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Life at Lac La Biche 2

Letters of W. E. Traill, 1874-1881 – Part 2

Everyone kills fish for their winter. Most families have from 2 to 3 thousand according to the number of persons and dogs, for all keep at least one train of dogs and as each dog must have a fish per day they require a good stock.

[On October 17 or 18th] I will be starting out my fishermen to the fall fishing. [In fall we set in the] spawning grounds [which] are about 10 or 12 miles from [the house]. We will haul the fish by dogs in winter. I hope to get from 10 to 15,000 whitefish. If I get even 10 thousand I shall have abundance for the whole winter.

While my fishermen were off to the fisheries, I had to fish for the establishment and cut and haul wood etc. I liked fishing when the weather is not too cold but it is no fun to overhaul a net when the ice is floating in the water, though these men do it in mid-winter at any possible degree of frost and that bare handed.

Harriet is very proud of her accomplishments as a sportsman. She has been practicing with the gun lately to the sorrow of the prairie chickens [and visits the rabbit snares she has made]. She says she wants to learn how to put down a net but I fear it will be some time ere she conquers her fear of water. She does not feel at home in a canoe. But hunting is not her only accomplishment. She can cook and make my clothes as well as any wife I could have found in a civilized country, and above all she is a loving and true wife. Am I not a fortunate man?

[In October we] got our two cases goods from Orkney about £30 worth to which Mrs. and Mr. McKay have added several nice presents. Mr. McKay's present to Harriet is a very neat tweed walking dress. Mrs. McKay sent her several things for the children with several pounds of sweets for the little ones from their Aunt Kate. We had a visit from a missionary [October 14th] ... and enjoyed the service exceedingly. His name is Steinhaur. A full blooded Indian from Lake Simcoe. He was brought up and educated at Alnwick by old Father Chase. He knows Rice Lake and was at the Indian Village there. He came out here in 1855 just after the Rice Lake bridge was built. He is stationed about 50 miles from this and will visit us once a month.

Winter 1874-1875

Winter set fairly in on the 1st of [November]. The lake did not freeze over till the 15th. [By November 22], the thermometer was at 25 already. The fishery is only just over so all hands are off to their hunting grounds. I am fortunate in having the best fisherman and net maker in the north but I nearly lost him. He was overhauling his nets in a storm and upset and was about drowned. When rescued by others he could not stand when put on shore. He was a couple of hours in ice water. He was nearly drowned a second time trying to cross on the ice before it was strong enough. If possible I intend to try a drag net next fall. We get enough as it is but take rather too long for my liking. We have above 10,000 whitefish, 20 bags pemmican. I have killed 2 oxen and will kill several pigs. We are pretty comfortable this winter having plenty to eat which is a great consideration. The trade however is poor, there being a wonderful scarcity of fur bearing animals. I rather fear we will not have an extra good winter for furs; however it is hard to judge by the country around here as several of our hunters go for some on the Athabasca and some towards Lesser Slave Lake where furs are more abundant than here.

We passed but a dull time of [Christmas and New Years] ... We were altogether alone on Christmas and on New Year's Day we had far more visitors than was either agreeable or convenient. We had to feast every one of our neighbours as well as the people of the establishment.

They came in early and we only got rid of the last about bed time. The people with whom I have to deal are a tiresome set. I sometimes wish I was at some other occupation than trading furs which is by no means congenial to my taste. It is the meanest occupation out, for one is constantly being abused by every old Indian that comes along. If I could afford it I would leave the service. However, two and a half years will be all I will serve whether I get better encouragement than I have at present.

I do not know when my turn will come but one thing is certain, and that is that when I get a furlough I will not lose any time in availing myself of it. Had my trade this year been successful I might have stood a chance but such not being the case, tho it is no fault of mine, my chance of getting away is very small. It was a down right swindle leading me to suppose at the first that I should have a chance of going home after seven years; such is never the case - no, nor at the end of ten years very seldom any one gets leave, except on plea of ill health. Of course commissioned officers are different. In HBC's service the higher you rise the less you have to do and the higher wages you get; I wish I had my foot on the first rung of the ladder. Sooner or later I will take to farming myself. Time flies very fast. I cannot realize that I have been nearly 11 years in the service. I do not know when I shall get out to the civilized world again. There is a probability of the Company making a road through this part of the Country from some point on the Saskatchewan above Fort Pitt to the forks of the Athabasca in which case this place would be one of some importance. I hope such maybe the case as we are altogether shut out from the civilized world.

Harriet has been unwell ... Poor girl she frets too much. She finds this place so lonely. ... We have no friends. There is one very respectable [English] family who live about two miles off and then the Mission people they are all French but speak tolerable English. The nuns are very kind. One of them is an old friend of Mrs. McKay's and very kind to Harriet and the children. I thought that she was resigned to the sad loss of our darling but when she is feeling ill she frets very much. Poor Harriet grieves excessively. She cannot reconcile herself to this place at all and no wonder, our darling was taken from us the day after our arrival. Sweet child, she is spared much sorrow and suffering and now enjoys eternal rest while we her unworthy parents are left to suffer and mourn.

I am happy to say that the children tho they cough at times are in good health and full of fun. They cannot bear to speak of their little sister. They remember that she was put into the earth and cannot bear the thoughts. They cannot bear to see their mother cry. Dear children, God bless and keep them. They had a long and hard time of it during the whooping cough. Walter is growing fast but Katie is still very small. She will always be a small thing. Harriet was teaching him a grace out of Mother's little book for the children, "Give us thankful hearts." He stopped and said, "What kind of hearts? Rabbit hearts, I suppose." Poor boy, he is very fond of rabbit hearts and as it was a grace he took it to mean his favourite dish. He knows all his letters and Katie knows most of hers. Walter is a very good boy and very tractable. Katie is more troublesome but has very winning ways.

Spring 1875

[This letter comes to you from Fort Pitt on the Saskatchewan River.] My trade has not been a good one but Mr. [Lawrence] Clarke writes me that he is well satisfied considering that it was hard year for furs. We have had an extremely long winter and remarkably deep snow and consequently the rivers are all or have been remarkably high. The spring has been almost unprecedented for floods on all the rivers rising in the Rocky Mountains. This north branch broke up before the ice had in any way melted. This fort [Pitt] tho built on a high ground was nearly flooded and at Canton, built on still higher ground, the ice blocked against the bastions of the Fort. Still lower down at Prince Albert, the people had to take the hills for their lives and five Indians and some cattle were drowned. On the South branch matters were much the same but no lives lost.

But the most remarkable flood occurred on the Athabasca at Fort McMurray on the forks of the Athabasca and Clear Water River; the river rose in the course of half an hour to the remarkable height of 63 feet, carrying off several of the buildings of the Fort and drowning all the transport oxen. Mr. Moberly, the officer in charge, came on foot to Lac La Biche to try and get animals to replace those drowned. I supplied him with the number required and am left without any animals...

[With Harriet's confinement soon approaching, I came here to Fort Pitt to pick up Mrs. McKay.] It will be very pleasant for Harriet to have her mother for a short time. I had a rather rough trip to Fort Pitt. Owing to [the] accident in the north, I had to give all my animals to make up an otherwise irreparable loss, and was only left with one horse with which I had to make my way to Fort Pitt ... chiefly on foot as the horse was carrying. I had to send out my packs by the R.C. Mission carts. I traveled in company with the R.C. Mission people one day and then forked off to White Fish Lake where I had business. The people at that place were next thing to starving so they ate up all my provisions, after which I had to make my way through the woods back to the Fort Pitt Road, depending on my gun for provisions. Every creek was a river and every river a flood. We nearly drowned our horse in the Beaver River and at another creek we assayed to cross on a temporary bridge that had been in use but which at that time was afloat. The horse broke through the bridge and would have been drowned but we managed to haul him over the bridge on his side. We were nearly to our knees in water on the bridge. Of course the saddle bags got wet and my papers were not improved by the soaking they got. We would have had some difficulty in finding our way but happened to fall in with an old half breed who knew the country and who I hired to guide me through.

[We arrived back at Lac La Biche on the 5th. On June 25, 1875, Harriet] presented me with a fine little son [Willie]. I say little but he is quite a giant, bigger than Walter was. He has very large hands and feet and a nose that will do credit to both Traills and McKays. Both mother and baby are doing well I am thankful to say.

I have saved about half my wages for this year and trust while in the service to be able to put by an equal sum, say $250, which I will always invest. Of course, trouble may come and prevent my realising such a saving but I think I can do so. I have needed to put by a little because I have needed to put Walter to school. Education for my children shall be my great aim if it pleases God to spare them to me. I lay no store on money for money's sake but for the sake of those who are dependent upon me. I live comfortably myself and do not allow my family to want any necessary. If we have privations, it is for the want of society, but then we are free from a great deal of the heart burnings and jealousies of civilized life and have trust what Campbell the Poet calls "the all in all of life - Content.”

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