Haunted Trail

 Evenings when I sit out on our front veranda and it is quiet and the time is late, my mind starts to reflect in wonder about the road out in front of our house, Bonner Avenue. As there is sometimes a mist out there due to the nearby Bunn's Creek, I often imagine wispy figures making their way through the mist on a rudimentary trail or path. Are they the original inhabitants of this area, the Assiniboine, Ojibway, Anishinaabe, Mandan, Sioux, Cree, or Lakota, or perhaps some of the original Selkirk settlers or Metis? Where are they going? What stories would they have to tell? This reflection is probably a carryover from my youth when I came under the storytelling influence of my beloved Aunt Mary.

The Haunted Trail

My Aunt Mary lived about one hundred metres from us across the highway separating our farms in Saskatchewan on a quarter-section of land that was given to her by my grandparents when she and my Uncle Bill were married in 1936. It was about one hundred acres of land that was under cultivation and about sixty acres of woods and marshy hay meadows.
When I was growing up, I used to range through the woods or the land that had not yet been cleared for cultivation. It was fun to explore in areas that were not as familiar to me as the land around our farm house. I would construct simple tree platforms in the larger black poplars from where I could watch for animals or birds. Here, too, was where I found diamond willows that were suitable for making both bows and arrows and for handles for slingshots.
As I left my Aunt Mary's yard and moved south into the growth of white poplars, I would soon come upon what appeared to be and old overgrown trail that was about a foot deeper than the land on either side and showed 2 large continuous ruts that stretched across the whole woods.  They disappeared when the trail reached the cultivated land. I often wondered what had made the trail because it was obvious that it had had a lot of use. But being young and more interested in running and roaming through the woods, I never pursued finding out its origins.
However one day when I was out in the woods picking mushrooms with my Aunt, we came upon the overgrown trail and I commented on it. A curious expression settled on her face as she regarded the ruts. She said to me she didn't really like this part of the woods especially late in the evening as there were often strange noises that one could hear on very quiet evenings when everything was so still after the sun set. There would not be a breath of air, the birds no longer flew or twittered, and a hush fell over everything. 
"What kind of noise?" I asked.
"I can't really explain exactly what I heard. But it sounds like cattle lowing softly, sometimes men shouting out, the clinking of harness, and once in a while when it is very still and dark, the sound of large wheels turning on wagons, "she replied. She then proceeded to give me a bit of a history lesson about the area. That got my attention because I was always interested in stories of origins or people.
She went on, "Apparently before our family arrived here from Europe in 1899, there used to be a track across the open prairie that ran right here across our land. There used to be no trees here like there are now. Prairie fires used to come burning through driven by fierce south winds. The fires burned everything in their paths except where there were wet marshes and the willows that grew out of the water. You could see miles in every direction. When we came here in late summer, it was too late to build a home because there were no trees. The nearest trees available were along the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, about fifteen miles from here. We dug a large cave into a hill and covered the opening with canvas. We had a stove inside with a pipe poking through the roof so the smoke had a way out. In the spring we were told to plow furrows around any area we wanted to save from being burned including us.  We used to watch the sky for smoke to warn of approaching prairie fires."
"But what does that have to do with the noises you have heard here?" I asked.
"I think that some of the men who used this trail maybe didn't survive some of those fires and what we are hearing now are their spirits as they roam through the area where they used to take their carts and teams. That's what I think," she told me. Then she made the sign of the cross. 
Hearing and seeing that made an impression on me. But no matter how many times I roamed through the area after sunset and how many times I stopped to listen, I never heard anything.
In later years when I seriously got into studying history and geography, I discovered that the Carlton Trail from Fort Garry, now Winnipeg, would have passed through here on its way to Fort Carlton which was located southwest of Prince Albert and west of Duck Lake along the North Saskatchewan River. Thousands of Red River Carts must have passed through here bearing supplies heading west and furs heading east. This explained the depth of the ruts and how long they lasted after the trail stopped being used when the CPR started laying tracks and connecting points in Canada.
Still on a quiet evening when I am at the site of our old homestead in Saskatchewan, I tilt my head and I imagine I can hear the crack of a whip, the voices of teamsters, and the squeals of the wheels on the Red River carts as they slowly move on the trail to Fort Carlton.

Big John

Big John

Recently I heard a Jimmy Dean oldie on the radio entitled “Big John. It was about a heroic man who played a fateful role in saving many lives in a coal mine disaster. It listed his many attributes. It got me to thinking about another “John” I was familiar with back in my middle teens. What he did was very heroic in my eyes even thought it involved only him.

He definitely was not a “Big John” in physical stature! He was of medium build, about 5 ft 7 in tall. But he was big in every sense of the word in every other way! A brief description of him would include the following words. Russian. Émigré. Socialistic. Strong. Determined. Father. Husband. Dependable. Committed. Faithful. Reliable. Innovative. Survivor. He survived a great famine as a young man. His family picked grass and put it into a container of brine just like what was done to pickle cucumbers or cabbage. They ate this concoction to keep alive.

He and my dad became quite good friends when we moved to Wroxton from our farm. John had emigrated about 15 years earlier and was a jack-of-all-trades in our village. His services were in great demand because of his reliability and skilled workmanship. He often played devil’s advocate during his political discussions with my dad.

 A few years later when we moved back to the farm, my dad was elected to the municipal council of our area which encompassed about a 1000 square kilometres. And he eventually became reeve. He hired John to be their “cat-skinner” in municipal road construction. John was knowledgeable and could work on road building with minimal supervision. They also hired another two men to assist him in the construction.

 John drove the caterpillar which had a big blade in the front. Behind the caterpillar was a 4 wheeled scraper which was used to scoop up dirt and clay from the ditches and to transfer it to the surface of the road thus raising the road surface to make it more drivable in both winter and fall. He was good at what he did and his two helpers who chopped and removed and burnt bushes and trees that the caterpillar had bull-dozed to enable the scraper to scoop up the materials to put into the new roadbed liked him as a foreman.

One day they were working on a grid road about 5 kilometres north of our house. They had just finished for the day and it was getting late. John told his crew to go home as it was Friday night and they did not work on weekends. They left and then John decided that there was one patch of road that needed to be raised a bit so that anyone driving over it would not suddenly find themselves fighting the steering wheel as they passed over it. He would do that and then shut down for the weekend.

As he drove the caterpillar into the ditch to scoop up some dirt, he didn’t notice a downed tree in the now gathering dusk. As the treads passed over the tree, one of the branches was bent back and when the treads passed over it, the branch snapped back. As it did, it broke and a section of the branch which was about 10 centimetres in circumference was thrust forward and upward. It impaled him just below his ribcage but missed penetrating his stomach.

He immediately stopped the caterpillar and assessed the “damages”. It was serious but he could see that no blood was spurting so the branch hadn’t hit an artery. But the wound was bleeding and the pain was almost unbearable. He could not do anything with this 3 metre branch sticking out of him and immobilizing him. His first order of business was to cut the excess amount of branch protruding from him.

Beside his seat there was a toolbox containing what John considered essentials for on-the-spot repairs. In here he found a small steel cutting saw. Painfully and slowly, he laboriously cut his way through the branch, each stroke of the blade sending shooting pains through his body.

He finally cut through and the branch part sticking out of him was now only about 6 inches long. Grabbing some oily rags that were in the toolbox he pressed them down onto the wound’s entry point to slow down the seeping of blood. How much of the branch was still stuck into him he did not know. Now he had to decide what to do. He had to get to a hospital. If he started to drive the cat to our house on the highway, it would take him two hours to get there. To get to the nearest neighbours would also take some time and he did not know if they were home or awake or could even transport him to the hospital. No, he would have to some how get to his truck and drive to our place.

The next formidable task was to get this injured body of his to his truck. He slowly engaged the clutch and drove the caterpillar to his truck. There he stopped and shut the caterpillar’s engine off. Now to dismount. With every movement sending waves of pain through his body, he slowly crawled onto the tread and proceeded to lower himself to the ground. Taking moments of respite, he made his way to driver’s side of the truck.

Fortunately for him his truck keys were in his pocket. Retrieving them and then pulling the door open was accomplished. Now would he be able to hoist his body into the cab? Slowly he pulled himself up and into the cab. He started the motor and then began to drive very slowly to our place. Waves of pain made it difficult for him to concentrate. He picked up speed and soon was driving along at about 20 mph, as fast as he dared go.

He drove onto our yard. My mom and dad and I had already retired for the night. My dog, Harry, a black Lab, started barking loudly to alert us to strangers in the yard. John stopped in front of the door and leaned on his horn and kept honking the horn until we had been roused.

The three of us dressed hastily and then burst out the front door. John upon seeing us relaxed and simply lay back against the seat. My dad recognizing who it was, immediately pulled the driver’s side door open, and took stock of the situation. He called to my mom and she opened the passenger side door. Quickly she assessed the situation and hurried back to the house. This was going to require a trip to the emergency room. 

My dad and I attempted to move John to the passenger side of the seat. I held on to his belt and got a grip on his right pantleg. My dad slipped one hand behind John’s knees and the other hand carefully under John’s behind. Together we slowly pushed/pulled him from behind the wheel. Each movement caused John a lot of pain, but it was a necessary move.

My mom came out with a basin of warm water which she used to rinse down the wound after she removed the oily rags. She then took some clean towels and pressed them down onto the wound. Using some old adhesive tape we had, she taped the towels so they were pressing down slightly and would help slow the flow of blood. She also carefully laid a small pillow between John’s head and the passenger door window. John smiled weakly at her, politely thanked her, and then passed out.

 Meantime my dad had wiped the seat down and got behind the wheel. In a moment he had fired up the engine and he and John  were off in John’s truck to Yorkton to the Union Hospital emergency room, which was about 50 kilometres away over a graveled highway.

The doctors and nurses at the hospital managed to remove the branch, clean out the wound and sterilize it. They sewed it up and then John received a transfusion of blood and IV drip tubes. Fortunately the branch had not hit any major organs or blood vessels. He spent 2 weeks in the hospital and then another month at home recuperating. Soon he was back at work. It would take more than some poplar tree branch to stop our Big John!

 

Sister St. Martin

In 1963 all my older work mates at the railroad finally persuaded me to go back to school. They said they did not want me to end up like them in a job which paid well but had limited opportunities.

I decided to take up teaching as all my brothers and sister had before me. My sister was a teacher in Saskatchewan. My oldest brother had been a teacher before he became a jet pilot. My other brother was an engineer who was teaching civil engineering technology at MIT, the forerunner to Red River College of today.

I could not afford to do the three-year program at the University of Manitoba. I opted for the one-year teacher training session at Manitoba Teachers College located in the old School for the Deaf in Charleswood.

I graduated with mixed reviews. I experienced all kinds of classroom teaching and methodology. Some of my “professors were good. Some, I thought, were horrible. The latter tried to convince me that what they were espousing would stand me in good stead in the classroom. I decided I would never use their ideas but rather do the opposite of what they proffered.

I went back to work at the railroad for the summer to earn some much-needed salary. I was uncertain about taking up the teaching profession. I considered becoming a permanent railway employee again. I had all the skills and training to be successful. IBM machine training in Montreal was offered. But then there was the appeal of two months of summer holidays on the teaching plus side. Little did I realize that those two months were of absolute necessity “to recharge your batteries” if you were doing your teaching diligently.

I finally decided to commit to teaching. To my dismay I discovered there were no positions left open in the city. The nearest place offering any positions was at least a two-hour drive from the city. Should I be offered a position in one of these rural areas, it would mean that I would have to live there at least during the teaching week. That did not appeal to me. It was looking more each day that I would be returning to the spareboard at the CNR and starting up again with minimal seniority.

I still checked the want-ads in the daily papers and one day an ad for a private school caught my eye. They must have been desperate as there was but one week until the fall session began. I quickly arranged an appointment for an interview at the school which was a parochial Catholic school on Munroe Avenue in East Kildonan. It went by the name of St. Alphonsus or St. Al’s. I was to be interviewed by two board members and the principal of the school. One of the board members was a Mr. Jim Baty who would become a great friend and strong ally. The principal was Sister St. Martin.

As we sat around a table in the small staffroom of the school, we were sizing each other up. Sister St. Martin was in full habit. She was wearing a black gown with a belt around her waist. The skirt part came to midcalf. She wore a white hair cover that was tight to her head. Over this was a dark veil which covered her head and shoulders effectively so that only her face was visible. Around her neck was a white bib collar from which a crucifix hung. She wore rimless eyeglasses and there was no makeup on her face. Nor was there a smile. She looked more formidable to me than any previous teacher or employer I had ever had.

Suddenly I began to have some doubts as to whether I really wanted to qualify for this teaching position. Mr. Baty posed questions to me of the softball variety. Every once in awhile Sr. St. Martin would fire a hardball question at me. I fielded them as best as I knew how. After all my teaching experience was limited to two three week sessions in someone else’s classroom that I had while in Teachers’ College.

It appeared that they were for some reason desperate to hire a male teacher. I was there. My body was warm. I didn’t appear to suffer from any physical or mental deficiencies. I was young and I was a practicing Catholic. I was hired for the magnificent gross pay of $2500 for the year. No mention was made of deductions or pay during July and August. This meant I would be teaching at a salary that was about 40% of what I was netting at the railroad.

I resigned from my railway position and I showed up at the school a few days before opening day. It was an eye opener for me. Sister St. Martin greeted me and took me around to meet some of the other staff members. There were 4 other nuns who would be teaching along with Sr. St. Martin, one other male staff member, and the rest of the staff were women, mostly married, and of varying ages from 20 to almost retirement age.

My classroom was on the second floor of the school near the back entrance. My class looked like it would be at 40plus grade six students depending on who showed up on opening day. The other male teacher was located next door and he taught grade seven. He also taught all the phys-ed which now would be split equally between the two of us. He also told me that he would be leaving at the end of this school year which was why they were so anxious to hire another male teacher. His job was to “show me all the ropes” so I could take over his duties next year.

Sr. St. Martin continued to be a bit of an enigma for me. While her appearance and often very stern countenance did not appear to change, I noticed a softening in her attitude toward me. She was gentler in her conversations and became generous in her relating to me the assignments I was now going to be doing in addition to my classroom duties. I soon realized she was trying to get done what was best for her students and teachers with the very poor resources she had to work with.

As the year progressed and we all started to fall into a routine, she and I began to have daily meetings about what was happening and how some situations could be improved. She began to rely on me for more and more input as the other male teacher began to relinquish more and more duties to me. I also began to realize that I really enjoyed teaching, I liked my students, and I certainly liked the staff members who were openly protective of this young kid in their midst.

I was almost overcome with horror when I learned that I was make almost twice as much money as some of the other staff members. Sr. St. Martin told me not to worry because my workload with all the extra-curricular things I did in the school more than justified the difference in pay. I still felt uncomfortable in that because I was a male, I received a higher rate of pay than the women on staff. I felt that was unfair. She said the other staff members were aware of the difference but that they were content in doing just their classrooms and not have to worry about afterschool work. Most were married and had families to go home to after school to look after.

In the end, I lasted 5 years at the school and Sr. St. Martin became a close friend, a great advisor, and certainly she was a completely different person in my mind than when we first met.

 

 The Night of the Buffalo

My grandfather, Piotr Bryski, was born in 1867, the year Canada became a country. He served in the army of Franz Joseph the First as a conscript. He returned home to his family and was successful at his job in a brewery plus he farmed a small amount of land. Because he was from a large family of mainly brothers, the share of land he had received upon his father's death, was barely enough from which to scratch out a living. He saved his money from the brewery and in 1899, he emigrated to Canada with his family which consisted of his pregnant wife and 5 young children. They came to the end of their journey in Saltcoats in the District of Saskatchewan in the Northwest Territories. With a few other Polish families they headed out cross country with their team of newly purchased oxen and wagon and supplies to last them a winter. 30 kilometres later they arrived at the quarter section of land that they had purchased from the Canadian government for the magnificent sum of $10 and which they were going to homestead.Then they literally dug in for the winter.
My Aunt Susan recounted how they survived that first year in this rich yet seemingly inhospitable land. They dug a large hole into the side of a hill beside what was then a large pond on a creek with slowly moving water that was on its way to the Assiniboine River about 12 miles away. Over this hole they built a slightly slanted roof with poplar saplings. Over the saplings, they laid sod which they had hacked out of the surrounding prairie. There were no windows and the door consisted of a large square of canvas. 
Cooking was done over an outdoor fire-pit. This consisted of two forked sticks supporting a horizontal pole from which a cooking pot or a kettle was suspended over an open fire.
Bread was made from the lowest and cheapest grade of flour purchased from the Dominion government. It was a sourdough bread made by leaving some dough from the previous batch to act as yeast in the next batch. Bread was baked as "pliatsky" or dough which had been flattened and baked on flat stones placed in the fire.
Prairie chickens and rabbits provided meat. Rabbits were caught with conventional snares placed along traveled paths while horsehair snares were used to catch prairie chickens. A series of nooses were strung together and feed placed around them. As the birds fed, they would put their feet in these loops, tightening the nooses as they walked around. A large number could be caught at one time. Piotr's muzzle loader also helped to provide food for the table, a table made of roughly hewn poplar poles.
One day in late fall there had been a slight snow fall. According to Aunt Susan, so the family legend goes, the family was having their evening meal around the table which was lit by a coal-oil or kerosene lamp. Suddenly they heard the sounds of something very large moving overhead on their sod covered roof.  There was a crash as wood splinters and pieces of sod rained down onto the table followed by the sudden appearance of a large leg with a split hoof. The leg thrashed and then just as suddenly was drawn back up through the hole in the roof.
My grandfather quickly grabbed his muzzleloader and proceeded to load it. It was always unloaded because of the presence of young children in the dugout home. By the time he loaded it and got his warm coat on and had lit a lantern, several minutes had passed. He knew that what had been on the roof was a prairie bison or buffalo, some of whom were still left on the prairies, and that it was roaming the area, foraging and probably seeking water in the nearby slough. If he could shoot this large animal, he and his family and many other families would have a large supply of hard to get meat for the winter.
He ventured out with his lamp and his muzzleloader and found the trail of the buffalo which indeed did lead to the still unfrozen slough. But it was gone, probably spooked by the break-through on the roof and by the screams of the young children from below. It had probably swum across the slough and went on its way. Because there was only one set of large hoof prints, Piotr surmised it was either an old bull or else a large yearling that had somehow become separated from the others during the snow fall.
For many weeks and indeed, many years after, the family would recall with great amusement about the unexpected guest who almost "dropped in" for dinner.

 

-- Cranberry Picking
The Viburnum trilobum, or high bush cranberry as it was known in Saskatchewan where I grew up, has pretty white blossoms that adorn the plant in the late spring and are followed by large clusters of bright red berries by the end of summer. In fall the foliage is breathtakingly beautiful. This species of high bush cranberry can grow to from two to four metres tall. While the berries are not a favourite of many birds, they certainly were a favorite of our family. We used the berries in the making of jellies because of its tart flavor.
We had some cranberry bushes on our farm but the best picking was in the boggy area near the Assiniboine River. These were densely treed areas with many shrubs growing in between the trees. One had to hike in a ways from the municipal road allowances. You also had to be "bush-wise" as it was very easy to get lost in the dense undergrowth.
One fine Sunday afternoon, my father dropped my Mom and me off near a prime picking area. It was a beautiful sunny day with a temperature in the mid-teens Celsius, or around 60F if you are "old school". He agreed to come back in three hours and pick us up. He then left to go home to work on a project he had going.
Mom and I set off with our pails and soon we were far into the bush carefully picking our way through the wet patches until we came to a large growth of cranberry bushes. We started to strip the clumps of berries into our pails. We each had 2 pails as we were only going to be able to do one picking. Each pail had about a 16 litre capacity.
As we picked we carried on a desultory conversation. She moved one direction with her picking while I slowly picked in the other direction. We were not careful with our picking. Berries, leaves, and some twigs went into the pail. All would be separated at home when we went through the berries culling out the bad ones.
Soon all that could be heard was the tearing off of the berries and the sound they made as they were dropped into the pail with the other berries. After about an hour I had a pail of berries. I set them down and began to fill the other pail. Over the noise of the berries hitting the bottom of the empty pail, I noticed that the bush was being picked from the other side. I hadn't realized that my mom had changed directions and was now picking close to me. I started to talk to Mom telling her that I had already filled one pail and asking her about her picking. She didn't answer and continued to pluck at the berries. I repeated my question and again when she didn't answer, I assumed that she was in a picking trance. You know. You pick and while you pick, your mind is in other places as picking does not require much brain power. I raised my voice to break into her reverie.
Suddenly from about 50 feet away, I heard her asking me if I wanted something. If she was there, then who was picking on the other side? I got a very serious feeling in my gut that I wasn't going to like the answer. I slowly and carefully parted the bush so that I could peek to the other side. There on its hind legs was a black bear holding a branch with its paws while it stripped the berries off with its snout. Fortunately it was only engrossed with eating berries and not in tasting some pre-teenage flesh.
I quickly grabbed the full pail and quietly made haste in the direction of where I had heard my mom's voice. I alerted her to my encounter. Except for turning ashen faced, she didn't say anything. We made off back in the direction of the road allowance. We went as quietly as we could but we both knew that had the bear wanted to catch up with us he would have been there in a flash.
When we got to the road allowance, we hastily set off in the direction from which my dad would be coming in about another hour. We kept glancing backward expecting to see the bear emerging from the bush in pursuit of us. After about ten minutes of walking and still no bear, we slowed down but continued to put distance between us and the bear. We evened up the berries in the pails to make it easier to carry them.
Slowly the color was returning to my mother's face, and when she realized that we were now out of immediate danger, she started a nervous giggle. We had gone berry picking with a bear and we had lived to tell about it. I for one was glad that the bear had berries on its mind and that it hadn't taken exception to two humans "horning" in on its patch!
That winter the cranberry jelly tasted exceptionally delicious and each time we put some on our bread, my mom and I would exchange a knowing glance and a smile.

Pandemic

 

Pandemic

It was a beautiful fall day. The year was 1954 and I was 12 years old and doing my share of the farm work because there were only my mom, my dad, and me left on the 300 acre small farm to handle all the daily necessary chores. The temperature was about 10 degrees above normal and the sun was gloriously beaming down on us. My dad and I were in a bluff or copse of poplar trees that were about 10 years old. They were of sufficient size to be chopped down, trimmed, and made ready to be hauled back to our farm yard to be cut in stove-length pieces by a crew or "bee" of neighbors.After the sawed wood pieces were aged for a year, they would be ready for the stove.
My dad said we should take a break. As we sat there and he rolled himself a cigarette, he had a reminiscing look on his face.
"What are you thinking of dad?" I asked.
He then went on to recount the tale of the infamous Spanish Influenza that happened in 1918-1919 when he was about 11 years of age. He said that the weather during the fall of 1918 was very similar to the weather we were having today. He went on to recount how a lot of neighbors came down with the flu and that some died within a few days of getting it.
"Our family was fortunate," he said. His dad, my grandpa, had remembered that epidemics in the old country from where he had emigrated seemed to spread quickest where people congregated.  As a result he had his family go into "isolation" long before it became one of the main prevention factors like we are undergoing today. It was social distancing in an extreme measure but it effectively saved his family of 8 from contracting the flu.
I fast forward to 2020. Because of my extreme situation of immune deficiency, I have been practising social distancing and self-isolation since the beginning of January. Each time I look out my window and see people passing by on the street, I am reminded of the social distancing that my dad had talked to me about those 60-some years ago. It was effective back in 1918 then for my family. It is effective today.
My sons and their families still visit us but we practise social distancing. They bring us our needed groceries and medications which my wife, Patti, wipes down carefully with an alcohol rub. We visit with neighbors at a distance. When we go out for drives, we enjoy the scenery but remain in the car. We wash our hands frequently with soap and water but especially when we have been out and about. We are being careful! We hope you are, too!
We shall overcome this pandemic and hopefully with a lesser toll of lives than the Spanish Flu took. Hopefully we will learn some positive lessons from this enforced segregation and loss of livelihoods and we will assist one another as much as possible. And hopefully we will be thankful for those brave souls who go out there on a daily basis to help our society continue to function.