THESE LOVELY days
we've had fill my mind with
recollection of the poignan-
cy of autumn in the north.

Eleanor

THE VINTAGE YEARS

What lay beyond, six months at
the. very least of. cruel creaking
frost, could be pushed into the
back of the mind when the pop-
lars were stili blazing golden and
the Indian paintbrush fiery in the
jack-pines. The sun was lower and
the sunshine thinner, but we
cherished this bittersweet leavetak-
ing.

. It had some built-in excitement,
too, because it meant school
again. Summer was so foose — I
Tuch preferred regimen and
order. I thought teaching school
would be a great career... ©

Until I met its reality, at Nor-
mal School, and knew it wasn’t
my dish but also knew I had to
eat it. It was 1936-37, the Depres-
sion lay on us like a load of wet
canvas, money had been put out
for my year of training in the city.
To back out was unthinkable.

So, supposedly equipped, 1

began to apply for a school, any:

school. Ail my targets were some
place in the bush, of course, there
wasn’t hope of 2 beginning teach-
er’s landiag a town job.

What an idiotic system, for sure
— to put the totally untried in
charge of eight grades in an en-
vironment barren of support, and
give experienced teachers the
single-class positions, where there
were libraries and colleagues to
consult! :

: My first job was in Sylvan
Glade, within whose district
boundaries - lived five families,
none of them in sight of one
another or of the school.
was no centre, not even a general
store. For mail and modest gro-
’ Geries one had to make one’s way
eight miles to isle Pierre, a little
Station on the CNR.

Every household in the com-
munity was on relief, except for
the chairman of the school board
— he and his wife raised turkeys,
not children.

: My board-and-room money,
$25 per month, thus roused burn-
ing desire in every householder‘s
bosom. {t meant that when I
chose one place from the three of-
fered, that lucky family was im-
mediately ostracized.

Fourteen children were on the
roll, six of them from the womb
of a formidable red-haired adver-
sarial mam whose entire brood
carried lively head lice.

She had not just strong but un-
shakeable faith in the word of the
Bible, and when her Jeannie in
grade 5 was given her first lesson
in the history of caveman, Mum
stormed the school-house and its
trembling teacher and made it
very clear that there would be no
more of this aborninable heresy.

Think of me, still in my teens,
half-educated and wholly terrified,
having pledged allegiance to the
brand-new provincial curriculum,
now challenged by a militant ob-
jector whose kids made up an
essential part of the quota that
kept the school open.

Not much of a contest. 1 folded
like a tent. The ‘‘mural’’ we'd
started, Jeannie and J, was quietly
stuffed into the sturdy stove and

There’

we returned to our muttons.

For muttons, read moosemeat.
That was our dinner fare from
September to May, when Bossie
the cow was slaughtered, not
without a painful parting scene.
Everyone lived on moosemeat in
the bush in those years.

Canned, for the most part —
the offal and the tenderloin were
eaten fresh, but the rest of the

beast(s) was cut up and bottled -

for stews and meat-pies which
would see a family through most
winters.

There were always vegetables in
the root-house, turnip and
potatoes and maybe beets and
carrots.

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until 5:
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Late in November there was a
memorable single meal of
sausages. Enough snow had falten
by that time to make the ‘‘stump
road’’ passable for horse and sled,
and Stan, my landlord, made the
slow cold trip to town, a day’s
travel each way, and brought back
a pound of sausages.

What flavor! what
what a change!

Mrs. Stan had been a lady’s
maid in England when she met the
handsome Canuck during the first
World War, and she’d brought
her standards with her into the
Canadian wilds. With the slim-
mest resources and most indomi-
table will she managed a rough

texture!

et your little witches and warlecks all decked
out in their Halloween finery, and fly out to
Capilano Mall for in mall trick or treating

- as well as our costume competition.

Registration begins at 3:30pm ,and continues
00pm, October 31st in the Grand Court.
Each guy and ghoul will receive a trick or

visit all

participating stores looking for treats.

Sunday, October 27, 1991 — North Shore News - 43

Cherishing the bittersweet northern autumns

but proud style.

it was the children, of course,
who had the worst of it. Their
lives held nothing but duty, cold
and unpalatable. They'd never
known anything but the pits. They
were subjected helplessly to a suc-
cession of half-baked teachers —
no one ever taught a second term
in these god forsaken places —
and knew no joy with parents who
taged with helpless anger and
disappointment.

They knew nothing about play.
Or how to dream. I asked them
all, once, to give me a secret slip
of paper on which each would
write a fa.arite wish. They
couldn’t play that game because

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of all ages from 3:30pm to 6:60pm. As well as

Trick or Treating, at 5:00pm the Master of

Magic, Randy Charach will dazzle you with
Mlusary delights, prior to the final ju:

of the Costume Contest. So t sneak

» on over to Capilano Mali,

you'll have frightful good time.

935 MARINE DRIVE., (NEXT TO DAVE BUCK FORD) NORTH VANCOUVER. MON.-WED. 10-5:30, THURS. & FRI. 10-9,

SAT. 9:30-5:30, SUN. NOON-5.

FIMMERS*+ -SGRIBBLES & GIGGLES: ~

HOUSE OF KNIVES “© LADY'S "hk .CHAMPIFRAT HOUSE. +, SERENA

they knew only reality.

Only Martin, a pale tense boy
who constantly twisted his fingers,
tried really hard and wrote that he
wished their horse was white in-
stead of black because then he
could track it easier when he had
to bring it to the barn after
school.

No one in this country can ever
again be as isolated as those
homesteaders were, without te!s-
phone, without electricity, with
only bald survival for motivation.
The only songs they ever sang
were O Canada and a couple of
ditties at Christmas time.

It took a war to change it for
the better.

SHTON- SHOES

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