Frances Hatton Eva Hasell

“ Life in a shack is a very busy one, but one soon got used to the inevitable chores, and remembered to keep the pan of melting snow on the stove always filled, this being the only water available for washing up. The shortage of water is one of the great trials of prairie life. When I remembered Aylmer's house in England, with its well-trained servants, her car and chauffeur, and all the luxuries to which she had always been accustomed, it emphasised all the more strongly the self-sacrifice of her present life. ”

“ Life in a shack was a distinct contrast from life in New York. My hostesses slept together in a bed 21⁄2 feet wide in order to accommodate their guest. In the dark of the wintry morning, about 7 a.m., I roused up sleepily to find Aylmer Bosanquet bringing me hot water, herself fully dressed and armed with logs, just going out to light the stove in the church, so that it might be warm when the people came at eight o'clock. ”

“ On the Tuesday I went to the famous sulphur baths at Banff. The water comes out at 98 degrees in one spring and 112 degrees in the other. There are open-air swimming baths with glass all round them, so that you can see the mountains all the time. The next day we went down the river in a motor-boat, seeing a most wonderful panorama of woods and mountains, which a thunderstorm made more beautiful. The lightning seemed to strike a waterfall and glance off again. ”

“ Within the last twenty years Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, has grown from a colony of wooden huts to a town of over 26,000 inhabitants. Government House and the Parliament Buildings are finely built of stone, but most of the houses are of wood, there being no quarries on the prairie. One not infrequently meets one of these wooden houses moving along the streets—a fascinating accomplishment. When you wish to live in another part of the town you simply have your house lifted on to wooden blocks and skids, and it is then moved bodily with a windlass turned by horses or machinery. ”

“ It was a five hours' journey to Kenaston, which is a typical prairie town—just a wide earth road, with wooden side-walks, and bordered on either side by wooden shacks. Even in Regina all but the main streets are of this unpaved earth, and when the snow is melting or after heavy rain this earth turns into thick and sticky mud (called "gumbo") , which cakes on your boots in lumps of incredible hardness, so that you often find yourself walking with one foot higher than the other. It is so hard that it can only be scraped off with a knife. ”

“ The project of caravanning on the prairie in the interests of religious education appealed to me very strongly, and as Aylmer Bosanquet soon afterwards came home to England to recuperate, we were able to discuss the matter together. Her idea was to have a horse caravan which should be moved on from place to place by the farmers. But as I have lived all my life in an agricultural district, I knew the difficulties consequent on wanting the use of farm horses in seed-time and harvest—the very seasons when the trails are open—and I also knew that horses could never cover the necessary distances. ”

“ One of the clergy, in his report, spoke of the people "disappointed of their hope year after year, cut off from the Church—the glory and joy of which separation has deepened—there is little wonder at times they are almost on the verge of insanity." He adds: "If only some lover of Christ and of the British Empire would provide for two such vans to run for a few more years until the tide turns and the country develops, much might be done to save the children of the prairie and to foster a spirit of loyalty to the Mother Country." ”

“ The lack of a high spiritual standard, with its consequent elevated moral tone, is having a gravely deleterious effect on the children's morality, proving a serious menace to the health of the community on which the welfare of this new country depends. On this point I was strongly supported by the wife of one of the members of the Senate, herself a trained nurse, who had lived for many years on the prairie, and also by an experienced clergyman and a Sunday School superintendent. ”

“ The prairie trails are simply earth roads, it being impossible to get stone for them. The very best trail is much like the worst cart road in England. The trail is made by scooping out the earth on either side of a wide track, and throwing it into the middle, where the clods are baked as hard as bricks by the sun. These clods would knock the bottom out of any car which had not a high clearance—the more so as a used trail has ruts about two feet deep. Trail-making is usually done by a scoop drawn by two horses, but in some places a kind of motor-plough is used. ”

“ When you work all the week from 5 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. you are exceedingly tired on Sunday; and yet there is still some necessary work to be done if you live on a farm. But give these parents some idea of how and what to teach, with a suitable book to follow and pictures to illustrate the subjects, and they will do their very best, often making most excellent teachers. It is in places like this that the Sunday School by Post helps so greatly, especially in winter, when the children cannot attend a Sunday school at a distance. ”

“ Qu'Appelle is a suggestive title and indicative of the call which so many have heard from the prairie provinces, a twofold call, urging some to earthly and some to spiritual husbandry. Some account of the Western Canada of to-day may be useful here.
The exigencies of life on the prairie tend to make men think rather of building greater barns than of that day when their souls shall be required of them. When a man with little capital takes up a prairie "section" he is gambling with fortune, the welfare of his nearest and dearest being at stake. ”

“ It would be worse than useless to take a motor-car on to the rough prairie trails unless one had had long driving experience and done a considerable amount of running repairs. To learn to drive one year and to go out the next would probably mean finding yourself in a tight corner. As I had been allowed to use our cars throughout the War, in connection with my Sunday school work and a V.A.D. hospital, I had fortunately gained a good deal of practical experience, especially as it was necessary to drive in all weathers, day and night, over the steep hills of the Lake District. ”

“ As there had been a fairly long service, and the church was very full and very hot, I thought that a ten minutes' address would be sufficient. So I spoke briefly on the importance of religious education, leading up from the wonderful way in which Canadians had helped in the War, to the need for [57] their help in warfare against evil. Christian soldiers must be trained, and a young country needs a Christian foundation. It is extraordinarily easy to hold the attention of a prairie congregation, and I was told afterward that they wished I had gone on longer. It is indeed a preacher's paradise. ”

“ I had never driven a Ford, but Aylmer Bosanquet's Ford roadster arrived whilst I was in Regina, and she allowed me to have lessons on it. It was quite easy to drive, and on the second day I took it out alone. I also went to a motor school and had a course of lessons on Ford running repairs and vulcanising tyres. The head man was exceedingly nice, and took infinite pains to help me in every way. I was the only woman in the shop, but there were a great many men learning motor-tractor work preparatory to working on the prairie farms. ”

“ As the lessons of childhood are indelibly engraven on the mind, there must be many prairie children who will bless her name in after life for the imprint she left upon them. She had a statesmanlike grasp of the trend of events, and lived to do a wonderful work in Western Canada, pointing to lofty ideals and raising the standard of public opinion in this young and growing country, not only from the Church point of view, but also from the Imperial standpoint. ”

“ Next day we had to cross the Saskatchewan River, no easy task from all accounts. We had been regaled with hair-raising stories of how a man drove his car too fast down the pier to the ferry boat, which had not been linked up, and the car plunged into the river and was never seen again. The same fate overtook a man who fell out of his boat when mending the ferry cable. ”

“ The settler and his wife used to trek fifty miles in an ox-wagon to the bit of land he had bought. There they lived in a tent until he could build a sod shack. The wife would perhaps have to go twenty miles to the nearest slough to wash her clothes, and sixty miles for stores, letters, etc. Probably there would not be another woman for miles around. In time a solid wooden shack replaced the sod building, and the farm slowly acquired all the latest modern appliances. Then motor-cars linked the isolated farms together, and with the coming of the railway little towns sprang up here and there. ”

“ These prairie services really were an inspiration. In the afternoon I superintended the Sunday school, which consisted as usual of children from six to sixteen. Winifred and I divided the children into two classes, and the vicar and a teacher listened to our teaching. The greatest difficulty, here as elsewhere, was the grading of hymns and prayers. The best way seemed to be to open with devotions suitable to the infants and then to let them go off to another part of the church for their lesson while we had other prayers and hymns for the elder ones, closing the school in a similar manner ”

“ Next morning we went out to Travet Park school, miles away across the unbroken prairie. We should never have found our way had not Mr. H. accompanied us. It was pleasant to miss the telephone poles and see countless flowers instead. We never passed a farm all the way, and we could hardly see the trail. At Travet Park the teacher told us that she had started a Sunday School on Fridays after school hours, but very much wanted help with books. The children here listened with breathless attention to the lesson we gave them. It was most encouraging to find both teacher and children so keen. ”

“ There are garages in every prairie town, even in what we should call little villages, for in Saskatchewan there is a car for every two people. These garages are well fitted up, and have all the latest inventions. Outside all of them there is a petrol pump and a "Free Air" cable for the convenience of passers-by. The latter has a gasolene engine which pumps up the air, so that you can fill your tyres in a second. No one thinks of using a hand-pump unless he has a burst right out on the prairie. ”

“ Having lived on the prairie, he also gave me many valuable tips about prairie life.
The girls were members of the choir, and one was a Sunday School teacher, and by meeting their friends and going about with them I gained an insight into the life of young Canada. Pretty faces, very smart clothes, instant friendliness, swiftness in uptake, a keen interest in work and play, and a worthy ambition are some of the characteristics of these young people. The "movies" and ice-cream play a large part in their lives. ”

“ The term "wild and woolly West" is said to have originated from the "prairie wool," or natural hay, which is specially luxuriant on dried-up sloughs. It is a grass with a fluffy, golden-brown plume. But this natural hay can only be cut every other year, hence many farmers are sowing hay seeds as well. The wagon which they use for carting hay and wheat has enormously high rack-like sides. On this farm, when carting hay, an immense canvas sheet with rings at the corners is put in the wagon and the hay piled up on it. ”

“ For the wheat from the prairies of Western Canada is the hardest and finest in the world.
The prospective settler buys a section (640 acres) , a half or a quarter section, as the case may be, and, helped by a loan from the Government for the purchase of implements, ploughs and sows the virgin soil, building a shack for himself and his family. The first three years are touch and go. Drought in early summer or torrential storms in harvest will effectually ruin the crops, but when once a good crop is raised the profit is very satisfactory. ”

“ The Social Service Council of Saskatchewan is offering free training in a municipal hospital to any V.A.D., after which she would go out to the farms as a nursing housekeeper, her work being to give the mother professional attention and to keep the home running while she is laid up. She would need some knowledge of the domestic arts, such as washing and cooking. Her work would be similar to that of a village district nurse in England, only she would have but one family under her care at a time. It should be added that the father of a family helps a great deal in the house. ”

“ Where there was no Sunday School, we should like to have the children gathered together to form one. In this case we hoped that prospective teachers would come to be shown how to teach, that they might carry on the school when we had started it, helped by the books and pictures which we proposed to leave them. We also requested the trustees to allow us to give Scripture lessons in the day schools in the half-hour allotted for that purpose, and also expressed our great desire to meet the parents, that we might discuss with them the problems of religious education. ”

“ After school there was the usual family service, at which I specially noticed how well the organist played. We were afterwards invited to supper with him and his wife, and [50] were interested to find that they used to live at Leeds and had sung at Morecambe Musical Festival. Canadian meals are delicious, and we had a sumptuous supper—bacon and eggs, layer cake and stewed fruit, and strong tea, very acceptable after our sketchy caravan meals. After supper we had some good music, and the organist told us some of his experiences as a prairie choir-master. ”

“ In February, 1920, we embarked at Liverpool for New York. Winifred Ticehurst was to meet me at the boat, and my feelings may be imagined as the time drew on, the friends seeing me off had to leave, and still no fellow-traveller appeared. ”

“ The next day was Whit Sunday, and we were very glad to be where we could have an early Celebration. So widely scattered is the population that there was only one other worshipper besides ourselves. After breakfast the vicar was going to take duty at a place about five miles away, so I offered to drive him in the caravan as there was another dust storm blowing up and he had nothing but an open buggy. As he was the first vicar I had driven I determined not to disgrace myself by sticking on the trail, and so went full tilt all the way and successfully ploughed through the drifts. ”

“ In Saskatchewan alone three hundred new schools were built in 1915, five hundred the year before, and more than six hundred in the year before the War. Not only do these hundreds of new schools need teachers, but there is a continual thinning of the ranks as teachers go on to other professions or the women teachers [113] marry. Many of the leading men in Canada have taught in these little one-teacher schools at the beginning of their career—such men as Sir Robert Bordon, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Sam Hughes, and Sir George Forster. ”

“ We took the train to Conquest, and then had to walk to Bounty, a very tiring six miles on the rough trail with the wind against us. Unfortunately no car overtook us, for it is the invariable custom to give pedestrians a lift. [60] We went at once to the place where we had left our tent, but no tent was to be seen. We inquired about it at a neighbouring house, and a nice old man told us that the storm of the previous night had smashed the pole and ripped up the canvas, whereupon he had rescued it, otherwise it would now have been miles and miles away across the prairie. ”

“ There are no landmarks on these trails, except the elevators in the towns near the track. The sections are marked by a small heap of stones at their corners. There is scarcely a fence on the prairie, there being no stock to speak of and no wood at hand for posts. There are also no sign-posts or danger signals, and for lack of the latter we had a narrow escape of finishing our tour before it had well begun. Soon after we left Winnipeg, running through the main street of a little town, we suddenly saw a great C.P.R. train cross the road in front of us with no warning whatever. ”

“ But this arrangement is complicated as you draw near to the Arctic Circle, because as the trails are laid out in squares, these squares grow narrower in this direction and so an extra trail, called a correction line, is added at intervals. Also now and again an old Indian trail upsets one's calculations. You never talk of right and left on the prairie, but always of the points of the compass, and these points form the first lesson which a child learns. Yet the actual compass is of no use on these rough roads, as it gets out of order. One learns to steer by the sun and stars. ”