Reminiscences Of Pioneer Days In The West Covering Experiences During The Years 1902 1914 PDF Download

Excerpt from Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in the West Perhaps I was surprised to find everything scrupulously clean and one had no reservation on that score. These Metis -were big powerful men and excellent axe men though the French Canadian foremen complained that they 'had a tendency, frequently, to take some days off. They used a good many words that were Cree and strangely enough, some that a Kildonan man told me were Gaelic. Their forebears worked for the Hudson's Bay Company for many generations and as most of the company men were Highland Scotsmen this was not so surprising. Atikokan, in 1903 was an important divisional point on what was then the main line of the c.n.r. There appeared to be no agricultural land in the district which consisted of swamp, rock and tundra. The hamlet was made up of a hotel, wholesale liquor store, general store and roundhouse with but one frame house and a number of shacks. Train and engine crews lived either at Rainy River or Port Arthur. There was but one eating place and the guests were served at a long table and at meal-time made up a family party. As was the general custom: at that time the food was not served directly but large bowls and platters were passed around and the boarders helped themselves. A general favorite in the district was an interesting and humourous character, Captain Wood, a civil war veteran and a mining engineer who still carried a Confederate bullet in his shoulder. Seated at breakfast with the Captain on the morning of my arrival I enquired as to the contents of a large bowl on the table. That, my friend, replied the Captain, is Atikokan antelope. The general round of smiles made me curious until I found it was rabbit hash. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.