ODDS’N’SODS — Peckish in the bush

In the halcyon days before the Great Depression there was no shortage of summer jobs in the mining industry, and, as a second-year geology student at the University of Manitoba in 1929, I was looking for one of them.

I contacted the Nipissing Mining Company, which was searching for a property to replace its fabulous silver mine at Cobalt. I received a job offer and a contract, the only one I signed during 40 years in the business.

I was to receive $115 per month, a miner’s licence to stake claims, living expenses while in the field and camping and prospecting equipment. In the event that my partner — I was half of a 2-man team — and I located any claims containing a deposit of valuable minerals, we would each receive $25,000 in return for relinquishing any right or interest in the claim we staked.

My partner was a young chap named Don Lockhart, and both of us had experience in both prospecting and bush travel.

We set out from Sioux Lookout, Ont., after breakup, paddling an old canoe route for four days to Pickle Lake, our headquarters for the summer.

>From there, each party — there were three 2-man teams, including us — was flown into the more remote areas of the bush, where it would spend weeks at a time, only to be picked up again, taken back to Pickle Lake for re-provisioning and flown to a different location.

Don and I were dropped off near Nikip Lake in the Severn district with enough supplies to last three weeks. The weeks passed quickly and since Don and I had found no ore of interest, we were eager to move on to a more promising area. Supplies were running low, and we arrived at the pickup spot on the day we were to meet the plane, and waited. And waited . . and waited.

Several days passed and still there was no sign of the plane. By this time, we had run out of food and were trying to live off the land, without much success.

Hunger pangs drove us to look for help. The first sign of civilization we found in this uninhabited wilderness was an encampment of Swampy Cree Indians. It was a small tribe, its camp consisting of only a few teepees scattered along the shore of a lake. The Indians were obviously very poor but did have one thing of interest to two famished men: There was a large patch of potatoes, surrounded by a wooden fence to keep out the packs of marauding dogs that roamed throughout the camp.

We tried to barter for the potatoes — no easy task since the Indians didn’t speak or understand a word of English. Money being the universal language, we offered the chief ten dollars for enough potatoes to fill the large cooking pot we had with us. Ten dollars was a very generous sum for a potful of potatoes but, to our amazement, he refused the money. Don, in desperation, picked up a nearby shovel and started to climb the fence to dig up the potatoes himself but the chief stopped him.

The Indian pointed to the sun, folded his arms across his chest and said just one word: “Cheesus.”

“My God,” Don said to me. “The missionaries have converted these people. This must be Sunday and they don’t believe in working today. And that’s why they won’t even let us dig their damned potatoes.” The significance of the day of the week simply had not occurred to us, as every day was the same in the bush.

The Indians, though honoring the fourth commandment, were not prepared to let us go hungry and shared what food they had on hand.

The chief had a daughter and he eyed Don and me up as prospective sons-in-law. He squeezed my arm and, discovering that I was on the skinny side, turned his attention to Don, who was more solidly built.

Before any lasting social arrangements could be made, however, the long-awaited plane finally touched down.

— The author died recently and this column, incomplete at the time of his death, was finished by his daughter Wilda, who remembered the story as being one of her father’s favorites.