Story of the Snowplow Wreck as told to J.G. MacGregor

From Overland by the Yellowhead - J. G. MacGregor

Although Ross McKee retired in 1944, he can cast his mind back to the days of nearly sixty years ago when as hogger on a freight creeping west, he nosed his engine into the snowshed just west of Robson station and was confronted suddenly with a great gush of water. He stopped immediately and waited, holding his breath, knowing something was going to happen. It did—a small slide oozed down past the east end of the shed and a large rock knocked the second car from the engine off the track, but “ nobody was hurt,” says Ross McKee.

Another time on the side hill facing Mount Robson, as the engineer eased his locomotive cautiously along, he saw a large rock smack in the middle of the track. While a few other rocks continued to dribble down the mountainside, McKee and the brakeman got out, and as the hogger inched the engine forward, held a tie ahead of the cow-catcher till it pushed the rock over the side. All the while, here and there, an odd football-sized rock came crashing down, “ zip, zip. I had horseshoes in my pocket that time!”

McKee’s most poignant memory, however, is of a snowslide in the same general area, which, extending past the end of the snowshed, covered the track yards deep in snow and ice. “ ’Twas in twenty-two, I think—yes, in twenty-two.” They called him in Jasper at 9 p.m. to drive the extra engine coupled on behind the rotary plow. Shortly after he and the others went to work on the slide, a bearing on the rotary engine heated and threatened to seize up. Paddy Bateman, the rotary engineer, signaled McKee that they would back out of the cut they had made till the engineer decided they were clear of the danger area and could stop to
examine the bearing. When they stopped, McKee, looking out his cab window in the dark, could just make out the CNR grade above them on the mountainside, while looking out the other he could see how the ends of the ties nearly overhung the Fraser River a couple of hundred feet below.

For a minute or so all was silent except for the rumbling of the boilers, and then he heard Bateman and the roadmaster climb out on the mountain side of their cab and start to examine the bearing. Then without an instant’s warning, another slide slammed down, burying the rotary and covering the boiler of McKee’s locomotive. He and his fireman and Harry King, the section foreman from Jasper, jumped out on the river side of his cab and with great difficulty shoveled their way forward through the two or three feet of snow and reached the rotary.  They knew that Bateman and the roadmaster, crushed by fifteen feet of snow and rocks and jammed against the rotary, would in all probability be dead, but hoped to help Tommy Wharton, the brakeman, and Berry, the fireman.

When after a struggle they reached the forward cab, they found that its roof had been smashed in and had pinned Wharton under it. Although his leg was broken, he was still alive. Of Berry the fireman there was no trace. Wharton concluded that the impact had thrown him out of the cab and had probably catapulted him down to the river, but in the dark they could see no sign of him.  It took them an hour, working feverishly, to free Wharton and doing so entailed several trips back along the river side of the track to get extra bars and jacks, and each time they floundered in snow well above their knees. Finally they carried the disabled brakeman back to McKee’s cab and started shoveling snow over the bank. In a few minutes Harry King’s shovel touched Berry, who had fallen on the end of the ties and had been buried under the snow and rocks over which the other men had tramped back and forth. When they uncovered him he raised his arms toward them, groaned once, and died.

“ If we’d only a known,” said McKee, his voice breaking as he recalled the scene stamped on his memory half a century ago, “ if we’d only a known as we tramped back and forth over Berry’s face—if we’d only a known we could have dug him out and saved him. Three good men were killed in that slide.”
As with voyageurs, so with the train crews, death might lurk around any corner.

But silk trains and snowslides and an abandoned railway grade, are years ahead of this story. Other men, venturesome as voyageurs and intrepid as the men of the running trades, continued to take up the challenge of the lofty peaks of the Yellowhead Pass.

The Unlucky Fraser River Overlanders 1862- THE REV. A.G.MORICE, O.M.I.,

A fourth and somewhat later party met with such a tragical fate that its bitter experiences seem to have deterred others from following in its wake. It consisted of only five Canadians, namely, three brothers called Rennie, and two men known respectively as Helstone and Wright, who similarly repaired to Tete Jaune Cache, where they bought two canoes for their trip down the Fraser. With a view to greater security while shooting the rapids, they lashed these together, with the result which would have been easily foreseen by less inexperienced boatmen that their craft, becoming unmanageable in the midst of the raging waters (Ed. note; The Grand Canyon of the Fraser) of the torrent, was swamped, with the loss of most of their property. None but two of the Rennie brothers could swim ashore, while the other three men reached a rock in the middle of the stream, where they remained for two days and two nights without a morsel of food and suffering severely from the cold of the opening winter. (1) 

When they -were at length hauled over by means of a rope thrown to them from the shore, they were so frostbitten and exhausted that they could proceed no farther; which seeing, the two Kennies, who had already spent two days in working out their release from their narrow prison, provided them with a quantity of firewood, and, having parted in their favor with almost all that remained of their scanty provisions, they set out on foot to seek assistance at Fort George, which was not very far distant.

But so little inured were these men to the hardships incident to the wilds of New Caledonia (2) that it took them twenty-eight days to cover a distance which they had expected to traverse in six, and which an Indian could easily make in three.  Natives were then despatched from Fort George to lend assistance to the unfortunates left behind, who were expected to have slowly followed the two Rennie brothers, after recuperating a little from their terrible experience on the lonely rock in the Fraser. But the Indians soon

returned, alleging the depth of the snow as an excuse for the failure of their journey.

" Other Indians, however, discovered the party some time afterwards. Helstone and Wright were still alive,

but, maddened by hunger, had killed Rennie. When they were found they had eaten all but his legs, which

they held in their hands at the time. They were covered with blood, being engaged in tearing the raw flesh from the bones with their teeth. The Indians attempted to light a fire for them, when the two cannibals drew their revolvers, and looked so wild and savage that the Indians fled and left them to their fate, not daring to return.  The following spring a party of miners, on their way to Peace River, were guided by Indians to the place where these men were seen by them. The bones of two were found piled in a heap ; one skull had been split open by an axe, and many of the other bones showed the marks of teeth. The third was missing, but was afterwards discovered a few hundred yards from the camp. The skull had been cloven by an axe, and the clothes stripped from the body, which was little decomposed.  The interpretation of these signs could hardly be mistaken.  The last survivor had killed his fellow- murderer and eaten him, as shown by the gnawed bones so carefully piled in a heap. He had, in turn, probably been murdered by Indians, for the principal part of the dead men's property was found in their possession." (3)

1. " Red River," by J. J. Hargrave, p. 234. 

2. Hardships which were still enhanced by the lack of any trail, the daily

thickening of the snow on the ground, and the necessity they were at to look

to the woods for their means of subsistence at a time when they had lost the

proper weapons to procure the same.

3. " The North-West Passage by Land," by Viscount Milton and W. B. Cheadle, pp. 237, 238. The joint authors we quote from are probably right in their last conjecture. In the estimation of the primitive Denes there were in the world two classes of individuals unworthy of life, cannibals and madmen. Though members of their family in the east were sometimes impelled by hunger to eat even their own relatives, perpetrators of such revolting deeds were never safe afterwards, especially as it was then current among those tribes that cannibalism engendered a dangerous appetite for human flesh.

The Rainbow Chasers- Ervin Austin McDonald

We arrived at Tete Jaune Cache on the Fraser River on the
first of July 1907. For weeks we had struggled toward this point,
exPecting a town of considerable size, but there wasn’t one darn
building in sight. Just two tepees sitting in the middle of a
bearing.
An Indian man about fifty years old emerged, two squaws
around forty-five, three young women named Big Harriet, Mary
and Annie, one sixteen-year-old boy named Samuel, and four or
five young children. Of all of them only Samuel seemed to have an
occupation, going out each day in his dugout canoe to catch
spring salmon to keep this little colony supplied with fresh fish.
There were two large smoking racks beside the river, and the
women kept them loaded with the fish that Samuel caught and
with wild game.
Since we intended to stay here a week or more, we set up a
good camp beside a creek. It was a lovely spot; the scenery was
truly magnificent and there was plenty of fine grass for our
horses. We picketed one of the saddle horses nearby and settled
down to take life easy for a while. When supper time came round
I took my time establishing a fire and prepared sourdough biscuits
with all the little children standing about watching every
move I made. After a while, Big Harriet and Mary and Annie
came to watch as well, which sort of pleased me because they
were good-looking girls and it had been a long time since we had
seen girls at all. But by the time we sat down to eat, all the Indians
had come over, not saying anything, just sitting on the
ground watching every bite we took, their eyes following our
forks from our plates to our mouths and back to our plates again
until we darn near choked. Finally, father jumped to his feet.
"For God’s sake, Ervin, feed these poor hungry people!" he
yelled and stalked off. He never could bear to see anyone go
hungry. So after that night I always cooked up our biggest kettle
full of salt pork and dried beans, and the next biggest with rice or
sago and dried apples, and a huge batch of sourdough bread.
Then I would sit the Indians down and feed them while across the
clearing in front of their tepees sat racks of fish and venison and
other wild game. When they had eaten, I would call my father
and brothers to eat.
On our second day at Tete Jaune Cache, Mac MacDonald
rode into the clearing accompanied by an American named
Finch, the man who was to operate the store at the Cache. He was
a small wiry man about fifty years old, who had only one thing on
his mind: he had to get a building up before the pack train
arrived with his supplies.
He buttonholed father as soon as he dismounted.
"Mr. MacDonald,” he asked anxiously, "would you and your
boys help build my store? I’ll pay you well__”
This was really history in the making—and there is not a
MacDonald alive who can resist finding his place in history.
"We’ll be glad to help,” said father and got his axe out of his
pack. The store had to be built of logs, of course, so we headed for
the small clusters of trees that grew here and there in the clearing.
Mr. Finch, Angus and I cut fourteen- and eighteen-foot-long
logs, the dimensions of the building, while father put our single
set of harness on Sugar Billy, who was not too pleased to find that
he wasn’t going to get the same rest break as the other horses.
Dan, who was a natural-born teamster, skidded the logs to the
building site about a hundred feet back from the river. Father
and Mac notched the logs and put them in place as fast as Dan
could deliver them and we could cut them. The walls were up in
three days, the ridgepole and other roof supports were in place
the following day. Next the split timbers were put up for the roof
and the joints between them chinked with moss. We made a
stoneboat and hauled blue clay from the river, mixed the clay
with water to make a thick paste and plastered it over the split
timber to about six inches thick. We smoothed it down and left it
to dry in the hot sun to make the roof watertight. Father made the
door and the store counter of hand-hewn boards. We put a couple
of small windows into the side walls and built shelves for the
stock out of small poles.
Two days before the store was finished, the pack train
arrived, so work came to a halt while we unloaded the supplies
and covered them with canvas and tarpaulins. The population
took quite a jump with the arrival of the three pack-train men,
but there were more on the way: Bill Spittal and the Monahans
arrived the next day and that night two more men joined us.
One of the latter was Bill Sprung, a real loner who told no
one where he was going or why he was going there. He was an absolute
mountain of a man with the smallest pair of eyes I ever
saw. He had the strength of an ox but probably the same amount
of intelligence.
He had teamed up on the trail with Ed Chappel, who was
perhaps the same age as Sprung, somewhere in his forties we
guessed, but considerably smaller, about five feet eleven and 18
pounds. He told us he had ranched in Montana and sold out there
to come to the Cariboo. He was happy to hear we were headed
that way, too.
Father’s eyes kept straying to Chappel's saddle horse, a first
class-looking dapple grey about sixteen and a half hands high a
tough, fast animal.
"A fine horse,” commented father.
"Yes,” said Chappel. “I wouldn't trade him for a million
bucks!”
"One of Grey Eagle’s strain?" asked father.
"You know Grey Eagle’s horses?" asked Chappel. Sure
enough, this was one of the Flathead Indian horses, just like
father’s old Frank, and Chappel and father traded stories of their
mounts’ abilities far into the night.
The opening of the first store in Tete Jaune Cache called fora
celebration and we all decided that a feast was necessary. Finch
contributed beans and bacon baked in a large Dutch oven, a ham,
and dried fruits cooked with rice. Father shot a young buck deer
and we barbecued the hindquarters along with the ham.
When the food was ready, we invited all the Indians and
everyone else to feast with us. The food disappeared quickly and
everybody had a good time, especially the Indians. I always
marvelled at the enormous quantities that group could eat when
white man’s grub was put in front of them. Of course, it was early
in the year and we were probably the first people to arrive in that
part of the mountains with a good supply of grub, and maybe the
only people willing to share it.
With the store open for business and the feasting over, Spittal
and the two Irishmen headed downstream about twelve miles
to what Angus dubbed Spittal Creek: it was here that Bill had
made his strike. Father and Angus went with them. Having prospected
so many years, father simply could not resist having a
look.
They set up camp at the edge of the creek and wasted no time
getting out their gold pans. The Monahans were new at the game
but they caught on after father instructed them in the finer
points of panning. Spittal seemed to know just where to look for
gold there and settled to work methodically on a gravelly
sandbar.
At the end of the first day there had not been a sign of gold
and Spittal was in a vicious mood, snapping at everyone. It was
not very pleasant around the campfire that night. The next day he
headed into the creek still shovelling his breakfast into his
mouth. The Monahans and MacDonalds followed a little later.
Once again they finished the day empty-handed, and Spittal’s
temper was even worse than the night before. The Monahans, to
escape his wrath, decided to go hunting in a nearby grove of trees
from which they had heard movement during the afternoon. A
bear, perhaps, they decided. Stealthily, they crept up and, sure
enough, there was something big and black in the bushes. The
older brother, the same one who had lost his boots in the McLeod
River, raised his gun and fired. His aim was absolutely dead on.
He had shot his fine black Irish hunter dead. Now he would have
to ride one of the pack animals back to Edmonton.
I am sure Spittal never slept that night because he was in the
creek panning before the others had rolled out of their blankets
in the morning. As they ate breakfast they listened to him cursing
every stone beneath his feet. After lunch, the younger Monahan,
the one who was going into the priesthood, sat down on the bank
despondently.
"Billy," he said, "is it sure you are that this is the right creek?
It is possible that — "
Spittal assured him in rather colourful language that it was.
"Then,” said Monahan, "is it sure you are that this is the right
part of the creek? You see, Billy, my brother and I are thinking
there’s no gold here!”
Spittal exploded. "Damn it, I know there’s gold here because
I Put it here!"
This blew the prospecting party all to hell, so Spittal and the
Monahans headed back to Edmonton together. We never heard
of the two Irishmen again, but two years later we heard of
Spittal. Some Indians came into the 70 Mile House with a story
about some white men starving up in the Clearwater country,
and the police came through our ranch to look for them. Apparently
Spittal had got hold of some ore samples and showed them
to people claiming they were from a mine he had found up there
They paid him money to take them to it in the fall and got snowed
in. The only thing that saved them from starvation was shooting
one of their horses.
It had now been ten days since our arrival at the Cache and it
was time to move on. Before leaving we had to replenish our
grocery supplies because we had used a lot more than we had
figured on. Of course, feeding the local Indian population had not
helped at all. Our supplies had melted away like a snowbank in
the sun. We were the first customers in the new store, and we
bought a hundred pounds of flour, fifty pounds of sugar, fifty
pounds of dried beans, fifty pounds of bacon, ten pounds of coffee
and five pounds of tea. This, we figured, would get us through to
the next store if we avoided freeloaders.
We expected prices would be much higher than they had
been in Edmonton owing to the terrific cost of having to pack
everything in over that long, dangerous trail, but we were still a
little shocked when we saw the bill. Two hundred and fifty
dollars! Flour was $1.00 a pound, bacon that we had bought in
Edmonton for 25 cents a pound was 75 cents here, and sugar was
$1.25 a pound. Luckily, Finch owed us for our construction work
so we came out nearly even on the bill. Father decided that we
would only need five pack horses for the rest of the trip because
we had much less to carry, so we sold the Squaw Mare and Jackie
to Mac for $150. Father was happy when Mac paid by cheque: he
wanted to give him the horses for all the help he had given us, and
never cashed the cheque.