- IT was talking
with Ms. Lapine
about her school
in Dawson Creek
that made me
think hey, it’s
exactly sixty years
since I began my
first stint in the
bush.
“Thad survived the

year of Normal School and was back in
the North spending my summer writing
".. applications to every School Board for
miles around. Without encouragement,
~ I might add; until at last the School
Inspector for that huge northern terri-
‘tory sent me-notice I would be going |
to Sylvan Glade for September opening.

“Sylvan Glade — it' sounded :like

Paradise. It looked that way too, when
‘the young British war bride who named

t saw. it, for the first time. A thick’:

lothing of birch and poplar, some fir,

ittle lakes abounding, flat country, too,

that would plough well.

-Her sturdy Canadian husband had
ot the land in payrnent for his war ser-
icé; and with’ optimism and energy.,

they would make it their-home’ place.

They built their little house,and a barn

one

with modest local logs
and a great deal of opti-
‘mistic sweat. But shortly
after that the area was
swept by fire, sparing
the few acres around
their little holding but
‘ making a mockery of
the romantic name.
The 25 dollars that I
would pay for my room
and board and laundry
; gave them some wel-
come cash but also swelled the popula-
tion in their bedroom. 1 had a whole
room to myself, the five of them shared
what had been the parents’ refuge.
There were 14 children in the
schoolhouse on opening day, in all
grades, including a youth doing first
year high-school by correspondence. |
ad no responsibility for him, and he
was a big ‘boy so he could chop wood

and carry drinking water for the rest of

us. °

Six of the.children came from one
household, mothered by a forceful dis-
ciple of Jesus who was quite capable of

. pulling ‘all six and thus shutting the
» school down if not induiged.

I-was to learn that lesson early when
I started her Grade 3 child on the pre-
scribed social studies which began with

world

couldn’t have been a worse choice by
the syllabus department.

“The world began with Adam and
Eve,” she thundered as she flung open
the schoolhouse door fater that after-
noon as I was readying myself for the
next day’ 's instruction. “And don’t you
forget it.”

So much for Victoria. The total
absence from their lives of softening
influences at home, like reading togeth-
er in the evening, or singing, or just
having the neighbors in for tea was
shocking to me.

We did have a visit from both bache-

“lors in the area, who came around

singly to check out the new school-
marm. Both carried lanterns, indicating
they expected an invitation to supper,
but my lack of encouragement cooled
that ploy.

The pitiful Christmas concert, my
first attempt as impresario, did bring
everyone in the area together, but no
one had anything to say. to each other.
What would become of those children
when faced with life outside?

The shocking thing was that what
saved them from their pitiful narrow
lives was Hitler’s war. The young got

“outside” at last, the families saw actual
money.

Their old world all but disappeared.

I'm sure they still remember it.

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