The Lansdowne Letters: A Picnic Unlike Any Other

The days rapidly grew longer and warmer as spring filled the land,
but the rotting ice lingered in May 1961,
and Lansdowne House remained cut off from the Outside.

Rotting Ice

Pointe-du-Chêne, New Brunswick, Canada

Flickr ~ Shawn Harquail License Cropped

Spring fever ran rampant, and suddenly our home seemed dark and cramped.
Everyone wanted to be outside stretching his or her limbs in the warm sunshine
and breathing the fresh, wholesome air of the North.

Two unusual days that I have never forgotten occurred in late May,
following one after the other, Sunday and Monday.
Both brought canoes and broke the monotony of waiting for break-up to end.
Both were wonderful.
Here follows the tale of the first.

Pussy Willows

Harbingers of Spring in the North

Flickr ~ fryed_2010 License

On Monday, May 22, 1961
My father wrote to his mother,
Myrtle MacBeath:

Dear Mother:
I just have time for a short note to you,
to let you know
that break-up is over, after a fashion.

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

The lake is open down about five miles,
and I just found out that there is a plane coming in,
and they are going down to meet it in canoes.

However, the break-up still isn’t over for sure,
because the ice could shift tonight and close up the open space.
I would have had a long letter ready for you
if I had known last night that there was a plane coming in.

Yesterday we had a lovely day. I rented a canoe
and took the whole family, including Gretchen, and went on a picnic.
There is enough open water around the edges of the lake
to allow you to travel by canoe.
We went up the peninsula for about three miles.
It was lovely, but Sara and I are both sore today from paddling.

We took a camp stove and canned stew and really had a lovely feed.
I don’t remember when anything has tasted better.

The baby didn’t think too much of the canoe trip.
She was frightened of the water. Ditto for Gretchen.

Family Picnic in the Bush

My Mother and Barbie

You can see the lingering ice on Lake Attawapiskat in the background,

the camp stove, and a bit of the canoe on the right.

Photo by Don MacBeath, Spring 1961

Everybody is feeling great,
although Roy has been bothered
off and on by tonsillitis.

He is going to have them out
as soon as we get out.
They are quite bad.

Roy with Donnie and Our Dachshund Gretchen
Christmas, 1961
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Sara is continuing to gain weight slowly,
and I am holding my new weight and not gaining.
The baby has gained three pounds or so since she came up.
She looks as healthy as a pet pup.

I will be glad when the break-up is over for good,
because we are running out of food rapidly.
This has been a longer break-up than usual.

Right low the ice is just sitting in the lake rotting,
and unless we get some strong winds for several days,
it could sit there for three weeks more.
A strong wind would break it up and clear it out in two days.

Right now there isn’t a breath of wind,
and there is none forecast for the immediate future.

Well, I must sign off now,
as the canoes are leaving soon to take the mail down the lake.
Don’t be expecting regular mail till you receive my next letter,
which will be a nice long one.

When you receive my next letter, break-up will be over,
and regular mail service will be in force again.
However, I won’t guarantee when that will be.

Bye now,
Love,
Don

The Tip of the Peninsula and the Father's Island
We canoed along the right edge of the peninsula toward the bottom of the photo.
Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada, 1935

Credit: Canada. Dept. of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Library and Archives Canada / PA-094992

Our family picnics were a staple of entertainment throughout my childhood,
from meals served on a picnic table in the backyard,
to sandwiches and pop on a blanket in a local park,
to wieners and marshmallows roasted over a fire by the ocean,
but this was most unusual picnic I had ever experienced.

We lugged the camp stove, boxes of food and cooking utensils,
blankets, and layers of clothes down to the Hudson’s Bay dock
to load the canoe my father had rented,
a big freighter with five seats and plenty of room to stow
seven people, picnic supplies, and one unenthusiastic dachshund.

The novelty of piling everyone into the canoe
added a dash of adventure to a Sunday outing on a brilliant day.

Dad pulled the front of the canoe up on the shore,
so Roy and I could steady it.
He and Mom settled Donnie and Barbie on the seat toward the front,
baby Bertie on the floor by the middle seat,
and our dachshund Gretchen on the floor
toward the back among all the picnic supplies.

Mom hopped in and took the seat in the bow,
paddle in hand to push off.
Dad, Roy, and I gave the canoe a huge shove,
waded into the water alongside it, and gingerly climbed in.

Bertie was my responsibility,
Gretchen Roy’s.

Bertie and Me
Summer, 1961
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

As our parents paddled the canoe
through a strip of water between the ice and the shore,
the familiar Hudson’s Bay post,
the Department of Transport buildings and dock,
the nursing station, and the school slipped by,
followed by a cluster of Ojibwa homes,
and then we were skirting the wild peninsula.

The sight of spindly spruce and birch standing above
an impenetrable tangle of shrubs was intimidating.
In most places the lake water lapped up against
rounded flat boulders, sparse grasses, and low-lying plants
that abruptly yielded to trees and brush.

The dip and pull of our parents’ paddles in the still water
was hypnotic in the warm sunshine;
but even drowsing, I could sense the cold ice floating nearby.
The bush was alive with birdsong and insect voices,
but the land felt empty, primal.

My parents landed on a suitable patch of ground
about two miles up the peninsula
where we could pull up the canoe and spread the blankets.

The site contained the remains of a deserted store
that was falling into ruin.
The owner, a free trader named Joe Alex,
had crashed his plane and died several years previously.

In short order Dad got the camp stove going and coffee perking,
while Mom heated canned stew and sliced and buttered bread.

Does anything taste better than hot stew and homemade bread in the wilderness?
Well, maybe orange juice and cake to follow,
if you’re a kid with hollow legs,
and we all had hollow legs and the appetites to fill them.

Afterwards Dad curled up on a blanket
with a favorite magazine to read and enjoyed a smoke or two,
while Mom relaxed and watched us play.

Roy and I took the canoe out and practiced canoeing.
More correctly, we argued over controlling it
and spent much of our time going around in circles
until Dad sorted out our squabbles.

Roy and I Canoeing on Lake Attawapiskat

Near Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada

Photo by Don MacBeath, Spring 1961

Meanwhile Barbie and Donnie sneaked into the icy water
to wade, and Gretchen decided to go for a swim.
Add in a toddler who loved running around on her unsteady legs,
and my parents had their hands full.

Later they corralled us all into the canoe
and paddled another mile up the lake along the peninsula.
Here we discovered the lake was wide open and clear of ice,
a fact that figured in our adventures on the following day,
but that’s a story for a future post!