My latest book, “On Higher Ground,” is finished and out for editing and formating. It is a moving historical novel of friendship, courage, and sacrifice from Alberta’s frontier to the battlefields of WWI.
1902
I was twelve years old in 1902—wow. I am getting older and a bit more mature. My Da has begun to give me more responsibilities at home. Living in a windy dust bowl of an area, especially during the high summer months, outside chores can be challenging and hard. It is always a challenge for the Town of Macleod to beat down the dust. When a massive dust storm develops and comes in from the Pincher Creek area, it is “all hands-on deck” to clean up the town. The dust gets into everything. I help my Da build windbreaks on the western side of our yard to keep the dust at bay, but there is not much the town can do as a whole. Luckily, these storms are exceedingly rare and localized. Sometimes, when conditions are right, you can watch the storm roll by to the north or to the south and miss the town altogether. That is haphazard—it cannot be planned.
I continue to work at the general store. The Hudson’s Bay Company has taken it over and expanded its footprint significantly. Mr. Morrison and his wife remain as employees, now managers of departments that have sprung up. There are a men’s section, a ladies’ department, general goods and hardware, household items, dry goods, as well as a livery and firearms area. I work on the loading dock, taking in and sorting out the various wares for delivery to the appropriate departments of the store. These wares come in by train from Calgary, Vancouver, and points east—sometimes all the way from Toronto. As I see the waybills from afar, I daydream about what those cities and towns are like, especially the older parts of the Canadian east, for the west is new in comparison. It is exciting and adventurous, rough, and hewn, vast, and unforgivingly new. It is not a place for the faint of heart.
Winters are long and harsh. Temperatures remain well below freezing for months. Snow is plentiful and deep. It is God’s grace and mercy on us that He delivers unto us the welcomed blessing of the warm wind—the Chinook – as it is called. It is a warm, flowing wind that races down the eastern face of the mountains to the west of us. It is a Pacific-originated gift from God to the poor souls who have the misfortune of living in the cold reaches of the prairie lands. “Yes, but it is a dry cold,” they would say as their frostbitten toes are being removed by Mr. Macpherson. Cold comfort indeed. And who are “they,” anyway? I often say to myself, “I wish they would just go away.”
Nevertheless, the young ones play in it—forts, fights, and fond nighttime memories in anticipation of the morn. The Oldman River freezes over in early November and stays that way until April, sometimes May, before it melts. We clear off a section of snow and skate there to our hearts’ content. Skates can be had at the Hudson’s Bay Store, but they are rudimentary and quite different from those used now. Hockey is not as popular as it is today, although we do have a variant of the game. For those of us without skates and sticks, we use a broom and a ball and run down the ice, slipping, sliding, falling, and cursing on bruised behinds and egos. Laughter fills the air. Both male and female take part in the shenanigans. For those with skates, a game called “snap the whip” is played, where a long line of skaters forms up only to be snapped like a whip into the snowbanks. It is great fun. Our winter games and activities are limited only by our active imaginations.
We always do this at night. I do not know why, but always at night, when it is really, really cold, and frosty, so cold that each breath takes your breath away, and the snow glistens as if embedded with a thousand specks of diamonds, especially under a clear, moonlit, star-struck sky. If we are really lucky, the green fluid hues of the dark winter’s northern sky shimmer, dance, and weave a pattern that is frighteningly beautiful and soothingly fresh—paradoxically frigid yet illuminated by such a warm glow. And oh, so quiet it is. To us kids, we feel sure that we are all alone in the whole wide world. This is pure magic. Life is indeed magical and good.
