AN EXTRAORDINARY CANOE RACE FROM ASTORIA IN 1811

AN EXTRAORDINARY CANOE RACE FROM ASTORIA IN 1811

That there should have been a quasi-international canoe race from Astoria to the Cascades almost immediately after Astoria had been established is surprising, but that much more than a century
should have passed without it being known is even more surprising. The accounts written by the two chief contestants give the details, but since neither mentioned that there was any race it is not surprising that it only became known by an endeavour to reconcile what seemed to be glaring discrepancies in the two accounts.

There are six different accounts of the arrival of David Thompson at Astoria, and of his return up the Columbia in company with David Stuart. The perfectly natural supposition is that
they all went together. But this is where the many discrepancies occur. By piecing together the two detailed accounts of the fact of the race has come to light.

Thompson, a partner of the North-West Company, had his crew of French Canadians and Indians, and was in his own canoe.  David Stuart, partner of the Pacific Fur Company was accompanied
by ten persons. Four clerks, Ross, Pillet, McLennan, and Montigny.  Two unnamed French Canadians and two Hawaiians, one of whom was John Coxe who subsequently exchanged for Michael
Boulard 3 of Thompson's party. There were also the two Indian women, one of whom was masquerading as a man.

The first discrepancy in the accounts is the number of canoes since some mention two and some three. Possibly there were but two full sized canoes, and a small canoe belonging to the two Indian
women. Since the "prophetess' Ko-come-ne-pe-ca  knew that she would probably be attacked at the Cascades it is quite probable that she desired to travel in one of the large canoes where she would be protected by the white men. It would not have been difficult for some arrangement to be made whereby those two women, accostomed to paddling, would be preferred to the clerks who
might have resented the thought of acting in the capacity of mere voyageurs.  Stuart undoubtedly had one of the large canoes,5 apparently with three of the men, and Pillet, the clerk, may have been in charge of the other with one man and the two women. Ross mentions two clerks with his canoe, one of whom must have been McLennan.  Montigny may have been the other, since these three appear to have been friends and subsequently joined the North-West Company.

Apparently a youthful desire to show their superiority led them to start at eleven o'clock, while the others with David Thompson did not leave until 1 :24 p.m., for Thompson was accurate to the minute
in recording the time.  Ross tells how he ran aground on the shoals near Cathlamet Point, and passed Puget Island and the Indian village on Oak Point, which he calls Whill Wetz, possibly the Indian pronunciation of Winship, who had attempted to establish a post there. Those youths appear to have reached Green Point that night, and were many miles in advance of Thompson, who had been compelled to delay on account of Stuart being unable to sail around Tongue Point. From there they had crossed ito Harrington Point, and passed a very uncomfortable night in the rocky shores between
Harrington Point and Skamokawa.

The second day Ross and his friends made a good run and put up near the present site of St. Helens, Oregon, at the village of the noted Chief Ki-er-sin-no.  The third day ;they reached Wasough-ally, the earliest mention of Washougal, opposite the mouth of "Quicksand River," now called Sandy. They had made good time, and were far ahead of Thompson, who had only reached Green Point at the end of the second day, wher'e Ross had camped the first night. Thompson camped near the village of Ki-ersin-no the third night, and opposite the main mouth of the Willamette the fourth night. He called that river Wilarbet. The fifth night he camped at '-Washougal, having taken five days to go as far as Ross had gone in three.

The fact that Stuart's two canoes were loaded with thirty-six packages, each weighing about ninety pounds, will account for the apparent slowness. Although the accounts do not mention it, it is possible :that some of Thompson's men were in Stuart's canoes, or they could hardly have made as good time as they did.  Ross was full two days ahead at Washougal, and those youths probably chuckled in glee at the progress they had made, although since their canoe had a sail and but little cargo it is easily explained.  But from Washougal to the Cascades :they found the conditions of
navigating very different than the smooth sailing they had enjoyed.  It is really surprising that they even reached the Cascades in three more days. Ross recorded that "The current assumed double force,
so tha t our paddles proved almost ineffectual; and to get on, we were obliged to drag ourselves along from point to point, by laying hold of bushes and the branches of overhanging trees, which, although
they impeded our progress in one way, aided us in another."

It took them three arduous days to reach the present site of Bonneville, Oregon where they camped and named the cliff above them Inshoach Castle. That same night Thompson and Stuart camped across the river, having made the journey from Washougal in one day, which shows that their skill in a strong current was infinitely superior to that of the impetuous youths.

It was a good race, however, and gives a little insight into a minor episode of the Astorians.
J. NEILSON BARRY

1 Gabriel Francbere, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America,
1854. p. 122; Thwaites' edition, p. 254. Washington Irving, Astoria, Chapter 10; Hurlson
edition, p. 144. Ross Cox, Adventures on the Colombia River, 1831, Vol. I, p. 85.
Alexander Ross, Advent.,,·es of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River,
1849, pp. 102-108, Thwaites' edition, pp. 115-121. "Journal of David Thompson. annotated
by T. C. Elliott, Oregon Historical Quarterly, XV, June, 1914, pages 105-111.
David Thompson, Narative, Champlain Society, Toronto, pp. 512-3.
2 Davirl Thompson had with him Michael Boularrl, who had been with him when
he established Kootenae House, 1807; Oregon Historical Quarterly, XXVI, March. 1925
p. 35, and was exchanged near the Cascades on this trip for a Hawaiian with Stuart,
who was named John Coxe. Ross, as above, pp. 114, 199-200, Thwaites' edition, pp.
125, 199-200. For the interesting biography of this Hawaiian, 38th ,Report of the
Hawaiian Historical Society, 1929, p. 20. Joe Cote and Pierre Parie, who had been
with Thompson in his terrible journey across Athabasca pass, 1810-11. Elliott Coues,
Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry. 1897, pp. 667-669. Michael Beaurdeau and
Francois Gregoire, who had been with Coaster, or Courteur, at a post on Clark's Fork
in 1809. Coues, as above, p. 674, and two Iroquois, Charles and Ignace. He also had
two Indian interpreters.
3 For Boularrl ami Coxe see note 2.
4 For the "Prophetess" Ko·come-ne-pe·ca, see Waslu:ngton ]-listor£ca.l QItarter/:}', XX,
July, 1929, p. 201; XXI, April, 1930, p. 120.
(294)

5 Thompson on July 28th took Stuart's [two] canoes up the Cascades, and on July
29th, "Went and fetched a light canoe of Mr. Stuart's." Oregon" Historical Quarterly,
XV, June, 1914, p. 112.
6 For McLennan joining the North-West Company, Cox, as above, I, 208. Ross
joined January 8, 1814; Coues, as above, 790. Montigny, Fral1chere, as above, 278;
Thwaites' edition, p. 345.
7 The camping places mentioned may be found by Ross' account and the detailed
courses in Thompson's journal.
8 The spelling of the name of this noted chief is Kyeassino, Keassil1o, Kiersinno,
Keyassno, Kassenow, Kersinous, Cazenove, Casenove, Carsino, Casanov and Casseneau.


9 Ross mentions about 35 packages in the canoes, on July 22nd, and says they
paid at the Cascanes 10 buttons for each package, amounting to 360 buttons, pp. 102,
115, Thwaites' edition, pp. 115, 126-7.

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.

Constable Richard Scott MacKinley

Constable Richard Scott MacKinley was a policeman all his life. He first joined the force in Lieth, Scotland, at the age of eighteen. He came to Canada in 1912, first to Ontario and then the following year he came west. He was then a police officer in Port Coquitlam from 1913 to 1916. He was overseas with the 47th Battalion until 1919 and was again Chief of Police at Port Coquitlam until 1926 when he left the force there to join the B.C. Provincial Police. The next few years he served at Prince Rupert, Prince George, and McBride (1931-38). Here he became ill and spent twenty-two months at Tranquille. After his recovery, he rejoined the B.C. Police and was stationed at Enderby until he retired in 1947. MacKinley was a big, rough and tough man, who spoke with an accent. He was a well-liked man and worked hard at his job. He did more than just patrol the town. He was involved in fish and wildlife, deaths, births and marriages. He used to call it, "Hatch, match, and dispatch".

Luck

Luck

This story is not my property.  I wrote it, but the material came from audiotapes I transcribed for my cousin Sandy some time ago.  She is writing a biography of her father’s life and the following tale is one among many on the tapes.  It may be the most amazing story I know, but other than possibly sharing it with a few friends and family it is never going any further.  As I said, it is not mine...

June 2002 (minor update 2010)

              

Howard Neighbor

Good people are not always lucky and lucky people are not always good.  Often the reverse is true.  My uncle Hersch however, was both.  In fact he was the luckiest man I ever knew.  He didn’t gamble and never won a lottery; but he did have his life saved by a stroke of fortune that leaves a million dollars looking thin as a politician’s promise. 

Some who believe in Providence might say it happened because Hersch was a good man.  If so, it sure wasn’t due to his piety.  He did not go to church. He smoked hand-rolled cigarettes from the time he was a boy and he could cuss the stripes off a skunk.  Though not a drinker, if called on Hersch would hold up his end there too. 

Anyway, God-bothering, teetotaling and refusing to say shit with a mouthful are suspect measures of goodness at best.  Hersch was a good man because he had a generous spirit.  He was a good friend to his friends, a good father to his children and a good husband to his wife. He was honest in business and treated others with kindness and respect.  And he was a good uncle to me.

No, I do not think being a good man has anything to do with this story. I only mention it because genuinely decent people are always rare as desert rain. Hersch died several years ago; in case no one else ever says so again in print, I have and now it is done.

This happened in 1937.  Hersch was thirty-one, married with an infant son and struggling to survive the Great Depression.  Pictures of him around that age reveal that up to the day he died at eighty-eight his appearance never changed much.  He was a pleasant looking man, with dark hair and sharp, deeply tanned features.  Small in stature, he remained slim, wiry and muscular, with astounding endurance.  Hersch was more than lucky; he was physically the toughest man I ever knew.  There are other tales about that, but I have digressed enough. 

Hersch learned to endure early.  He grew up on a hardscrabble pioneer homestead in midwestern Alberta.  By the age of nine he was hunting rabbits and anything else he could find to help feed his family.  His success usually meant that he, his mother and younger siblings (including my father) ate potatoes and meat that day rather than just potatoes. 

By sixteen he was on his own.  He took up a small homestead but it was not enough to support him so he learned horse-trading and became a skilled horseman.  Already a competent hunter, in later years Hersch would be a well-known and highly respected outfitter and hunting guide in British Columbia.  At the time of this story he was wrangling horses for an outfitter named Bert Wilkins who worked out of Jasper, Alberta.  

Wilkins was taking a party of dudes on a summer trip into the Rocky Mountains. They would be away for almost forty days. Their first goal was Mt. Alexander McKenzie, nearly two hundred kilometres northwest of Jasper, in eastern British Columbia. The party consisted of Wilkins, a cook, two other wranglers, three teenage boys, seven teenage girls and a middle-aged woman who was group organizer and chaperone.  In addition to riding mounts, they had thirty or more packhorses.

That sort of summer holiday was common back then for young people whose parents could afford it. By the time they returned in late August summer in the mountains would be ending with night-frosts and possibly light snow.

As they were leaving Jasper Hersch’s horse, one he called “a knot headed maverick”, had spooked and fallen on him bruising his right foot.  Almost before the trip began he was

in trouble, though it would be over a week before he realized how much.

The party headed roughly northwest into the mountains.  They probably followed the railroad out of Jasper for a day or two before climbing from the lodgepole pine and spruce forest of the valley into higher country.  Soon they would be in dense spruce and balsam timber surrounded by towering, snowy peaks. Their path would take them across roaring streams and alongside icy, emerald lakes.  In a few days they would be in rolling alpine meadows carpeted with spectacular wildflowers. There would be black bear, caribou and marmots to see and grizzlies to watch out for.  First-timer or veteran, every mountain excursion is unique and unforgettable.

A few days out Hersch’s foot began to hurt.  At first he ignored it; there was little he could do anyway.  By now medical help was far behind them.  He kept riding and working as they moved deeper into the wilderness.  And his foot worsened.  Soon he could only get his boot on because in the mountains they wore lace-ups rather than the riding kind.  Even that was difficult.  After supper, once camp was set up and the dudes and horses settled in, he would soak his foot in a cold stream or mountain lake. 

One evening Hersch saw a red streak creeping up his ankle and realized how serious his trouble was.  He told his boss.  Wilkins had a little medical knowledge and examined the foot.  He agreed Hersch had blood poisoning and told him to start soaking in hot water instead of cold, but other than that there was nothing anyone could do.

Next day they reached Mt. Alexander McKenzie and camped on its eastern slopes.  After supper, as Hersch sat soaking his painfuly swollen foot, two Indians rode into camp.  They told Wilkins they were scouting trail for another holidaying outfit from Grande Prairie, roughly a week’s ride northeast.

The scouts said they were set up an hour away at Kakwa Lake with a fairly large group: nineteen dudes, mostly students from a Montreal Jesuit college.  But the remarkable news was they had a doctor with them.  Bert insisted Hersch ride to the other camp right away.  He agreed, but not until he finished his evening chores.  As I said, a tough man...

At that latitude midsummer twilight can last till nearly ten o’clock.  It was after eight when Hersch and the scouts reached the other camp.  It was set up in a meadow by the lake and he recalled there were several tents and perhaps seventy horses.

The doctor was in fact a surgeon and he quickly confirmed Hersch had septicemia.  He explained that when the horse fell on him it bruised foot bones, which had abscessed. Antibiotics were years away.  Immediate surgery, he declared, was imperative. The only treatment was to drain the abscess and scrape the bone and surrounding tissue clean of infection.  Untreated, septicemia is almost always fatal.  The doctor assured Hersch he carried equipment to perform anything up to and including an appendectomy.

Hersch protested. “I can’t have an operation.  I’m working!”

The response was blunt and over fifty years later Hersch recalled the exact words.  “It’s up to you.  I either operate or you get on that damn horse you just got off of and head for the railroad. But I don’t think you are going to make it.   Even if you do, you are going to lose that leg!”

“It would have taken eight days” Hersch admitted, “I knew that, hell, I wasn’t going out.  So I told him sharpen up your butcher knife and at her we go!”

They operated that night in a tent.  Three young students stood around a camp table holding large flashlights and a fourth administered ether.  It apparently took a lot.  Even when they thought he was out, Hersch recalled the doctor remarking how tough he was and saying that to compare him to people they knew was like comparing a collie to a timber wolf.  The student administering the ether was concerned about how much it was taking and the last thing Hersch remembered was the doctor saying perhaps he was a heavy drinker and that might account for it.

He woke up sometime in the night.  Two students were with him.  Hersch allowed it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life: he was cussing the daylights out of all of them for calling him a drunk.  He fell asleep again and when he woke late the next morning, the surgeon and students had already gone.  He was still groggy and did not think to ask the doctor’s name, so he never was able to contact him.  For the rest of his life Hersch regretted failing to thank him and saying all those terrible things about him and the young men who had saved his life.  Of course he knew people coming out of anesthetic often do that sort of thing, but it still bothered him.

Around noon his boss came, helped Hersch onto his horse and took him back to their camp.  They stayed an extra day.  One of the crew made Hersch a sort of white oilcloth moccasin to cover the bandage and he rode like that for several days, doing light camp duty.  Within a week he had the bandage off and was back at his regular job.  He did admit though, he limped for a while.

.............................

So how about those odds?  In an area of unbroken wilderness twice the size of Switzerland, how likely would two groups of riders be to cross paths?  Remember, this happened over seventy years ago; barely thirty thousand people lived in that entire part of the world.  Virtually all were in small communities scattered along the edges of the wilderness.  Sound like slim odds?  Look closer and they soar out of sight. 

In one group is a man whose life depends on the skills of a surgeon.  Even assuming there would be one in the other group -- wildly unlikely -- what are the chances he would carry surgical tools?  Add the timing of the meeting.  Even two more days would have been too late.  By then the best doctor in the best hospital in the world could not have saved Hersch without antibiotics, which did not yet exist.  In comparison a million dollar lottery win looks like pretty small beer. 

Providence?  Perhaps.  All I know is Hersch lived and the world had the benefit of one more good man’s presence for another fifty-seven years.

A brief postscript: a few years before Hersch died, he developed diabetes. Gangrene soon infected the same leg the unknown surgeon had saved so many years before.  This time, in a bright and modern hospital, a sober faced doctor spoke to him in grave tones.  “Mr. Neighbor”, he said, “I am afraid we must amputate your right leg just below the knee.”

He must have been shocked by Hersch’s instant reply: “Then let’s get on with it and cut the damn thing off!”  Of course, the doctor had no way of knowing that leg had been walking around on borrowed time for over half a century...

- fin -

A Child's Revelation

“What do know about God?”, my brother "Bubs" asked as we were heading across the morning field in search of cattle. back in the spring of 1954.

After pondering for a dozen steps, I answered quietly,  “Not much.”

“Well, you know, He can see everything that you do.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.  Like when you're jacking off, and lying, and reading my comics before me, and mouthing off to the folks.”

“ What's Jacking off?”

“It's like casting your seed to the wind; read the bible, it's all in there,” you little shit, “and God doesn't like it when you do things that are forbidden. Not at all.”

“What happens when I piss God off?”

“He will strike you down on the spot.”

“Like right now, with a bolt of Lighting, probably.”

“And when you're sleeping with a heart attack, probably,”

“or maybe drown you, but He usually reserves that when He has a lot of people to rub out all at once.”

“Wow!”

As an after thought, he added, “Flood, Big flood! Higher than the Dore Mountain! Drowning rats, all of them! Serves them right.”

“Wow!”

“Lipping off!”, he added.

I was more than scared.  I could the hand of doom pressing my right shoulder... Just this morning I went through his comics, hidden under the bed, and read one; a brand spanking new one. That he was yet to read, one the most heinous acts the you can imagine.  He would rip my lungs out, my own brother, not to mention what God would do!

“Women!”, he added with an evil, yet reverential look on his kisser.

Now I had something to worry about, that's for sure.

“Thinking.  He knows what you think.  It's like doing, for what you think, so thinking is like your doing.” he said, “No difference.”

“So I think about something god-awful and I might-as-well go and do it?

He give me a punch, “You're toast anyway, the I see it, but He might prolong your death if you play that game. Like throwing you off the barn and giving you time to see the ground racing up to meet you.”

My life was looking bleak now, for shure.

“That's what I would do to you.”, he smiled...

If I think, God will hear it.  Why didn't I hear about this before?  Over the years I must have thought a million thoughts that God wouldn't want to hear.   A million that I knew were suspect, and maybe a million more I had know idea about the severity of.  A million more I knew were just plain wrong.

Reading me like a book, he went to say, “ 'Course you didn't know, so God figures your innocent as grass 'till now. "

“So that's why He didn't rip you head off sooner.” , he added.

Swelling up, he went on to say, “I'm here to tell about God, so that you can be saved.”

Now serious like the dickens, “Now you know.  Just remember, from this day forward, you are no longer innocent, and you're gonna be answerable to your sins. ”

Now a bit modlin, he says, “I'm telling you as a brother, for you own good.”

Over breakfast, I guess I wasn't my usual chipper self, and I did two things out of character. I asked my Dad if he would show me the Bible, and give me some pointers.

I asked my Mother if she needed help with anything.

“You feeling all right?” said Dad.

“Snork!”, said my brother.

Mother had no words to say. Needless to say, I was a little angel that week.  A real angel. Godly even.
I wouldn't say Shit if I had a mouth full. No tricks on my sister. No looking at the livestock fucking.  (It was spring you know.)

“Stealing!”, he whispered.
"Help with the chores!" he chimed.
“No card games”, he chortled.

After a week or two, I figured I was on the road to salvation, having read the bible, (or parts anyway), memorized the the ten commandments where my father said it was most important thing to do, and follow them of course, and chuckles when he explains  “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, ass, and what have you.”

Well, so far so good; the neighbors had no ass, no grain, and his wife looked like hell on wheels.  A real nightmare, so I usually had no thoughts of coveting her.  The daughter, maybe.  But we just wrastled and fought so I wouldn't call that coveting, exactly.  My Daddy said 'coveting' was like “wanting” 'till your head fills up with it, so since right now I can take it or leave it, I'm good.  No sweat, like I said, I'm on the road to salvation.

Until,  me and Bubs were moseying through the goddamn field again.

He pipes up and says, “Remember when I told you about God Almighty?”

“Do I, yes, Boy oh boy do I, for shure!”

“There is no God.”, he says quietly

“What?”

“ I made it all up.”

“No God?”

“Not even a smidgen”

“What about the Bible?”, I hesitantly inquired.

“That was written by some dudes in robes in their spare time to keep everybody in line.”

“My Daddy says that you if rip a page out of the bible, God Will strike you down.”,  I added.

“His Bible, Pop's Bible, you twerp!  I did that once and God had nothing to with the licking!”

“You tore a page out of the Bible?”, I said reverently.

“There's a page in the Bible, or used to be, where if you take a key, and put the key on that page, the key will turn, depending on the nature of a question you say out loud.

“Boy, oh Boy”

“So I wanted to show my girlfriend. When Dad wanted to show some people, he couldn't find the page, so that why he said that.”

“No God?'

“You're on your own.  Do whatever you want...”

“No sins?”

“No.”

“No mind reading?”

“What do you think? That somebody is going to give a shit what you think, let alone read you mind?”,
he smiled then, and looked up at the sky.

“Life don't work that way...”