railway at Winnipeg with an outline of my affairs and
applied for another job on the railroad and thus another change occurred which
was to lead to many weird experiences.
When I received a reply from Winnipeg
there was enclosed a first class pass and advice of my appointment to a night
job in the Box Car station at a place called Deception, about fifty miles west
of Kenora, Ontario. Due to delayed mails, the pass was void when I received it.
However, I talked things over with my employer and his wife and they urged me
to try again. I had little in the way of
money but old Conklin came to my rescue with
$25.00.
I wrote
Winnipeg again returning the outdated pass and requested new transportation
good at least for a month from the date of issue. This duly arrived. Hearing
about the dreadful cold weather in the prairies I just had to buy an overcoat.
There was a fairly close neighbor who said he had no further use for a good
coonskin coat he had bought from Ontario several years before, he was prepared to
to let me have it for $10.00. So dressed like a millionaire, but with mighty
little cash I set out for Deception, Ontario. That place was well named,
believe me.
The train I was on from Secamius was
only 4 days late on arrival in Winnipeg and by that time I was down to my last
25 cents. This I spent in the Union
Station lunchroom and got back on the train to proceed to Kenora to report to
the District Superintendent, J.J. Scully. The train arrived about 9 p.m. There
was no Scully to be found. The Chief Dispatcher, Mr. Horne was sympathetic but
asked me to come in the next morning about 9 o'clock. There was nothing for it
but to bundle up in my fur coat and spend the night in the waiting room and man,
was it a cold night around there. The next morning friend Scully was indignant
about the delay in my arrival; said they had had to substitute help for nearly
a month at Deception and only a couple of days previous had sent a man there to
fill the job. He had nothing for me; said he was sorry but all he could do
would be a pass back to Winnipeg or further on to Fort William. I told him that
was no good to me. I had to eat and I had come a long way from a mild country
for this job. I suggested that at least he could do would be to arrange for my
transportation and expenses back to B.C. This he couldn't do and we parted with
a warm invitation for me to come back and see him again later.
I had a slip of paper in my pocket that
I got from North Bay after I suddenly quit my job there. It said that I had
$19.00 coming to me if presented to the Company paymaster. I also had a pretty
good fur coat and a craving for food. So bolstering up my courage I walked into
the Russell House in Kenora and had a talk to the Manager who turned out to be
a real friend. He gave me room and board for two weeks until I could get my
$19.00. The town was full of railway construction workers building the new
Canadian National Railway 40 miles to the north. I made the rounds of the
employment offices and the best offer was $25.00 per month in a rock cut. Sure
didn't sound very attractive but I had to get work. I ran into a fellow one day
who had been working in the construction camps for quite a spell and was out to
civilization on a "bender". He was a short guy like myself. He had a
brand new suit of mackinaws which he traded even for my fur coat and lo! I was
ready to go to work. I'll never forget that trip out to a spot near where the
town of Reddit was subsequently built. The stage consisted of an open box set
of sleighs drawn by a big strong team of black horses. My company was mostly
Italian workmen; about 20 of them. Most of them had been out there before. One
of them was a foreman in a rock cut and he was pretty drunk when we started out
just just about daylight. The further we went the drunker he got and the
weather was so bitterly cold everyone had to walk most of the time to keep from
freezing. This particular Italian was too tight to walk and gradually he sank
into a real stupor. I knew the man was freezing and the driver agreed to stop
while we built a fire on the road to thaw him out. His compatriots didn't seem
to care much if he survived but I worked on his hands, both of which were very
badly frozen, until the circulation began to return and then he nearly went
crazy. Bit the skin off his knuckles, prayed in Italian and generally raised
quite a rumpus. I finally got him settled down and lent him my mitts for a
while. He swore by all his angels that he would give me all his next pay check
for saving his life. I saw him in a rock cut about a month later he was barely
civil to me. Bastard !
In due course we reached the
headquarters camp and I was assigned to driving a single horse hauling rock
cars from the face of the cut to the dump. Years later as I rode over that part
of the Canadian National Railway in an observation car, I could pick out the
part of the right of way that I had helped to build. It was a hard but healthy
life. I made my first acquaintance with body lice but this was not a unique
experience. After several weeks in the rock cut I was given a fine team to
drive with headquarters in another camp about 8 miles away. Little did I know
the perils of the job. It turned to be
delivering black powder and frozen dynamite to about a dozen work jobs. Things
went well for a while. I was more or less on my own when away from camp. But
one day early in March I had fifty kegs of black powder and fifty cases of high
power dynamite on board, when I was really flirting with death. The sleighs
skidded going around a sharp curve in the tote road and the rear brake caught
solidly on a sizable jack pine. The sleigh stopped dead, the
double tree broke and the team just jogged down the road. I hesitated a second
or two and then followed them, thinking every second that the dynamite would
explode. I never went back to look at the load. I caught my team and headed
right on to camp and told the boss I was through hauling powder. He wasn’t such
a bad guy, - knew I had a bad scare. Told me to report to the camp cook and work
there as a helper until I got over my scare.
This cook was quite a fellow, name
was Jack Currie, and he could really cook food. There were 150 men to feed
three times a day and everything had to move like clockwork. I liked the job
fine although the hours were from 4:30 A.M. until 9 P.M. Lots of good food and a clean place to sleep.
This fellow Currie was a stickler on cleanliness and order, but he had a
fearful temper. Every day he would lie down for 15 minutes sleep after the noon
meal and I had strict orders not to let him oversleep. One day just to be kind
to him I gave him an extra five minutes, but when I woke him he flew into a
rage and gave me a real cussin' out. In his rage he was looking for something
to hit me with and he grabbed a good sized potato out of a tub and heaved it at
me. His aim was perfect and I was hurt. My own temper flew out of hand and I
grabbed the first thing handy to retaliate which happened to be a big meat
cleaver lying on a work table. I let her go and Currie gave a scream and dove under a table. The
cleaver made about three turns and lodged solidly in the log wall of the
kitchen. This ended my job as cook's helper. Currie went yelling to the office
that his helper had gone nuts and tried to murder him. I was promptly fired and
told to hit the trail.
The next morning I hiked to
headquarters camp and back for my time check. Just a little matter of sixteen
miles, and I had less than fifty dollars coming to me. In the afternoon, with
my worldly belongings on my back, I started the long trek to civilization,
forty miles away. The nearest stop was on the Winnipeg river, twenty four miles
ahead. How I made that lonely journey will remain a mystery. The trail followed
frozen lakes most of the way and all of them had six to eight inches of pure
slush on top of the ice. All the tote teams were off the roads as the going was
too dangerous. Spring breakup was not too far off. By mid-afternoon I started
throwing away my stuff. My feet were wet and numb with cold. The last stretch of
ice was a long and weary ten miles. The sun was sinking and I had little idea
how far I still had to go to make the stopping place. That part of the country
was known to be invested with timber wolves. Suddenly a big bull moose walked
out of the woods and gazed around. He gave one loud honk and within seconds
wolves started to howl. I could only keep going and when I reached the portage
and solid footing I tried to run but I was so damn scared and tired out I could
only shuffle along. Thank the Lord the stopping
place was less than a mile away and I stumbled into the place completely beat.
I woke up in bed. The proprietor, a
Frenchman, urging me to drink something
hot, said I had passed out and he put me to bed. Place was comfortable,
although rough looking and the fellow said I would likely have to stay with him
until the ice broke up and a boat came to take us to town. Keewatin was still
some fifteen miles away. I had some sleep that night but in the morning I knew
I had some fever. The Frenchman urged me to stay, but I wasn't having any, and I started off in a
rainy morning to complete my trek. On arrival in Keewatin, I went to the old
Bay City hotel, got a room and asked the clerk to get me a doctor. So there I
was with a bad case of pleurisy and by the time I was able to get on my feet I
didn't have enough money to pay the hotel bill and the doctor. In addition, I
was as thin as a crow and weak as a baby. So ended my adventure into railway
construction work in that part of the world.
During my employment in the railway
construction camps I had struck up a close friendship with two English chaps
from Sheffield, Fred and Alf Kenworthy. Alf in particular came to be a very
close friend. I wrote him during my convalescence ion the hotel in Keewatin and
before I was able to be up and about, Alf had quit the construction camp and
found a job in the new Barkers & Brooks sawmill near Keewatin and had
located in a nearby boarding house. So thither I went when I was able to move
around. I was too weak to try any kind of work for about a week, but Alf staked
me to food and lodgings. This couldn't last long because Alf wasn't making big
wages at the mill.
I had to try to get something I
could do so I paid a visit to the big mill yard and hunted up the yard superintendent.
I told him my plight and he inquired if I knew lumber stocks at all. I must
have convinced him that I wasn’t altogether dumb because he hired me as a
shipper. I had a crew of three Russians to do the work of loading mixed car
lots of lumber and got by for about ten days by discreetly asking another
shipper for information and advice when I got balled up. However, the
superintendent caught me cold one day and knew I was only bluffing my way
along. He was very descent about it and in place of firing me on the spot, he
sent me into the mill to see Flanagan, the mill boss. This Flanagan was a real
Irisher and after looking me over he said “Just the laddie I’m lookin’ for. I
need a spry young fellow to tie lath in the lath mill. Your pay will be $2.75 a
day and go to it”
The job wasn’t a heavy one but I had
to move quickly to keep the lath racks clear from the gang saws. I was a very
tired young fellow for the first few days but I got hardened into it and
looking backward now, I can say that I enjoyed doing that simple job. I got my
debts paid and bought some new clothes and generally Alf Kenworthy and I spent
a pleasant time in the Kenora-Keewatin part of the Lake of the Woods.
It’s funny how things work around in
a way that alters the course of a person’s life. One evening Alf and I were
having a bull session at the boarding house with some of the mill hands. I was
being kidded about being too small for a real mill hand, that I could never
amount to anything but a hand in the lath mill. I let those guys in on my
secret ambition to be a real railroader in the operating end and all I got was
a big laugh. So I made a small bet with them that I could get a white collar
job on the C.P.R. within a week. And I did.
I took a day off from the mill and
went into Kenora, only 3 miles away~to see one J. J. Scully, Divisional
Superintendent to whom some reference has been made heretofore. Scully was
apparently glad to see me. He offered me a job at once as Assistant Agent at a
place called Dinorwic about 100 miles east of Kenora. Of course I
accepted and
immediately quit the job at the big sawmill. Scully gave me a pass to the job
and I must record that Dinorwic at that time, and still is, a mighty small
village, but even so, it meant a fresh start. My wages were again $25.00 a
month and when I think back over the years I don't wonder why the C.P.R. made a
lot of money for itself during those times. They certainly didn't pay me much,
but that was before the time the ordinary railway workers were unionized. My
boss, the Agent, was a fine fellow by the name of Ernie Hocking. He was born
and raised in Listowel, Ontario, only a few miles from Wingham. He had a night
operator by the name of Art Rolph who lived in the railway depot. Hocking and I
stayed at Poiles boarding house.
In addition to being a way station on
the main line of the C.P.R., Dinorwic was then the headquarters office for
Foley Bros. Construction contractors on the Canadian National which was building
some sixty miles north. It was also a distributing point for the
Hudson Bay
Company. I started to work in August and before long the wheat trains were
rolling east from Winnipeg to Fort William. All in all it was a busy spot.
Recreation was scarce. Neil Buie had a pool room. Jack Joyce ran a restaurant
and a blind pig, but I didn't have any money to squander on riotous living.
Kept me busy paying my board and buying my clothes, but I was learning a lot
about the business of being a station agent.
Had to practice up again on my Morse, but my main duties were looking
after the freight and express business, selling tickets, etc., and dealing with
claims. So I made a small bet with them that I could get a white collar job on
the C.P.R. within a week. And I did.
I took a day off from the mill and
went into Kenora, only 3 miles away to see one J. J. Scully, Divisional
Superintendent to whom some reference has been made heretofore. Scully was
apparently glad to see me. He offered me a job at once as Assistant Agent at a
place called Dinorwic about 100 miles east of Kenora. Of course I accepted and
immediately quit the job at the big sawmill. Scully gave me a pass to the job
and I must record that Dinorwic at that time, and still is, a mighty small village,
but even so, it meant a fresh start. My wages were again $25.00a month and when
I think back over the years I don't wander why the C.P.R. made a lot of money
for itself during those times. They certainly didn't pay me much, but that was
before the time the ordinary railway workers were unionized. My boss, the
Agent, was a fine fellow by the name of Ernie Hocking. He was born and raised
in Listowel, Ontario, only a few miles from Wingham. He had a night operator by
the name of Art Rolph who lived in the railway depot. Hocking and I stayed at
Poiles boarding house.
Late that fall there were a few of us
scattered along the line who decided to
go to Dryden for a bit of a holiday. One
of them was a fellow named Murphy, the night operator at a place named
Tache, about thirty miles east of Donorwic and another guy from Hawk Lake, west
of Dryden. I was in on the deal too
and we all foregathered in Dryden about 30 miles west of Dinorwic, one cold
forenoon and proceeded to celebrate a little. When it came time to head back to
respective jobs Murphy, who was a real boomer operator, wasn't near ready to
come along, so we left him in Dryden.
In the meantime his boss, the Agent
at Tache, had to hold down his trick on the train wire. The following evening
Murphy dropped off a freight at Dinorwic and came in for a visit. He was very
tight but we put him back on the caboose and urged him to get along to his job.
We told his Agent he was on his way. About three hours later Murphy was back in
Dinorwic . Said he had looked in on his boss in Tache and he seemed to be doing
O.K., so he decided to head back to Dryden to continue his binge. We prevailed
on him to wire his resignation in to the dispatcher at Kenora, which he did,
and then went on his way. We learned a few weeks later that Murphy had been
picked up in Winnipeg as a vagrant and given twenty four hours to get out of
the city. Poor old Jimmy climbed on a blind baggage heading for Minneapolis,
but when he was pulled off at Emmerson, both his hands were so badly frozen
they had to be amputated. I mention this incident mainly to illustrate the
carefree, devil-may-care attitude of many people in those days. Jimmy was a
grand fellow, an expert telegrapher but he couldn't stay away from booze.
In December of that year both Hocking
and I were transferred to Dryden, and whilst I didn't know it at the time, I
was heading into another crisis. Things went along smoothly for a couple of
months. Then one day our night operator, a chap named Ripley, arranged for a
night off and for me to work his trick from 7 P.M. to A.M. At that time the
main line of the C.P.R. was being double tracked and a section of it ran west
from Dryden. I had the "Board" on all trains in both directions, even
if only for clearance. About 10:30 P.M. a west bound freight extra came in. The
conductor came in and signed the train register. I gave him a clearance into
the westbound track, he pulled out of town and I registered him "by"
to the dispatcher in Kenora. In about 20 minutes the dispatcher asked me for a
report on that same freight extra. Told him I had reported it "by" at
10:30. He denied that I had and some hot Morse began to go and come. He called
me a liar and I told him to go to hell. Naturally, he ordered me off the wire
and demanded I call the Agent, which I did. Hocking didn't like losing a
night's sleep but there was nothing else for it because the whereabouts of
brother Ripley was unknown. I went to bed sore as a boil. When I came down to
the station in the morning there was a wire from the Chief Dispatcher ordering
me to report to him in Kenora by the first train. I sent him a wire instead and
told him where to stick his blasted railroad, asked for my time and quit the
job as of that minute.
What crazy things a young fellow does sometimes? A couple of weeks later I got a very nice
letter from the old chief, regretting that I had lost my temper and quit the
company; All he had wanted to do to me in Kenora was to give me a good scolding
and he even invited me to come back to work because I had been doing very well.
My answer was still "no" and I was again in search of a job.
I returned to Dinorwic to visit my
acquaintances there, including the Factor of the Hudson Bay Company. I don't
recall his name but his jurisdiction for the Company extended as far east as
Nipigon, Ontario, and North to the foot of James Bay. At the time the Company had a freighting contract
for delivery of supplies to the Canadian National Railway in the area of what
was later to become the town of Sioux Lookout; also to the Northern Pyrite Mine
and for delivery of supplies to some of the scattered Hudson Bay Company
trading posts. To facilitate this freighting service the Company established a
chain of overnight camps at intervals of approximately fifteen miles. Some of
them were closer than that. The Factor offered me a job to run one of their
line camps on Big Vermillion Lake, about sixty miles north of Dinorwic. The
wages were small but I was in no position to be choosy.
So off I went with a freight swing of 6
double teams, each hauling about 4 tons of mixed freight. The trip took two and
a half days. My camp consisted of a log stable to house up to 12 horses, a log
bunk house for the teamsters and a cook tent. This was in late February and
weather more often than not well below zero. My job was to see that teamsters
were fed at night and on the road at the break of day in the morning. It was a
chilly business cooking breakfast before that cook tent got warmed up. I was
invariably alone all day and amused myself by taking hikes over the frozen
lakes, doing a bit of fishing for lake trout through the ice. One day I came
across an otter doing his slides down a snow bank into a small pond. One night
after my teamsters were fed I decided to go and visit the man in charge of the
nearest camp which was about ten miles down the road. In those days I weighed
about 120 Ibs. and could walk or run more or less indefinitely. So I jogged
down the road in bright moonlight. Going over a long portage through thick
woods I was certain I heard a wolf and increased my speed a bit. I heard it
again and again and in a few minutes I was in full flight. I ran until I was
absolutely winded and had to stop for a breather. Suddenly a big owl flew into a
tree almost overhead and gave out with the noise I had thought was a wolf. But
I had been a scared young man out there all alone. I went on to my destination,
had my visit and a snack and lit out for my own camp which I reached in about 2
hours feeling fine.
During this job I had plenty of time to
think and consider what kind of a fool I was being, instead of sticking to the
railroad and making something of myself. As Spring approached, the freighting
job had to be suspended. I had orders to close my camp on a certain date and
come into Dimorwic. That was a trip I always feel proud about. I covered it on
foot - 60 miles- in one long day. Pretty well done up when I got in but I had
seen Indians working for the Company who had covered that much ground in a day.
I doubted they could, but I proved it could be done.
After loafing around Dinorwic for a
week, I had a talk with a man named Swenson, Superintendent for Foley Bros
& Larson, who asked me if I would be interested in taking 2 carloads of
horses out to Tofield, Alberta, for delivery to a railroad contractor named
Jackson, who was building the fifty mile stretch of grade east of Edmonton,
Alberta. This was duck soup for me. I
knew my way railroad-wise, and I had some experience with carloads of
livestock. What a trip that turned out to be.
Swenson gave me some expense money for
the trip and his only orders were to do my best to deliver the horses in good
shape. In those days Tofield was an island village, 38 miles south of Chipman,
Alta., which meant that the last 38 miles were overland.
My first problem happened in Kenora,
Ontario. My horses came into Kenora on a local and I wanted to be sure they
were switched into the fast west-bound freight to Winnipeg. I went to the yard
office to check on this and lo and behold if the yard- master wasn't my old
friend Fred Hawker, who was yardmaster at North Bay during my period of service
there. He assured me the nags would be on the fast freight and that I had lots
of time to go uptown and have some breakfast before the train left. I took him at his word but when I came back
to the railway yards the train had left town and so had my two carloads of
horses. This wasn't a very auspicious start. However, I barged into the
dispatcher's office to get transportation on the first passenger train that
would overtake the freight train. The dispatcher's name was McIntosh and he
readily recalled my fairly recent employment as Assistant Agent at Dryden and
Dinorwic. In the circumstances he arranged for my transportation on the
westbound Imperial Limited which would overtake my horse train at a point fifty
miles west of Kenora. And so I regained my cars of horses. When we reached
Winnipeg the horse cars had to be transferred from the C.P.R., to the C.N.R.
through St. Boniface and it was not until after dark that I could get the cars
switched into the stockyards for unloading and watering. What a hell of a mud
hole those stockyards were. However I got the nags all watered, fresh hay into
the feed racks and reloaded by daylight in time for a switch engine to put them
on a westbound C.N.R. freight.
In those days the C.N.R. freights west
of Winnipeg made daylight runs only. By evening we arrived at Dauphin,
Manitoba, after a cold drizzly day enroute. The horses were all shivering and
since we would proceed no further until
the next day I decided to unload again. One of the horses was quite sick and
shortly after unloading reared up and fell over dead. It took me a full day to
get them cleared away with the local veterinary, but in due course we were on
our way again. The weather improved and after a 2-day run to North Battleford,
Sask. I had to unload again to feed and water. Things were primitive around
those stock yards, too. There was no water other than having a local fellow
haul a tank full from the Sask. River about 3 miles away. I got that arranged
and then my troubles and fun started over again.
I had picked up an English immigrant
who was beating his way west and concealed him in one of the horse cars. The
switch engine engine left us with the leading car spotted at the unloading
chute and after unloading it we uncoupled and let it roll out of the way. I put
my hobo down at the chute and I manned the hand brake on the second car. His
job was to tell me when to stop the damn thing. It was as dark as soot and
between us the car ground to a halt about three feet foul of the chute. So we
had to get it back in place to lay down the gangway. At that time of night I
couldn't get a switch engine to help me out. I couldn't find a pinch bar to
inch it back by ourselves. The teamster who arrived with the tank of water
hitched his horses to it but couldn't budge it. It is noted here that the car
was loaded with eighteen head of big horses. By this time, I was getting a
little desperate. A little earlier I had seen a fellow unhitch a pair of oxen
from a wagon and bed himself down for the night right beside his cattle. I had
never even seen a yoke of oxen before but I had heard some tall tales about how
they can pull. So I woke up the sleeping owner and told him my problem. He was
a Frenchman homesteader from some place north of the town, and we finally made
a deal. One dollar per foot plus a small bottle of rye whiskey I was carrying
for emergencies. He harnessed up his oxen and brought them over to the stock
car and hitched on. Well! Was that ever a performance. The Frenchman yelling at
the oxen - threatening to cut their hearts out and brandishing a mean whip but
he never struck them. The bulls just settled down to work and I mean
"settled" because they sank their feet between those railway ties
right to the knuckles. Suddenly the stock car gave a squeak and began to move.
The good old oxen kept her coming until the car door was flush with the chute
and my trouble was over. He took his money, drank the whiskey and he and his
oxen were back on the bedding ground in a matter of minutes.
The next morning we loaded one car and
waited for the switch engine to spot the second one. When loading was over I
was pretty tired and a sleepy young fellow. The cars were shunted onto a
westbound freight and the conductor, fellow named McCullough, told me to go back
to the caboose and get some sleep. A couple of hours later one of the train
crew woke me and said breakfast is ready. Sure enough, ham and eggs, bread and
coffee right in the caboose. The crew had discovered my "helper" in
one of the cars but raised no fuss about it. I was entitled to a second man
anyway.
Those were the days when the west was
rapidly filling up with new immigrants, and notwithstanding the tremendous
building boom going on there were thousands of men looking for work of any kind.
It was a common saying that each construction job had three gangs,- one coming,
one working and one going. Wages were pitifully low. Twenty-five and keep per
month. As might be expected there were crowds of these drifters beating their
way over the country by riding freight trains. Ours was certainly no exception.
We stopped at a wayside water tank and the conductor sent his brakemen up to
two gondola cars to make a collection from about forty of these free riders.
All they got was a pair of work gloves.
Later we stopped at Paynton,
Saskatchewan, were there was a lot of way freight to be unloaded. This job is
normally done by the train crew, but remembering all the free riders they had
one of the brakemen slipped over to a nearby hotel and got the
"Mountie" to go with him and get all this free help to do the hard
work. They were all quite cheerful about it. The fireman came back and looked
them over and selected a couple to move up to the tender to shovel coal. When
the freight was unloaded the conductor yelled "All Aboard" and
everybody scrambled on again. Those were the good old days. That conductor was
a big burly fellow and looked as tough as nails, but he had a heart of gold in
him.
By evening we reached Vermillion, Alta.
where the train tied up for the night. I didn't unload again because rail
journey would terminate at Chipman early the next day. My helper and I had some
supper and sat around in the hotel for a bit. Had a few drinks and generally
felt satisfied with progress. A bunch of the "free riders" were
hanging around and a self-appointed leader of them, a man with an obviously
good education, came up and proposed that some of his buddies ride the horse
cars next day. We weren't having any, and we hiked out to the railway yards and
made sure the cars were locked. In one of those cars the space between the
doors was fenced off to hold a few bales of hay. Here we took up our position
and waited to see what might happen. Sure enough, along came a bunch of the
bo's. They tried our doors but couldn't get in. Then they decided to get in
through the small end door high up in the car. I yelled at them to keep out or
the horses would probably kill them. That didn't stop them, but when the first
fellow dropped down into the car the first nag bit him and the second one
started to kick the hell out of him. He let out a scream for help and one of
the guys reached down and pulled him up out of danger. That ended the trouble.
The next morning about 10 o'clock the
trains reached Chipman and shoved our horse cars into the little stockyard
siding. The horses had been penned up for quite a time and when they got into
the stockyard they were feeling full of play. Nice spring morning, bright sun
shining and everything seemed right. There were two saddle horses in the bunch
but my helper friend decided he would not attempt the 38 mile cross-country
drive to Tolfield. So I saddled up one nag and opened up the stockyard gates.
Away went the horses every damn way.
Chipman at that time was only a tiny
village. One big black horse was running real wild. He'd jump and squeal and
take off again. In his course was a nice new little frame bungalow with a small
garden all prepared right near the front door. The woman had set out a few
geraniums, but my big black horse decided that would be a good place to land
with all four feet which he promptly did, and then, with a high kick and a loud
squeal he took off for the open prairie. I still laugh every time I think of
it.
It took me an hour to get my horse herd
rounded and headed south over a very dim prairie trail, but from there on,
things went fine. My actual destination was Jackson's main construction camp
about four miles west of Tofield and there I arrived with my herd intact just
as the sun was going down. The camp straw boss tallied the horses in and gave
me a place to rest my tired bones for the night. In the morning I reported to
Jackson himself. He asked me to stay until the horses were paired up in teams
and put to work, but he had no steady job for me. Here I was back on a railroad
again but with no job and very little money.
A few days later, I started walking
the right of way toward Edmonton, fifty miles away, in the hope of finding work
at one of the subcontractor's camps. I fell in with another chap who was in the
same fix, but he was a dumb specimen. At noon we came to a sizable camp just as
the crew was coming in to eat. I promptly went to the cook tent with them. My
walking mate was afraid to try it. I had my meal about half done when a foreman
spotted me and asked me who the hell I was. My argument was that Jackson had
sent me there for a job. He cussed both Jackson and me, but I ate the rest of
my meal. When I came out, the other fellow was buck sawing wood for the cook to
pay for his dinner, so I just headed up the right of way.
Along towards sundown I came to a
wheel scraper outfit building an eight foot grade. All the men were Swedes
including the boss. I asked him for a job and he asked me if I could
"build the dump" which meant putting the wheel scrapers over at the
right places and in the right numbers. I took a crack at it. Dumped about half
a dozen scrapers and then it was quitting time. My boss seemed satisfied and
took me on. I had a good supper and was given a place in a tent to sleep.
Sometime after midnight there was a bit of a disturbance by some half-tight
newcomers, also Swedes. In the morning the boss looked me up and told me that a
Swede friend of his came last night and he had to give him my job. He was sorry
but he didn't need me any more. Anyway I had a cheap supper and a place to
sleep.
The next day at noon I struck a camp
run by another Swede named "Stockey". He had a big grader outfit and
a crew of about a hundred men. It just happened that he had fired a couple of
teamsters and I got a job driving a dump wagon, $25 per month and found, and
there I stayed for about 2-1/2 months.
This contractor had a pair of buckskin
bronchos that he used as a driving team and he wanted to get them broke to
ride. None of his other teamsters would take a chance, but I was getting fed up
driving a dirt wagon, so I told him I'd break them. The crew gathered around
that evening to see me get pitched into the scrub and pea vine, but young
Murchison had no scruples. Hadn't I ridden a strawberry roan on a cattle ranch
in far away Okanogan Valley? This brave bucked some and then took off down the
trail like a real race horse. I let him run for a piece and then quieted him
down. But when I came back I had him lathered in sweat and offered the opinion
I would have him gentled in a few days.
That suited the boss and I laid off the dump wagon. A few days later the camp
cows wandered away and couldn't be found, so he added that job to the breaking
of the broncs. I didn't hunt the cows very much but spent the most of a week
just ridin' around the country including a trip to Tofield where there was a
pool room. Finally old Stockey
said to me
one evening "Bv Yesus Murchison ay don't tank you look hard for dose cows.
I'm sending another fellow to look". The other fellow came back with them
the next day and I was again driving the dump wagon. And so it went until early
August in the year 1908, by which time I had enough of railroading of that
kind.
One of the crew was a middle-aged
fellow from North Dakota. He suggested we quit the job and head for the harvest
fields in Dakota where he would get a job running a threshing machine and see
that I had work too. And here began another series of adventures. A lot of
things were due to happen.
We spent two days in Tofield, the most
of which my Dakota friend spent in the local barroom. I had some difficulty
getting him on the buckboard stage for Chipman and we had a tiresome drive back
over those thirty-eight long prairie miles. In Chipman my traveling companion
resumed his heavy drinking and was nearing the end of his funds, so I decided
to ditch him and go it alone.
On the train between Saskatoon and
Regina I struck up a conversation with a nice chap who looked a bit weary and
worn. Told me he was returning from a trip into the virgin prairie country 150
miles west of Saskatoon where he had been locating homesteaders on free land.
He told me some wonderful things about the land in that area and suggested I
might take down the legal description of a quarter section of land which had
been filed on but was probably subject to cancellation. I had to change trains
in Moose Jaw and before going further I decided to file a cancellation in the
Dominion Land office in Moose Jaw. My money was just about gone in buying railway tickets and all
I had left was enough to buy a ticket to Milestone on the Soo line south of
Moose Jaw. The Canadian harvest was said to be about ready so I went to
Milestone and arrived there practically penniless.
It developed next morning that no work
was to be had. Harvest would not be active for another two weeks, which meant
that I was face to face with my first experience of real hunger and no place to
stay. Fortunately, the weather was mild and I didn't mind sleeping on the
ground for a couple of nights but something to eat became a must. The third day
I tackled a man who was installing a basement under a store in Milestone. Told
him I just had to have work, But I couldn't start until I had something to eat.
He sized me up and gave me an advance of twenty-five cents which paid for a
fair meal in the Chinese restaurant. My job was to put wheelbarrow loads of
rocks down a steep incline into his new basement. About the second or third
trip I slipped and twisted my back very badly and was unable to do any more.
This earned me a bit of a cussing out by my boss who figured I was just another
bum. Anyway I laid all that day in the sunshine beside a grain elevator and
slept there that night - all without any more food. The next morning I went
back to the job and pleaded for another chance to work. The boss was skeptical
but he agreed and gave me another quarter for a meal. I worked for him for two
weeks and he turned out to be a very fine fellow. I caught up with my eating
and got a few dollars in my pocket.
I then hit the harvest fields and
worked for 52 days driving a "stook team". Wages were $2.75 per day
and a working day lasted from 6 A.M. until 7 P.M. After paying for some work
clothes and blankets and allowing for a little money wasted in learning to play
poker, I wound up with the large sum of about twenty-five dollars when the western
winter set in and prospects for a job pretty gloomy.
The next move was to Moose Jaw where I
inquired about the results of my cancellation entry on a piece of homestead
land a little over two months previous. I learned that it was successful and I
was eligible to file a homestead entry by paying the usual fee of $10.00 which
I did. I was now a landed proprietor with less than ten bucks to my name and a
hard winter ahead of me. I couldn't be choosy about a job and I finally got a
team to drive hauling gravel out of a frozen bed of Moose Jaw Creek. Usual
wages for a bum job - $25.00 a month and board. After a few months of this it
dawned on me that if I was to ever get anywhere I would have to discover ways
and means to earn more money. While cogitating on this problem, my employers
had a couple of carloads of baled hay shipped into Moose Jaw, and I had the job
of unloading them and storing the hay in the barn loft. Up to this time there
hadn’t been much snowfall, and we were using wagons. Then came some snow and I
hitched on to a set of sleighs to finish the hay job, but made the mistake of
hitching to a sleigh the boss didn't own. The real owner discovered this and
had me arrested for stealing his sleighs. I called my boss from the police station
and he got me bailed out and retained a lawyer named Willoughby to appear for
me the following Monday. When my case was called there was no complainant and I
was dismissed. Apparently this complainant owed my boss some money and to avoid
a suit over this bill the case against me was dropped. My lawyer was later
appointed to the Canadian Senate but history will not likely record that this
incident had much bearing on his appointment. Many years later I was to become
associated with the Senator's brother in Ottawa. But I never told him that the
Senator and I had been mixed up in a "thievery" case in Moose Jaw,
Sask.
Seeking to improve my fortunes I
succeeded in getting a job in the new Robin Hood Flour Mill in Moose Jaw. The
head miller thought I was a spry young fellow and turned me over to the
millwright as a sort of apprentice-helper. This was a nice kind of a job,
although I had to work every Sunday with the millwright in making adjustments
to the machinery which ran constantly from twelve midnight on Sunday until
twelve midnight Saturday. But I wasn't accumulating much money.
Standing on the upper floor of the mill
I could watch the vast sweep of the prairie land on all sides and this gave me
the idea that I should join with thousands of other land seekers moving into
the south and western part of the province to settle on free land. I had never
seen my own homestead entry which was located some 250 miles to the northwest.
So in a moment of weakness or perhaps with the spirit of adventure stirring me
strongly I said good-bye to the flour mill.
