From: The Canadian Boy (September 9, 1933)
From "The Province"
Everyone has had a dream of a trip, the perfect vacation. Mine was of Garibaldi Park, in British Columbia, because artists had exclaimed about it and I longed to paint the scenery there.
When news came that made the journey possible, it seemed too good to be true. The Princess Cynthia carried us from a Vancouver dock to Squamish, then we travelled on the P.G.E. railroad to Garibaldi station. Our cabin was by a sheet of still water full of old logs and roots. This had been caused by a slide about seventy-five years ago. We packed our luggage two miles, a superhuman task in hot weather.
Skipping over the details of settling--fighting mosquitoes, bailing out a leaky boat, opening canned food--we started one morning for Garibaldi Mountain. A horse carried our luggage on ahead and left five adventure seekers unhampered and merry.
We trailed along a nice boggy path with plenty of devil's club and blackberry bramble and mosquitoes, too, but we scarcely noticed them, so intent were we on the loveliness of rushing streams, delicate alder trees and singing birds.
Nick, the youngest of the party, was only nine years old. He hadn't wanted to come, but we couldn't leave him alone in the cabin. It was early--about seven--and he was still sleepy. What intrigued him most, however, was a pink gingham bag full of chocolate and nuts and raisins, reward for every mile of effort. But when we would pause for a rest, he would be off climbing the fir trees after chipmunks.
We noticed several clumps of Indian pipe plant in the moss, also a white, waxy flower that looked like bunchberry, and little wind flowers that reminded me of the lines,
"And where a tear has dropped,
a windflower blows."
At last! The trapper's cabin that was halfway up the mountain. We scampered down the incline to the log hut nested in a hollow by a singing brook, and opened up our lunch of biscuit and cheese and tea hot from the thermos. We were still hungry when we finished, but weight in food is a great consideration when one has to pack it up a hill.
Soon we rose, groaningly, and plowed on, with the remark from a member of the party, a girl, who had made the trip only twenty-four hours before, "When you come to a deserted cabin several miles on, you'll see more mosquitoes than you ever imagined possible."
The Indians must have learned from mosquitoes the torture of running the gauntlet. As we picked our way around the swampy trail, hosts of the pests swept down on us, boring their way to the flesh through sweater and khaki breeches. Elbows, the back of the neck, ankles, all were soon swollen. We couldn't even take time to snatch a drink of water from a stream.
Nick burst into tears, declaring that he couldn't climb another inch, but his courage revived when somebody found a piece of netting and covered his head with it.
Had they said only seven more miles? It seemed years since breakfast. Gradually our surroundings changed. Something clicked in my ears. I felt disembodied, remote, with feet far removed from my head.
We reached banks of snow, strips of very green grass dotted with yellow violets, Indian paintbrush and hepatica. We threw ourselves on the velvety sward. We drank great gulps of glacier-cold water which soon caused our lips to become cracked and swollen. How small the trees were! No birds sang at this altitude. We stepped all of a sudden from July to May.
The mosquitoes disappeared, though the trail was even boggier than before, until it became the swampy marsh called the Second Meadows. Mountains in the distance were Prussian blue with awe and reverence for the Creator of all beauty when he gazes on this springtime world.
The Tusk, red-black shale, rose into the blue sky like a great giant's tooth. Beside it, the Bishop, regally decked in surplice of vernal green and snowy lace. Then pasted over the base of these companion peaks were triangular trees in groups of three or four. It reminded one of a Swiss poster.
I shall always remember how tired yet how gloriously happy we were as we attacked coffee, bread and beans.
Instead of finding a place to sleep, we set off again on a short tour of exploration. We waded and walked through rushing streams, climbed several mounds and came out unexpectedly on a cliffside. Perhaps there are visions to equal it, but I doubt it. None of us spoke. We were spellbound.
Garibaldi Lake lay two thousand feet below, emerald green with the white reflections of the snowy mountains that encircled it. The dying sun lit up the glacial peaks so that they changed as we watched from white to brilliant pink, deep salmon, then to shadowy blues and greens. One of the peaks, due to some volcanic influence, was cinnamon-brown.
We had come to paint the scenery. We felt hopeless now. We would never get the glory of Garibaldi on canvas. But we would do our best in the morning.
We returned to camp, made crude beds out of old straw mattresses somebody discovered in a clump of trees, and tried to persuade ourselves that sleeping without a pillow is fun.
The moon came out over the hills and shone in our eyes.
It grew very still. Then something whistled. "That's a whistler," our naturalist informed us. "It's a little animal like a gopher. Don't be surprised if you wake up in the morning and find it on your neck. I found a mouse on mine the last time I slept up here."
With the dawn came mists that blew across the Black Tusk. Pancakes were frying at four o'clock. We ate hurriedly, for we wanted to paint at once. Canvases were set up, when--splash! A drop of water mixed with the oil.
Rain! And here we were, five thousand feet above the sea, without shelter, with very little foot--principally beans and oxo cubes--and we hadn't begun to paint or to explore. We could have cried from disappointment. But there was no time to moan. Out of nothing a rude shelter must be reared. Boxes, mattresses, poles covered by a torn sheet of canvas and several ground sheets fastened together. It became our home on Garibaldi for an entire day and night.
The next day we were wakened by a bird which our naturalist said was called a whisky-jack. While the pancakes were frying, numbers of these fat grey-and-black fellows darted at the board table, picking butter from the paper container. Nick discovered that he could sit at the table while they came there for bits of pancake.
More rain and dark clouds caused our departure from this wonderful spot. We descended the mountain in record time. We hiked leisurely along the path near Daisy Lake. A cry from Nick and his aunt who had gone on ahead brought us forward with a run.
"A cougar!" they gasped and pointed. A dark shape disappeared into the underbrush. Nick's aunt had stumbled when trying to pick up a stick to defend herself. She was very glad when we put in an appearance. Covered as we were with mosquito netting, we were enough to frighten any beast.
By the time we reached the cabin by the still water, most of us complained that our toes were blistered. It was refreshing to wash and clean up our muddy clothes.
Next day, as we waited for the train at the station, I discussed the trip with an old fisherman. "Can't see as it did ye much good," said he. "Guess all you folks got was a lot of bites and rainfall."
We told him eagerly that we would be back next year. Perhaps we would come by air, but we would return all the same. We must expect to pay dearly for worth-while things in Nature. For surely no man has climbed a high mountain and not benefited. He has learned to link a mythical and a spiritual world to himself eternally.
In hunting for a position today, the modern working girl is often baffled as to whether she had better borrow a fur coat and look prosperous, or wear her own clothes and appear needy.
Take the case of Caroline Miles. I met Caroline's mother, whom I have known for years, while shopping the other day. She is a widow with two daughters, Caroline and Janice.
I asked. "Is Caroline through business school yet?"
She smiled. "Yes, indeed--but she's married."
The eyes of Mrs. Miles were focussed on my dress.
"A pretty blue--" she nodded.
I was proud of that dress, yet a little piqued because Mrs. Miles seemed to guess that I had dyed it from an oyster white.
"You can't fool a professional," she laughed. "That reminds me of Caroline. But let's go somewhere and have tea, and I'll tell you---"
Caroline was just through business college when a young chap, the son of a family friend, phoned to say that the manager of a local hardware store, a Mr. Berkholder, needed a bookkeeper. If Caroline would meet the young man at a certain hotel they would have lunch there with Mr. and Mrs. Berkholder. Caroline went, of course, and wore her only decent dress, a white crepe. She is pretty and dark, and a splendid conversationalist. Mr. Berkholder and his wife took quite a fancy to her, and invited her to dine with them that evening.
Caroline rushed home pleased but desperate. She simply couldn't wear that white dress that evening. She must keep up appearances with the Berkholders. Janice suggested dying the dress a peach shade. Hurriedly Mrs. Miles went to work. She pressed and stitched all afternoon and Caroline went out to dinner in what appeared to be a brand new gown.
Again triumph. But somebody proposed a party for the next evening, and once more Caroline was plunged into the depths. Oh, dear, she must have an evening dress, she must at all costs please Mr. Berkholder.
Mrs. Miles, like many another mother, met the situation bravely. She attacked the transformed peach crepe. Caroline sailed off to the party in a sleeveless black gown that would have done credit to any smart shop in the city.
Did she get the position? Alas, no! Mr. Berkholder sent her a crisp note telling her he was sorry, but he had decided on a more experienced girl.
Yet fate was not altogether unkind to Caroline, for the young escort, the family friend, suddenly decided that she was too sweet to remain single, and so they were married.
Later, Caroline met Mr. Berkholder when she was on her honeymoon. She insisted that he tell her the real reason why he had refused her the position.
This was his reply: "Oh, I said to Mrs. Berkholder, how should I afford a salary big enough for a bookkeeper that has to wear three expensive dresses in twenty-four hours!"
The fireside was abrim with coals, the chesterfield inviting, the latest library book half open at the right page, when someone shattered our tranquility by suggesting, "Let's go over and have a look at the Rupert!"
It was the coldest afternoon in British Columbia since last December, but the stout of heart prodded at the weak of will until we eventually arrived at the Esquimalt dry-dock where crowds had gathered. We trailed over rocks that took toll of French heels. Girls in bright tams, girls with gold and red and black hair, chatted excitedly with their Sunday escorts. The latter were--the girls thought--splendid, with their hatless, marcelled manes and wide, flappy trousers. Spanish words mingled with modern slang--the glamour of a fiesta. In all, it was a pleasant crowd.
We reached the end of a rugged point, and came upon a vivid and enduring sight. A great yellow arbutus tree leaned high over the light green waters. Beyond it, framed in its gracious curve, rose a stately vessel, the Princess Louise, as if haughtily impatient of her neighbor's distress. To her left, spars sloping piteously, half submerged, the Rupert struggled in the grip of Davy Jones' mighty hand. Yet the stricken ship had nobility. The red, white and blue smokestacks were beautiful against the grey sky and the purple mountains. Streaks of peacock green showed--the railing where the deck was tilted--and melted into twisting clouds of steam.
What irony! Having just left her neat hospital berth in the huge new government dry-dock, to sink at the repair wharf of a well-known firm of shipbuilders!
The ship's hospital was at hand, and the surgeons, little grey and black tugboats, puffed and whistled amusingly over the distressing operation. As if to add to the romance of the picture, a scow was sighted in the foreground. Several men were grouped about a wheel from which came the steady rhythm of a pump supplying air to a diver as he investigated the Rupert's wound in the realm of Davy Jones himself.
Br-r! Diving must be cold work on a cold day. Our minds reverted to snug firesides and hot tea and buns, as we scooted over the rocks for home.
We glanced at the poor old Rupert and bade her good-bye.
With an almost uncanny response to unknown forces, the midnight hour had been chosen as the time for her disaster. With all the facilities for assistance at hand--a dry-dock, a repair shipyard, and a salvage vessel--she sank in spite of everything.
By the town clock, high noon. They come running upstairs, too eager to wait for the elevator. Girls in tams and "eugenies," most of them in last year's coat, but all brisk and smart. The tongues wag after a morning of silence. Noon and working girls ready for tea, coffee and cocoa at 5 cents a cup.
I sit by a window and wonder if the view of the harbor--ships and Sooke hills like a clean woodcut--isn't the best of this noon hour. But the girls scarcely glance outside. They are used to it. Clatter-clatter go plates and tongues.
"More sugar!"
Apparently nobody diets. Work must keep them thin for some of these children look as if they were in danger of "poitrianaire." How young they seem! Too light-hearted to worry about depressions.
Of such is the conversation:
"He's a perfect dream--sings marvellously, but--when he took off his hat! Imagine--he's bald!"
"He's the best-looking man in the troupe at that. I'm going to see him next week in a real original play about a Canadian policeman who goes north and----"
The plot is interrupted by a loud short from a neighboring table. Among the exclamations and gasps are, "It's positively indecent! She's twenty-four and runs around with that boy of eighteen."
"But she doesn't look that old."
"Huh! I've examined her face several times and I can see the crow's feet. I think he ought to be told."
I hide my dizzy old head behind the flower centrepiece. The horror of being more than twenty dawns upon me. It is as if the pavement four storeys below had called out to me: "Jump out of the window, you creature stricken by time . . . it is all over for you."
I hand back my cup and stagger from the tearoom. I can hardly wait to face my image in a compact mirror. Wrinkles! I'd covered them with powder but what chance had I against the watchful, eagle eyes of those flappers?
Tomorrow I'll try a scrubby little lunch room--coffee and two measly doughnuts for 10 cents--but nobody will watch for crow's feet. The waitresses there have unwaved locks and plenty of comfortable wrinkles.