Are you a fan of HGTV's Property Brothers, Fixer Upper,
or one of its other renovation shows?
I often listen to them in the background and tune in for the big reveal.
It amuses me when buyers and potential renovators
discuss the features of the home they're viewing.
They are often critical of the kitchen and bathrooms and say things like,
"Those cabinets are so outdated. They'll have to be replaced."
Or, "One sink in the master bath simply won't do."
Or, "We need a bedroom for each child and at least three bathrooms."
They might not have fared so well in the North a half century ago!
The Property Brothers
At that time the Indian Affairs Branch had a difficult time
luring teachers into remote First Nations communities in Northern Ontario.
Typical bait included a good salary, an isolation allowance, and a furnished teacherage with heat and light provided for $40.00 to $60.00 a month.
Unfortunately the teacherage for the Church of England Indian Day School
in Lansdowne House had burned down the year before my father arrived.
The only place for our family to live was the vacant forestry house.
Department of Transport Housing
Lansdowne House
A Teacherage Would Be Something Like This
Photo by Don MacBeath, Fall of 1960
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
The forestry house was small, consisting of four main rooms and a tiny utility room.
Seven of us crammed into, at best, 500 square feet of living space
with no electricity and no running water.
Our unusual home came with amenities that I have never forgotten.
Take the oil burner for instance.
It sat in a space outside the door to the utility room
and between the doors to the two tight bedrooms.
On cold winter nights it radiated heat and kept the bitter cold at bay.
But that's not what made it memorable.
Yes, sometimes we cranked it up so high I swear it glowed red,
and it was the perfect spot for rising big bowls of bread dough;
but what made it memorable was filling it with fuel.
My father, and sometimes I, had to go outside to the fuel drum,
hand pump the oil into a portable container,
carry the fuel inside, and pour it into the burner.
This was the most fun on -50ยบ F nights with the Indian dogs howling nearby.
Inside the Forestry House
Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, 1960
Sketch by Maureen McRae
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
No electricity necessitated another amenity, our kerosene lamps.
Lighting these two hissing lamps was the one task
our father never allowed my mother, Roy, or myself to do.
It was too dangerous, and we would watch Dad light them at twilight each day,
holding our breath and wondering what might happen.
Dad always started by checking each lamp at the kitchen table.
He would examine the mantles and top off the kerosene while whistling tunelessly.
If a fragile mantle needed replacement,
he would remove the lamp's glass chimney
and snip off the old mantle tied above the burner.
It often crumbled into a pile of metallic fragments
that he would swipe up with kleenex.
Then he would tie a new mantle above the burner.
The small silk bag with its tiny strings often frustrated my father's big fingers,
and I'm sure having an audience didn't help.
It was fascinating to watch him burn off a new mantle with a match.
It seemed magical to me as I watched the white fabric
change into a dark and brittle mesh.
I didn't understand that I was seeing rare earth metallic salts
embedded in the fibers oxidizing in a chemical reaction.
The silk burned away, and the salts converted to oxides,
forming a ceramic shell in the shape of the original silk mesh.
Actually, it still seems like magic.
Next Dad would pump a hand pump to pressurize the kerosene fuel.
This forced fuel and fumes up into the lantern
where they came in contact with the oxidized mantle.
Then Dad would carefully stick a match inside the lamp and light the burner.
The burner flame heated the mantle until it glowed brightly.
My father could adjust the brightness of the mantle glow
by increasing or decreasing the fuel forced into the lamp.
Sometimes things went awry.
Despite my father's care in fueling the lamp,
a little kerosene might spill or fumes linger
and the kerosene lamp would flame.
Other times Dad might turn the lamp too high,
and black soot would fill the chimney.
If he didn't turn it down fast enough, the soot would catch fire,
and the kerosene lamp would flame.
In either case he'd roar, "Open the door,"
grab the lamp with a towel,
and race outside to toss it into a snowbank.
He was always successful, for he never burned the forestry house down.
A Modern Coleman Lamp
You Tube: eReplacementParts.com
Another atypical amenity had its own corner in the utility room
which it shared with a small sink and a gasoline wringer washer.
The sink was nothing more than a basin attached to the wall
that drained into a bucket which my mother emptied several times a day.
The washing machine had intimidating rollers my mother wouldn't let anyone near,
and I have blotted out any memories of how this arcane contraption worked.
However, I've never forgotten the chemical toilet
planted in the corner of the tiny utility room.
It was basically a large bucket under a toilet seat standing on legs.
We called it a chemical toilet because we added chemicals to tamp down the odors.
A family of seven meant it had to be emptied almost daily,
and I couldn't even pretend to like this chore, adventurous though it was.
We had a garbage pit in the backyard where we emptied
the buckets the kitchen and utility room sinks drained into.
The chemical toilet was another matter.
It had to be dumped into the community pit.
My father often undertook the unpleasant chore of lugging
the chemical toilet through the bush to the community pit.
When he couldn't, I did.
It was mortifying.
Everyone knew what I was carrying;
and I had to slog slowly and carefully,
switching the heavy bucket from hand to hand
as I tramped through the bush
trying not to slop the contents on me or the snow.
The community pit stood apart from the DOT buildings
and was topped with a sturdy wooden cover.
I would open a hatch and carefully empty the chemical toilet inside.
No way I was looking down the hatch.
The smell was staggering, far worse than any outhouse I had visited.
I always hurried home holding the offending bucket at arm's length.
We Five, Shortly Before We Moved North
Roy, Donnie, Louise (Me) with Bertie, and Barbie
Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada
Photo by Sara MacBeath, Fall of 1960
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
The forestry house was furnished with the bare basics:
a kitchen table and chairs, a water barrel, a chesterfield,
a small daybed, a coffee table, and a bookcase.
My mother frequently hung clothes to dry
on several clothes horses squeezed into any open space.
My parents had a double bed in one bedroom,
while we five kids shared two bunkbeds in the other.
Our parents slept in sheets and blankets,
but we burrowed into heavy Arctic sleeping bags.
Our close bunks made for intense, multileveled pillow fights
that got Gretchen barking and sent feathers flying.
My mother liked the kitchen cupboards stocked with canned goods
and the new propane stove, but the small kerosene fridge not so much.
Dad had to store frozen meat outside in buckets hanging from the eaves,
out of the reach of hungry Indian dogs.
Seen Through Donnie's Eyes
The Forestry House, Lansdowne House, 1961
Drawing by Donalda MacBeath
Text: Dear Nana, This is a picture of our home.
Note: Indian Gods (Dogs), Buckets of Meat Hung from the Eaves,
a Box of Groceries on the Roof,
and the Weather Vane on the Chimney
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved
I carried water from a hole chopped in the thick ice of the lake,
dragged groceries home from the mail plane on a toboggan,
helped my mother bake bread, cakes, cookies, and pies,
and rearranged endless clothes drying on the clothes horses.
Our weekly bath night was a major production that involved
hauling water, heating water, and pouring it into a galvanized steel tub.
We would take turns scrubbing down and rinsing in the small round tub,
and then Mom or Dad carried the tub out
and dumped the water into the garbage pit out back.
The forestry house was a tight fit for the seven of us and our dachshund,
and its amenities made it unique,
but it remains one of my favorite homes ever.
We kids were warm, well-fed, and sheltered by protective parents,
and our days were filled with school, outside fun, and indoor games.
We kids squabbled, made up, negotiated, formed shifting alliances,
competed, dared, and tried to outwit each other.
It was the best of times.
Sometimes I look at all the beautiful homes in HGTV shows,
and they seem cold, sterile, and big just to be big ~
And maybe just a little bit boring!
Norseman and Fuel Drum
Noorduyn Norseman Ski Plane
Waldorf, Howard Special Collection 008 Noorduyn Norseman
Till next time ~
Fundy Blue
Beautiful Cove on Long island,
in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
For Map Lovers Like Me:
Surrounded by Water
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved
