C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

244 Notes to Pages 22-23,201efforts to reach the top of some ridge, the engine wouldstop with a loud despairing snort, then the conductorwould apologetically ask all passengers to please jump offand walk in order to reduce the load.After backing up a couple of miles the engine wouldcorne swaying along, puffing and wheezing mightily, andfinally top the hill. "All aboard" some overalled trainmanwould yell and we would jump on once again. Ere long thetrain would corne to another stop-a clay-cut-and eachpassenger would have to take hold of the business end of ashovel and help remove a few tons of clay and earth whichhad fallen in upon the track. (Arctic 179-80)At the railway station there was quite a crowdAccording to Dorrien Smith's field note for IJune, RichardBonnycastle andJ ohn F. Moran numbered among those whoboarded the train with them, while the well-wishers includedBishop Gray, his family, and Miss Ferguson. Arriving in thecity in 1895, Henry Allen Gray served as the first Anglicanbishop of Edmonton from 1914 to 1931. Dorrien Smith's fieldnote for 31 May mentions visiting Mrs Gray at their horne,10049-103 Street.the immensely long trainThe size of the train is perhaps attributable to the fact that 1926marked the first year the HBC decided to "re-route their 'WestArctic Trade Goods' via Waterways ... instead of sending themvia Bering Strait" (Hatcher, Volume 2 7). Sherwood Plattcounted fifty-two cars when he boarded the train on 6 July1926 (6). Waterways was the terminus of the railway line aboutthree kilometres southeast of Fort McMurray. It was the transshipmentpoint at which goods going north in the summerseason were transferred from rail to steamer and barges on theAthabasca River (Mardon 204). Although she does notmention it in her book, Vyvyan did visit Fort McMurray whilewaiting at Waterways. Originally a NWC post abandoned sometime after 1821 due to a smallpox epidemic, Fort McMurray wasrebuilt by the HBC in 1870 and named after HBC factorWilliam McMurray. It functioned as a fur trade post and transportationcentre connecting Edmonton and the Athabascadistrict. Before the railway, travellers and freight travelled bywagon road from Edmonton to Athabasca Landing, and thenceby barge down dangerous sets of rapids on the Athabasca Riverto Fort McMurray. Once the railway arrived, the town reliedfor its existence on the Lake Athabasca fishery, salt extractionfrom the nearby salt plains, and its location near the Waterwaystransportation point (Cooke 99-102).Field NoteforSaturd'!J 29 M'!JW.W. Cory Deputy Minister of Dept. of the InteriorWilliam Wallace Cory assumed the office of commissioner ofthe NWT in 1918 (Fumoleau 155). (The territorial commissioner'srole resembled that of provinciallieutenants-governor. )Field Note for Sund'!J 30 M'!JMiss Ferguson Bishop Gray's governess came to lunch withusDorrien Smith's field note for this date identifies MissFerguson as a friend of Dorothy Dashwood, their hostess onVancouver Island at the end of the trip.CHAPTER 5: LURE OF THE NORTH (1-5 JUNE)The book takes on a different style in this chapter's use of thepresent tense, creating a sense of timelessness lacking in bothwomen's field note entries, which are full of concrete detailsabout people and places, and daily information, such as thesteamer's navigation of the river's varying course by having the"1/2 breed" mate take soundings from a canoe (4June). At theend of the chapter, this information is embellished with physicaldescription and transformed into the image of the matesilhouetted against the water, frozen in Vyvyan's memory andembodying the significance and triumph of the (white)pioneers of the North. Generally, the movement from fieldnotes to book follows this pattern during the steamer journey,omitting some of the facts and information, and imbuing thebook with an impressionistic sense of the timeless and endlessspace of the northern wilderness. Also evident throughout thebook (and not the field notes) is Vyvyan's retrospective evaluationof herself and Gwen as tourists, "fair game to those men ofthe North who love to spin a yarn to the ignorant" (23).the French-Canadian judge. going to Aklavik to preside atan Eskimo murder trialVyvyan's field notes clarify that this judge was Lucien Dubuc(1877-1956; "Chief'), the stipendiary magistrate for the NWT