Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 17.
Memories Of Life In Wakefield 60-70 Years Ago
Stuart Geggie
There were very few automobiles in Wakefield in the 1920s and 1930s. Dr. Harold Geggie had first a Model T Ford and later a Chevy 490. He always said that he learned to swear driving the Model T and that he learned to say a little prayer before setting out on a call in the 490. One of the weak links in the latter car was the crown gear in the rear end. which had a habit of breaking at crucial moments. The 490 was so called because it was said that it spent 4 days on the road and 90 days in the garage. However 20-30 mph in a car was better than 8 or 9 mph by cutter or buggy.
Each of the businesses in the village had one or two horses with a wagon or sleigh for delivering goods. Wm. Orme‘s Bakery had a fast team to pull their bread van. They delivered fresh bread to the village of Low two or three times a week during the construction of the Paugan Dam and power station in 1926-1927. R.S. Chamberlin's General Store usually did deliveries with a single fast light horse and small sleigh in winter. Mac1aren's store used a fast team of horses. Many other sleighs or wagons were seen on the village roads — perhaps a heavy team pulling a double bunk bobsleigh for logs or with a platform of planks for general heavy haulage — or perhaps someone with a small sleigh carrying a few bags of wheat or oats to Maclaren's Mill to make feed for the pigs or hens — or perhaps a woman with one or two children taking eggs or butter to sell or barter at one of the stores.
All these sleighs provided great opportunities for the village children to hitch-hike a ride for fun. And fun it was, as well as a challenge to run alter Orme's van going like the wind and managing to get a footing, perhaps with only one foot, on the back end of one of the runners. Most sleighs had 7 or 8 inches upon which to perch — room for one foot at least. Of course if one should miss there was a roll in the snow to look forward to. Injuries were few and never severe. Chamberlin's small sleigh was also fast but it had a flat bed upon which one could sit. The driver was often Charlie Chamberlin, a great fisherman and every young lad‘s pal.
The roads were not plowed until alter World War II so that there was usually a good roadbed for horse and cutters. The many covered bridges in the country required snow to be spread on the floor for the sleighs and cutters. These bridges were built with a roof to help preserve them. The Gendron Bridge in Wakefield was about 70 years old when it was finally burned. Rural roads were rolled after each snowfall to provide a good surface for sleighs and cutters. This was done by a pair of giant lawn rollers, side by side, pulled by a team of horses.
The main road north to Maniwaki and south to Ottawa. Route 11 (now called Highway 105) was not plowed either, so that by late winter a layer of ice covered it to a depth of 8-10 inches with two ruts worn down by the wheels of cars to the same depth. At times one could drive to the city (Ottawa) without steering: that is, with the wheels in the ruts, the car would be guided by them right to the city. A major problem arose on meeting a car in the same ruts going in the opposite direction. Everyone carried an axe, a shovel and chains to carve the ice to guide the car onto the roadside.
On occasion after a very heavy snowfall or a windy day, the roads to and from the village were blocked and impassable. To the north at the flat windy stretch a mile from Alcove, the drifts were such that a gang of volunteers would have to shovel the road clear to enable the north-south communications to be re-established. Sometimes these men had ridden from Wakefield on the CPR section vehicle which was completely open without any shelter — a very cold experience.
The children skated on the Gatineau River or on Josey Shouldice's pond. This pond was just at the foot of North Slope at the Vorlage Ski Area. it is now filled up but then it was a typical pond about 40 feet in diameter. It would freeze early and was not deep enough to be dangerous if the ice was not strong enough. The water flow in the Gatineau River has changed so that it is not now safe to skate on it in Wakefield. At that time a ribbon of ice ran around the edge of the river. This was because the water level was not constant and water would come up and over the ice along the shore. When this water froze it was clear and smooth. One could skate right down to Farm Point. To be sure, there were times that one had to skate through one or two inches of water, but as long as one didn't fall it was all right.
For sliding with hand sleighs there was nothing better than Rockhurst Hill at the south end of the village. Children were tempted to slide down the roadway on home-made bob-sleighs that could take 4 or 5 passengers at a time. Fortunately the rare automobile did not try to climb the hill on the ice. We were usually warned about cars but with a little caution and others watching, no one was ever hit on the hill. The spring produced its own problems, from areas of bare gravel, where the hot spring sun had melted all the snow or ice, to deep puddles and mud holes.
When snowmobiles came into use (not the skidoo type of machine that is now common but the modified car with six wheels and skis on the front or the four-ski-type with an engine and an aeroplane propellor at the back). the soft. sticky. melting snow made travel difficult except when the road was frozen. The doctor would start out on house-calls at three o'clock in the morning so that he would be home again before the noon sun had melted everything.
The lack of snow prevented the fun of winter so that a green Christmas was a disaster (except for Santa). It is much more difficult to climb onto a wagon with large wheels and, of course, there were not convenient runners to stand on as with the sleighs.
"Alleys" was a universal game played with small round glass balls varying in color and pattern within the glass. Most of them would measure about 1 cm in diameter with a few up to two cms. The latter were used in certain games that were not common in Wakefield. There were two basic games that were played, both with the object of throwing or rolling an alley as close to, or into a bowl-shaped depression in the ground or as close to your opponent's piece as possible — a distance of perhaps 3 or 4 metres — and then taking turns to flip one's piece into the bowl. The owner of the last alley into the bowl won or could claim to win all the alleys that were in play at that time. Any number of players could participate but there were usually 4 or 5. The other game was for 2 or 3 players and consisted of trying to bounce one's alley off a smooth wall to land as close to one's opponent's piece as possible. The closeness was measured by the span of one's hand, i.e. from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger. Thus two features were important — the size of the hand and the accuracy of one's eye. but really the game was the thing.
The baked clay pieces were called marbles and were looked upon with disdain. They were not as strong or resilient as the glass ones. Alleys had to be glass and those of special color or design were of more value in the eyes of the owner. These games were paramount as soon as a bit of bare ground showed in the spring and until the end of school, and they regained their importance when school commenced again in September. There were many variations, with changes from generation to generation.
Spring, summer and fail activities included fishing in Marshall Brown's creek for 6- to 8-inch speckled trout. This small stream flows from springs under the road on the hill on the way into the village and runs down the valley past the firehall, library and post office to empty into the Gatineau. As recently as a year ago there was still the odd trout in it. In fact every stream in the Gatineau Valley had trout in it at one time. After school the children could cycle up to the shallow water above the dam on the Peche Creek to catch a dozen or more minnows. These were used as bait for large northern pike, bass or walleyes of 4 or 5 pounds which were found where the Peche emptied into the Gatineau. A dozen minnows could mean a dozen larger fish for the table. After church on Sunday one could hope for an invitation by Charlie Chamberlin to go up to Little Island Lake to fish for the wonderful trout or landlocked salmon that were found there. This lovely little lake, which is as deep as 100 feet of the island, is up a steep mountain or hill through a hardwood bush. One had to walk since there was no road. The fish were said to have been stocked by a member of the first generation Gatineau-born Stevenson family. Thomas Andy son of Thomas Stevenson and his wife Ann Pritchard. A "lunchy supper" was gobbled down while sitting on the bank of the lake waiting for a strike. A school of trout could often be seen coming along the shore feeding in shallow water, each one weighing 3 or 4 pounds. Then suddenly one would be very busy landing these delicious fish. It always seemed to be just as the sun was setting. What a memory! Corning home, usually after dark, was always exciting for a young lad since wolves could be heard howling in the bush nearby. They were never very close to us but the sound was impressive.
Swimming in the Gatineau River was always fun and the clear, cold, brown water, flowing around one while holding onto a log or the boom was, and still is, most refreshing. Everyone learned to swim at an early age and the many logs were really a safety feature since one could hold onto a convenient log as it went by. To swim out into the current, choose a log, straddle it and float down river a half a mile to the level of the Hospital, to swim towards shore until the reverse current or eddy took over and went back up river to the beach, was heaven on a hot day. it could take all afternoon perhaps, but what a lazy way to spend a hazy summer day.