BEFORE THE CANADIAN PACIFIC  RAILWAY  ̶  AND NOW(1)

   Comparisons, I am aware, are considered odious, that is a general rule and like all other rules there are exceptions, and writing of conditions before the construction of our first transcontinental road and now is well worthy of comparison.(2)

   I left the Lake Superior country twenty-eight years ago, just when the Canadian Pacific Railway Company were making their first preliminary surveys(3), and I visited it again for the first time this summer(4).

   Twenty-eight years ago the only way to get into any part of the north country of Lake Superior was by a tri-monthly steamer in Summer from Sarnia(5) or by dog team and snowshoes in winter either from Sault Ste Marie or from Duluth.

   By boat one was not always sure of debarking at one’s destination because this depended on the state of the weather. One ran the chance of being put ashore either at Michipicoten, The Pic, Red Rock (Nipigon) or Port Arthur and then from any of these ports of call find one’s way by engaging Indians and canoeing back or ahead to one’s real objective destination.(6)

   This mode of travel entailed the certainty of camping out, the chances(7) of being swamped making some traverse or the very frequent discomfort of being wind bound in the bottom of a bay or the back of some high cape jutting far out into the lake. The enforced prolonged stay at any part of the trip was generally accompanied by short rations if not mild starvation. For although provisions was always taken with a fair and liberal calculation to have a surplus yet one could never be sure.

   While a birch bark canoe of a reasonable size can if well managed stand considerable rough sea, they have no place on “the big water” when the Great Fresh is at all out of temper.

   I have been storm stayed back of one of the numerous points between The Pic and Red Rock for three days and three nights and forced down to very scanty provisions. Our pastime was sleep, make fly smudges and gaze out into the lake and wonder when the storm would moderate.

   Men under such conditions and prolonged inactivity get cranky and unless under great moral restraint are apt to use [missing word] towards providence and even to the powers [missing words]

   Anyone starting from either Sault Ste Marie or Duluth with half way of north shore as their objective point, had indeed a hard route to travel in winter. Even with a good dog team the cold and deep snow barred riding all the time and when night came on camp had to be made and piles of wood cut and carried to keep from freezing, dogs to be fed, and last our own supper cooked and eaten.

   The camp was of the most temporary kind merely a windbreak of cotton, the heavens above as a roof and a blazing fire at our feet. Often on a bitter cold night with trees cracking all about, and the glass down to -40 sleep was out of the question, the fire had to be replenished every little while, our face and front scorching in the blaze and our back freezing the meanwhile.

(Continued in Part 2)

END NOTES

1  T.A. Reynolds’ original title for this chapter. He arrived on the North Shore in the late fall of 1876.

2  All posts in the MARTIN HUNTER SERIES retain the original punctuation and spelling of the author.

3  Year 1881.

4  Year 1909.

5  The Beatty Line, operating out of Sarnia, Ontario, had a steamship route that required crossing Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, passing through the canal at the American Soo, travelling the Canadian North Shore to Port Arthur, following the American North Shore to Duluth, and going east along the Lake Superior South Shore, and back to Sault Ste. Marie. In 1876, the Beatty Line had three steamers operating, the Manitoba, the Ontario, and the Quebec. The author did not specify which ship he took, perhaps because he did not recall. This author’s guess is that he would remember the name Ontario, where he was starting from, and Quebec, where he had worked, but Manitoba was a far-off region that he never visited in his lifetime. Caution: this is speculation, not fact.

6  The Hudson’s Bay Company, Reynolds’ employer, had posts on the North Shore: Michipicoten, Pic River, and Red Rock (now Nipigon), and Fort William. In 1876, there was no organized community at present-day Nipigon, just the post, associated buildings, and Indigenous lodgings.

7  On the Canadian North Shore, the chances were small of a steamship grounding, or “being swamped” (foundering), or colliding with another vessel. On the other hand, stories are rife of damaged or lost steamships on the American North Shore and the Lake Superior South Shore. In 1875, the Manitoba, of the Beatty Line, survived a collision in Whitefish Bay, just west of the Soo. Ten lives were lost. This story is told in three sidebars in separate posts, No. 4-1, No. 4-2, and No. 4-3.