I would have loved to have seen
what my father saw when
he was laid up with the flu;
but I arrived in Lansdowne House
too late in the winter trapping season.
Northern Ontario Lake
My father wrote:
Hi There Everyone:
Your favorite correspondent is
down with that well-known
international ailment known as the flu,
accompanied by that equally well-known
ailment known as the runs.
As a result of my ailments,
there was no school today,
and unless I feel much better tomorrow,
school will be closed then too.
I spent the day in bed and have eaten little
for twenty-four hours or so.
Uno brought me over some soup at noon,
but that made a very quick return trip to my stomach.
In the afternoon both the Father and the Brother
were in to see me and to administer
assorted French-Canadian remedies
guaranteed to “cure or kill,” to quote the Father.
I was worried for a while after I took them,
that they were going to do the latter,
instead of the former.
Father Ouimet, Don MacBeath, and Brother Bernier
October 1960
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
I spent a very interesting afternoon
watching one of the Indian families
starting their migration to the winter traplines.
The family set off in three canoes,
and they have over one hundred miles to go
to reach the location of their traplines.
In these three canoes were
the mother, the father, a grandfather,
six children of assorted sizes,
two dogs, and the family cat.
On a Portage
I hope the two dogs were the brutes
that sang the base leads in the canine chorus;
perhaps I will be real lucky,
and it will turn out that
the choirmaster was one of the dogs.
Along with the aforementioned live cargo,
the canoes also contained:
one large tent to live in until
the family reaches their winter quarters,
four pairs of snowshoes,
all the winter clothing,
all the equipment for trapping,
$600.00 worth of staples
that the husband bought on credit from the Bay,
and two stoves (light sheet iron heaters
similar to the ones we have in our cottages at Brighton),
and all the cooking utensils.
Ojibwa Snowshoes
The means of propulsion for the canoes
was one 3½ horsepower outboard motor,
which was attached to the first canoe,
and this canoe towed the other two.
When I saw them out on the lake,
they didn’t seem to be making any headway at all,
and there was only about three or three and one half inches
of free-board showing on any of the canoes.
The water is unusually low
at this time of the year in the North,
and this year it is much lower than usual.
The Father tells me that it will take
about three weeks for the family to reach its destination,
and the trip will involve enumerable portages
because of the low water.
Handling a Canoe During a Portage
All members of the family help out during the portages,
even the smallest children, if they can walk.
It would not be unusual to see little girls and boys
the size of Donnie and Barbie carrying things
like pots or traps during the portage.
We Five a Few Months Before We Went North
Barb and Donnie are in Plaid Skirts.
Photo by Sara MacBeath
Fall, 1960
Fall, 1960
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Every member of the family is assigned certain articles
for which he or she is responsible during the portages.
Since the success of the entire winter operation,
not to mention the very survival of the family,
may well depend on each and every article
(when you have to carry everything,
you soon learn to take
only the essentials on these migrations),
Indian children soon learn to accept
considerable responsibility
for the welfare of the family unit.
Of course, the family that set off today
was one of the poorer families
(Yes, there are economic successes
and failures among the Indians,
just as there are among the whites),
and this family had to travel
the old-fashioned way of their forefathers.
If the husband is a good hunter,
and the family is well off by Indian standards
(which actually amounts to whether the husband
has the money in his pocket and doesn’t necessarily mean
that he doesn’t owe it ten times over),
then the family will charter a plane
and fly to the winter traplines.
Float Plane with Canoes
It usually costs about $150.00 to charter a plane
to fly a family to the traplines.
It always fascinates me to see
one of these chartered planes taking off
with one or two canoes lashed to the pontoons.
Well, I guess I will wind it up for tonight
and get to bed, as I still feel a little weak from the flu,
and I am worried that I may have a relapse
if I don’t take it easy.
Bye for now,
love, Don.
I've added a video below of Wintertrekker on a canoe trip
through the boreal forest of Northern Ontario.
The video gives you a taste of what it is like
to travel by canoe in the area west of James Bay.
Wintertrekker is traveling in the summer
with modern equipment, maps,
and often cut portage trails in the bush.
Try to imagine it in late fall
with subzero winter about to set in
over fifty years ago ...
with three canoes,
the mother, the father, a grandfather,
six children of assorted sizes,
two dogs, and the family cat!
Till next time ~
Fundy Blue
Note: Portage or portaging is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A place where this carrying occurs is also called a portage. (Definition: wikipedia)
You Tube ~ Wintertrekker