Month: March 2017

March 31, 1917

I can feel spring in the air. The temperature was warmer — it really felt like spring, but I had a chill that wouldn’t leave my body. Winter wouldn’t leave me today. But the sun was strong — brilliant actually — and its ever strengthening force was making the snow go away fast. The snow was mostly gone from the south-facing hills. As for the north-facing hills, the snow will stay into May. That’s what I predict.

I had walked a lot yesterday and I was tired. That’s why I felt chilled. The snowshoes weren’t suited for some parts of my trip, so I ended up post-holing my way through parts of the bush. I didn’t notice until I got back but my socks and boots were soaked. I set them out by the fire to dry. I didn’t think much about it, but yesterday’s wet-footed venture must have put the chill in me today.

Earlier in the morning I went out to the storage shed. It’s the second and southerly part of Mowat Lodge. It’s a separate but joined structure. It was a separate lease, but Shannon took it over in 1914 when he expanded his operation. There are more rooms there, but there is a large storage area and an outbuilding that Shannon uses as a stable for the horses and the cow. He doesn’t keep the animals in the barn up the road. It’s too far away for tending the animals, but he stores the hay there, the beaver grass, that’s cut and brought in in early July. Shannon spends a lot of time in the back grooming and taking care of the horses. He takes pride in his horses. He also drinks back there. Ever since the Prohibition, Annie’s not comfortable having liquor in the ‘proper part of the house’ as she calls it, so Shannon is forced to drink out of doors or with the horses.

Shannon wasn’t there this morning. I don’t know where he was. The horses were there though. I guess he decided not to take the horses out for a sap run because the temperature didn’t go down enough and there wouldn’t be anything to bring in. I cut some more boards from the stack that Shannon set aside for me. The orange crates are good because they are light and flimsy. They’re meant to make the trip only once from California and they’re held together with a few nails and some wire. The panels I can make are about 5″  x 7″. Depending on the condition of the wood, I can get four to eight panels from each box. Although they are the size of a glorified post card, I can’t complain. If I use these boards as quick studies or sketches, I can save my better panels for when I find a really good scene.

After lunch (Shannon didn’t appear for lunch) I was still feeling a bit under the weather, so I didn’t go far. I walked a short distance down Gilmour Road to Whisky Jack Bay. It’s a small inlet due south of Mowat Lodge. The dump for Mowat Lodge is around there too.  I saw the gray jays and they saw me too. Whisky Jack bay got its name from the gray jays that live around there. The Indian name for gray jay sounds like Whisky Jack so the name stuck. The gray jays stay all winter and do their nesting before the other birds come. They hide their food in the trees and you can see them flying about in the fall, hiding it in the trees, in crevasses, under flakes of bark and in holes left behind by woodpeckers. They’re smart birds, they remember everything they hide. They’re very territorial too, they keep an eye on you. If you’re in their territory, they know who you are, and dive-bomb if they don’t like you. I didn’t get dive-bombed today. I learned from my Uncle Brodie that most of the gray jays die when they’re young. It’s a cruel family life. They’re forced to fight each other to see who gets to stay in the territory. The “leavers” move on and try to take another territory, and the “stayer” (if the parents choose to let a younger one stay) sticks around for another year to help raise the next generation of young. But then, when the time comes, it  starts all over, another fight to the death over territory. When you observe what the gray jays have to do to survive, it makes you think that maybe the fight to the death in Europe could be the natural course of things. Love, honour and morality only figments of our imagination. Survival at all costs is the only thing that matters. Embrace the gray jay way.

I saw another stand of birches down in a low lying area at the edge of the bay. Together, they gave a nice composition, being in the foreground, so I got up close and painted them. When I was finished, I went back and I still wasn’t feeling good. I had the chills and read the papers in the kitchen by the cookstove. It looks like the U.S. is going to declare war any day now.

I was quiet at dinner. Shannon had reappeared and I could tell he had been drinking all day. Probably at George or Lowrie’s place. Everyone knew well enough to leave me alone.

March 30, 1917

Canoe Lake is still frozen solid, but the edges are melting away. The small streams feeding into the lake and Potter Creek are open and running. Shannon needed to finish his his ice-block operation today because it is becoming too dangerous as the weather warms up. This morning I helped him get the last blocks in. Neither George nor Lowrie showed up to help. I’m sure they had a bit too much to drink last night. Today was the last day Shannon’s horses went on the lake. That’s a relief for me, because I’ve become attached to his horses and if we lost them it would be like losing members of the family.

After I finished my duties with Shannon, I cut some boards from the crates he kept for me. Although I brought a fair number of boards with me, I needed to stretch out my supply. The ones cut from the crates are only 6 inches by 8 inches, smaller than the regular 10 1/2 by 8 1/2 boards. I like to bring a couple of these smaller ones, in case I need to do a sketch extra quickly.

Today, I ventured a bit further than I did yesterday. I went north from the lodge and then to the eastern shore. In the summer, there’s a beach — this was a campsite for the the Indians. This is where Canoe Lake got its name, because they made birch bark canoes here – before the railways and lumbermen made them move on.

I did my sketch near the shore of the lake. There’s lots of birch here. They like the low land near the shore. When the pines were all cut and the high water levels from the dams drowned everything else, the birches moved right in. The beavers like it too and there’s a healthy population. They’ve dammed the stream that comes down from March Hare lake. It was once a tiny lake, but it’s bigger now. There’s a beaver dam about a mile away — that’s where March Hare Lake is, and there is another one here, just before it drains into Canoe Lake. Because all of the water is dammed upstream there’s only a pond’s worth of water behind this one. Since it’s not close to anyone, it hasn’t been dynamited. From my recollection, the beaver dam is considerably larger than last year and the pond is much larger. Only a matter of time before someone notices and dynamites it.

I had a nice view back across the lake to Mowat Lodge and I could see in the distance the hill from where I painted several days ago. Another stand of birches presented themselves well in the foreground so I decided to paint this scene. I sat myself near a stand of young maples. Second growth too. When the pines are gone and before the soil washes away into the lake, all bets are off of who’s going to be successful. I see there are willows here too. They like being right at the water’s edge.

It was a stronger eastern wind when I was painting. The wind was coming down from the hills and blowing onto the lake. The wind did not have its usual bitter cold, but it didn’t have any warmth either. The wind was heavy, laden with moisture, and it felt like a harbinger of bad things to come. Winds from the east bring bad things with them. My eyes were watering, and the dampness of the cold was downright unpleasant. I decided I would do a smaller sketch today. After I finished I started back across the lake.

As part of my regular kit, I carry a line and a lure. A small axe too, which I wrap up in my burlap bag. On the way back, I decided to give ice-fishing a try. The wind had died down and the sun was starting to come out. I chopped a hole starting at one of the cracks. The ice is still thick, about a foot where I cut, but it was getting rotten so it was easy to get through. If the weather stays cold, the ice will be here another month. I didn’t catch anything.

When I got to the shore I saw some wolf tracks. They’ve been venturing closer lately. Shannon told me that there’s lots of deer and they’re attracting the wolves. The deer hang out close to the Algonquin Hotel (the guests feed them during the summer) and the wolves are following. Shannon said the the Province is thinking about having a deer-kill in the spring and shipping the meat to Toronto. He heard that from George Bartlett, the Park Superintendent.

When I got back I set my sketch in the dining room to dry. I had to scrub my hands with sand and then with soap, warm water and a bristle brush. We had a fine dinner and Annie made custard for dessert. After dinner, I suggested that we play some cards or crokinole. When I was looking for the crokinole board, I asked where the Ouija board was (we played with it last summer). Shannon said that Annie forced him to throw it out. She didn’t want any unwelcome spirits in the lodge. They still have the chessboard I brought up in 1914. That fall, I played chess most every day with the boys. I could beat everyone, except for this kid that came down every day just to play. He learned from the  station master at Brule Lake. To pass the time, the station masters play chess using the telegraph. The boy’s family lived close to the schoolhouse, but they moved away in 1915. After that, I was once again the reigning chess champion of Mowat Lodge.

March 29, 1917

I took a walk along Potter Creek today. I first walked along the old spur line then went closer to the shore. I walked by Gilmour Mill and past the the schoolhouse (if you can call it that, it’s an old tar paper shack). I passed by what was left of Mowat village, I walked to Joe Lake Dam, then to Joe Lake itself. I passed by the Algonquin Hotel. I passed by the cabin down by the shore too. I was going to stop at the hotel but decided not to. It’s closed for business, but there were lights on. Shannon told me that that Ed and Molly Colson, late in February, bought the hotel from Tom Merrill, who lives in Buffalo. He put the word out last fall that he wanted to sell.

I knew Ed and Molly from the Highland Inn. They married in 1907 and since it opened in 1908 they managed the Inn. They ran a tight operation, mostly due to Molly. Year before last, they left the Highland and managed the Orient Hotel in Peterborough. I saw the ads in the paper back in Toronto. Imagine my surprise when I got up here that I learned that they had bought the Algonquin and arrived just a few days ahead of me.

I also heard that Ed’s sister, Annie Colson, was going to take over the outfitters store close to Joe Lake Station. She worked at the Highland Inn too. Their mother died when they were young. She stayed behind in Guelph, but when Ed got the job at the Highland she came too. Even though she was older she had to start out as a scullery maid. She helped out with the canoe outfitting and she could put together the provisions for any canoe trip. When Ed and Molly bought the Algonquin, they needed someone for the outfitter’s store and Annie jumped at the chance.

Right now, Shannon is busy with his maple sugaring venture. He got the idea from the Highland Inn where they have a sugar bush celebration every year. The maples aren’t too close to the lodge — they are closer to the station, so he built a place to gather the sap and boil it. It wasn’t a shack, it was a crude lean-to structure with a horizontal log about six feet off the ground to hang the boiling kettle over the fire. Since it’s closer to the station than to the lodge, Shannon has recruited Edwin Thomas, one of the section men, to mind the fire. Edwin and his family live on the second floor of the station, so it’s easy for him to go down once in awhile to check the fire. I’m not sure what the arrangement is between Shannon and Edwin but I am sure it doesn’t involve wages or the exchange of cash. Shannon is particularly creative in making business arrangements that don’t involve him paying any money.

I helped with collecting the sap. Shannon had a big barrel that he put on the sled. I couldn’t help but recall tapping the sugar maples back home in Leith. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Like the routine of milking cows.  Our first year, we collected the sap but didn’t have a proper boiler. So we used an old kerosene tank.  We scrubbed it and scrubbed it. We thought it was clean, but the maple syrup still tasted like kerosene in the end. I never liked maple syrup after that.

Today I was looking for a scene in the woods. My last few sketches were of the the lake and I needed to do something new. I decided to go into the woods. With the sun getting stronger and the snow melting, the trees cast interesting shadows in the woods. It was damp and misty in the morning, but the stronger spring sun burned that off and there were blue skies by early afternoon. After not much walking, I found a good scene, sat down and painted. I’ve learned to bring an old burlap potato sack with me and use it as my seat so I don’t get wet.

Each day the snow withdraws more and more. The nights going below freezing and the days into the fifties make the snow take on a rough and uneven texture. This is good for getting the sap from the maple trees too. The spring light makes the snow look like a bed of crystals. I guess they are crystal, ice crystals.

I returned late in the afternoon. Annie prepared a fine dinner. She is the saving grace of this place. It was a bit warmer so we ate in the dining room with the fireplace in full fury. I prefer eating in the kitchen, but I think it is awkward for the other guests.

I don’t know what I will do tomorrow. I know that Shannon is having some trouble with some melt and flooding on the back side of the store house. I’ll help him dig out some channels tomorrow morning. There is a leak close to one of chimneys. It’s leaking through one of the rooms. The room’s not occupied yet but it’ll need to be fixed right away.

March 27, 1917

I made a sketch looking southwards on Canoe Lake. Big Wapomeo Island is in the middle. Gilmour and Cook Islands are right behind. The light today made the islands blend together and look as one. I finished the sketch later in the afternoon, just as the clouds started to roll in.

I walked out to the islands earlier in the afternoon. I had my snowshoes. I needed them because the snow is deep on the ice, but I also like to be safe and spread my weight. This time of year, you never know when and where the ice is rotten. Last year a team of horses went through on Burnt Island Lake. No man was lost but the horses and wagon were goners. Down to the bottom of the lake. They tried to fish the wagon out two months later in May, but gave up when someone said it should rest in peace like the Titanic.

When I was out there I looked around for a picture. Maybe the light wasn’t right, but I didn’t see anything. I tramped around Big Wapomeo, Gilmour and Cook Islands. Didn’t see anything inspiring. On the way back I passed Little Wapomeo Island. I saw the fireplace chimney I helped make for Taylor Statten last year.

I was about to give up on the lake and go inshore into the bush when I looked back. There it was. The low clouds were rolling in from the southeast making their way over the lake. I was almost at the same place as earlier, by the Trainor and Blecher cottages. I sat down and started sketching immediately because I knew the scene wasn’t going to last.

In the distance I could see a plume of smoke. Most likely from a lumber camp. The heyday of lumbering is over, and the land is but a shadow of itself. Once the easy and good lumber was gone it got less profitable, but the lumber companies got rights to cut pretty much everything they wanted.

In the winter, every lumber camp used to have eighty to a hundred men and each lumber company had five or six camps.  Upwards of two thousand men living in camps along the Petawawa, but now down to hundreds due to the depleted timber stands and the men going overseas.

Being in the bush in winter was the best part of life for these men. Everybody worked to do the most and the best, without harming themselves or each other. At night in the camps, everyone was jolly, singing and sharing stories. The troubles would only start outside of the camps, in the hotels of the towns, when the season was over and the men became drunk on their pay. In the middle of September, the gangs would go into the bush to build the camp. They’d live in tents until the middle of October and cut up until Christmas or a little after. They were happy men during the winter — they made their own fun at night and there was always a fiddler. Square-dancing, the girls being the men with handkerchiefs tied on their arms. After Christmas, the haul would start. Everybody concentrated on the log haul because they had to get out of the bush before the snow went. The logs were drawn out and dumped on the lake in a boom.

Like the logs during spring break-up,  the men too would come down the river in gangs of twenty to fifty men. They swept the river, bringing the logs into booms, pulling the smaller booms into the larger booms and pushing the booms toward the dams and the slides. Many times, the different gangs of the companies would help each other out, especially when there was a lost man on the river. First a frantic search, then when hope of rescue was lost, a sombre lookout as everybody returned to their duties. When the body eventually appeared (many times it did not), it was brought to the next campsite and a burial was made. Rarely was a body brought back to camp for burial. The wooden crosses, made to mark the graves, barely lasted through a season. But there were enough in view from the shore to remind us of the dangers of the river and the untold stories of grief. The lumberman made songs about these stories, like the one about a French-Canadian shantyman who never returned to his sweetheart.

During the time I was on the Petawawa, I had little time to think. The days were long and hard, filled endlessly with little jobs and duties. Climbing trees, scouting up hills, checking camps, to see if there was any sign of fire. Near the end, there was some heavy rain and we were caught in our tents.

Then my thoughts began to run away from me and the sadness started. Last spring was the last I saw of Lawren. He reported to Camp Borden after we finished our trip in the Park. Later in the summer, I got word in July that Alex Jackson had been wounded at Maple Copse and was recuperating in England. I was angry but relieved he was still alive. Arthur Lismer had moved to Halifax. I was feeling abandoned, not by my chums, but by the world that was forcing us all apart.

I snapped out of it. I finished my sketch. Fourth day in the North and four good sketches.  There is some warmth in the sun. I saw a few chickadees and the gray jays are tending to their broods.

March 26, 1917

Shannon said he wanted to get the ice blocks before the lake ice got too rotten. I said I’d paint in the morning and come back by noon to help out.

After a hike in the bush, I climbed the hill to Mowat Cemetery and I got in a good sketch. I was at a good height that gave a good view of the far hills across Canoe. Mowat Lodge was down below, but the angle from where I was sketching from, I could not see its buildings. Further east, toward the near shore, I could see the square dots of cottages, ragged spruces, and a dark line of melt and runoff making a division between the land and water, of what was, only a few days ago, a white expanse of winter snow. A good picture.

I didn’t get back to Mowat Lodge before 2pm. I didn’t pack a lunch and returned hungrier than a bear. Annie had some stew on the stove for me and after a bear’s filling, I needed to take a nap. I wasn’t out there to help Shannon much before 4pm. I was in pretty good spirits, but regardless, I let Shannon down. I was hoping my good disposition would rub off on him.

Anyway, Shannon had Lowrie Dickson and George Rowe already to help him out. They needed the money, and more importantly, the booze. Despite the booze they’re good fellows and I get along with them well. They’ve made their reputation with Shannon. He hires and fires them regularly. But the Canoe Lake labour market is limited and they’re assured of regular employment with Shannon, whatever the foul-up. As for me, the itinerant and mostly unreliable artist with little money, I have the dubious distinction of being both guest and labourer.

Shannon’s a few years younger than me. He’s thirty-four and Annie is thirty-two. They married young — Shannon was twenty and Annie was eighteen. They have a daughter Mildred, she’s thirteen now. She’s one of the few children here in Mowat. She’s in Grade 8, one of ten students at the school by Potter Creek. If she wants to go to high school Shannon and Annie will have to send her to Kingston. On the weekends she helps with the chores, boiling and washing the guest linens.

We artists discovered Mowat Lodge in 1912. Before Shannon could shake a stick at us to shoo us off, he had more artists staying at the lodge than he could bear. Truth be told, he enjoyed our company because we weren’t very discerning about the lodgings. We joked that whatever wasn’t good enough for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was good enough for us. So long as we had a place away from the bugs at night we were happy. But the real gem of Mowat Lodge had nothing to do with Shannon’s charms and the rustic experience, it was Annie’s cooking.

Then the War hit, and things took a turn for the worse. Tourism dried up. Grand Trunk Railway got into financial trouble. Camp Minnesing after only two seasons was shut down. It was empty once again last summer. The way the War is I doubt it will open this summer. And to top it off, Prohibition was passed. Prohibition hasn’t yet stopped Shannon, George, or Lowrie from imbibing without prescription. Mail order liquor shipments from Montreal are still the way to go.

I’ll have to make a point of visiting Lowrie and George. They live in the shacks on the mill property. Lowrie managed to get himself a Victrola so it’s worth the visit. He said it was a gift, but I suspect there was an alternate means of acquisition. I’ll never question. Never look a gift Victrola in the mouth.