I grew up at a time when there was no radio or TV; when people visited, they talked and told yarns. Get two or more men together and it was hunting stories, ghost stories, stories of working in the pulp woods, working on the roads, life in the fishing boats, etc. As a kid I would sit enthralled with these tales, sometimes scared. To me they seemed so real. Unfortunately, most of the hunting stories involving my father I have forgotten, except the three I am about to tell. These I remember, because they are events of which I was a part or could relate to personally.
My father would go off hunting with only one shell in his shotgun, and no spares. Ammunition cost money; my father and grandfather used to load their own shotgun shells with powder and lead shot of different sizes. My father had a single-barrelled shotgun and my grandfather a double-barrelled one. Most deer were shot, not on hunting trips, but when the men were going into the woods to cut wood, to the fields to make hay, or to work in the garden. The shotgun was an extra to be carried with the fork or scythe, the axe, the hoe, etc., when a pocket full of shells could be a nuisance while you worked. And then also, maybe, that is just the way my father was.
Deer would swim across bays from point to point, or to and from the small islands. We would see them, singly or in pairs moving through the water. Sometimes they would be chased by boat and killed. One day, my father calculated where the buck would be coming ashore. It would be just below the house, in the woods across the gully. So he positioned himself and waited. All went well, the deer came and he got a good shot at it, but it was only wounded. As he approached to cut its throat, it started to get to its feet. My father jumped on its back hoping to knock it back down, but the deer made it to its feet and started to run with my father on its back holding onto its horns. He was cursing and shouting to my mother to bring him another knife. The deer did not go more than 100 yards due to the trees and uneven ground; when it tried to clear a fallen tree, wounded and with my father's weight, it crashed onto the log, throwing my father free. That was the end of the deer. My father had scratches all over his face, neck, and arms, because during his ride, with his hands holding the horns, he could not protect himself from the tree branches. His shirt was torn. When we arrived, the deer was dead, and my father was cursing a streak, for which he was noted.
About a mile from our house, down the road and back in the woods, there was what we called the 'Back Field'. It was a fairly large flat field bordering a swamp. The hay was not heavy, but each year we mowed it. We also went there regularly because of the blueberries and cranberries which grew on its border, and bogberries in the swamp. We kept the field fenced to protect it from the wandering cows. You approached the field, about a quarter mile in from the road, by a well worn path.
One evening, my father, with Garth and I, between 5 and 7 years old, was going to the Back Field to turn hay. He had his hay fork and his gun. I was some distance behind them. As my father and brother neared the field along the moss covered path, they did so quietly, and there was a deer feeding. He shot it and rushed out into the field to the wounded deer, which was trying to rise to its feet. Again my father had no extra shell, so he placed the pitch fork over its neck, thus pinning it to the ground. But a stalemate resulted. The deer couldn't get up and my father could not let go of the fork.
So he had Garth go & pick up as large a stone as he could carry and bring it to him; my father then proceeded to hurl it down on the head of the deer with one hand. When I heard the shot, I came running; by then it was pandemonium: my father hollering, the deer bleating and struggling, and my brother scrambling for the rock to bring it back to my father; in doing so he had to dodge the sharp hooves of the deer. When my father saw me, he yelled to go get my grandfather to bring a knife. I started to run, but met my grandfather part way. He had heard the shot and knew my father would not have a knife. I still wonder what he made of my excited description of what was happening in the Back Field. Anyway, when we arrived, all was peaceful. The deer was dead and my father was turning the hay.
We as kids were in no danger wandering the hauling roads into the back woods. We never ventured very far in on our own, either because of natural timidity of the gloom and stillness, or from a fear of getting lost; such fear put into us by our parents and grandparents. The women and children wandered quite far back into the woods to pick berries; never was there any suggestion of them taking a gun. In fact, I can't remember women having anything to do with guns.
In the 1930's in Jeddore, there were no wolves, coyotes or bears; at least, I saw none and never heard of any being shot. They may have roamed the nearer woods last century, but now were gone far away from human habitation. I heard stories of skunks, but never saw one. My grandparents' dog had once met up with a skunk, and we heard about the resulting smell. There were deer and when disturbed, they took off with a crash, which gave us a fright, as did the partirdge with their sudden rush of wings. And their were porcupines, but we kept out of their way, which cannot always be said for the dogs, which suffered from the quills.
However, there were the moose. As kids we heard tales of the moose. When disturbed with young, they would attack. I saw moose antlers, but never a moose itself. I cannot remember our father shooting a moose. He may have, but as they were deep in the woods, I would not have seen anything more than the quartered animal. Moose never came near people as did the deer, which grazed in our gardens and fields. There was a yearly deer hunting season, but I can't remember if there was a moose season; if there was, it was not yearly. They were very scarce. I do remember hearing tales of moose hunting, and my father going off with moose horns which were rolls of paper, which, when blown correctly imitated a cow moose call and thus attracted the bull moose.
We kids were never taken on deer or moose hunts, probably due to the noise we would make, and if there was a kill, the carcass would have to be carried out. There would be no hands to hold and guide children. Often, only part of the carcass could be carried and another trip had to be made.
My nearest contact with a moose while young took place without my knowing it at the time. My father had taken Garth and I far back one of the hauling roads. All of a sudden, my father was running as fast as he could with my brother on his shoulders and me held firmly by the hand and sort of flying behind.He had seen a moose and its young through the trees, and had seen the mother turn in our direction. As he ran he thought he could hear her crashing through the trees behind us. I was aware of none of this, and remember only that the flight seemed to go on for some time.
The women joined in the ghost stories, which would be told with such realism, or so it seemed to me, that I would be terrified. The stories were not told in isolation or in general, but would refer to houses I knew, sections of the road I had to walk, and graveyards that had to be passed. I suppose the adults believed in ghosts, or they would not have told the stories over and over again. I, as a kid, certainly believed. There was one small hill on the road where a ghost could always be seen at night. Luckily, I never had to walk it alone in the dark, but was nervous passing that way in the daytime.
The ghost story located nearest to home and the one experienced by Garth, myself & our father, involved the vacant house about a mile down the road from us. It was the old Corkum house, two storey and within sight of the road. It was haunted so they say, because old Mr Corkum, was supposed to have been measured for his coffin before he was dead. So his ghost haunted the house, manifest by coughs. He died of some lung problem. So the ghost story went.
Well, one evening, my father had hid in the cellar door of the Corkum house to wait for a deer, which he had seen on the other side of the field, to come closer. He had his gun ready to shoot, when it passed the open door of the cellar. Then there was a cough behind him. In terror he jumped out of the door right in front of the deer; both took off in fright. That is the story I heard.
Garth and I had to pass by the Corkum house going to and from school. We never went into the field. One day on our way home from school, there was a coughing in the house, and we took off for home, arriving breathless and scared. On both occasions someone had a good laugh. Some of my early nightmares centered around the Corkum house.
Ghosts or not, I still have memories of the Corkum house; of trips through the empty house with my father and grandfather. I can still see its interior with slats behind fallen plaster and torn wall paper, and remember scrambling up the collapsing stairs. Eventually my father and grandfather had permission to tear it down and salvage what timber they could. This resulted in my nearly being killed.
My father and grandfather had reduced the house to its bare two storey large-beamed skeleton, with no roof, walls or floors. They were loosening the beams in two storey arches and letting them fall intact as a unit. We kids were playing below, and supposedly well out of the way. Then I heard my father and grandfather shouting, and I looked up to see this huge beamed construction falling toward me. I did not move, probably I could not move, or maybe the time was too short for me to react. Anyway, I stood rooted to the spot as the whole thing crashed to the ground around me. I was left standing inside the fallen frame, but it was so close, that that the top beam had scratched my back as it passed. My father and grandfather could not believe that I had not been killed. My grandfather was distressed for sometime.
I can remember my father and grandfather making lead bullets for the shotgun shells. Lead was readily available as part of the thin wrappings of sweets, cigarettes, and other things. It was saved and melted down; then poured into molds, which opened like pliers and was held in the hand like a pair of pliers or scissors. Into the shell went first the powder, then the shot, and finally a plug of felt or cardboard was placed over the end. The firing caps had to be bought, put the shells could be used over and over. Of course, when money was available the complete shell would be bought, usually in boxes of a dozen or two dozen. My father and mother nearly lost their lives because of some miscalculation in the above procedure.
We were always bothered by chicken hawks, which would hover or perch in trees, then swoop on chickens or partly grown hens. They were considered a menace, as our chickens contributed to our livelihood. One afternoon, as we kids were taking our afternoon nap, my parents saw a hawk in a tree near the hen house. My father got his shotgun, stood in the doorway with my mother looking over his shoulder, and took aim. There was a tremendous explosion and all he had left was the wooden butt of the gun. The barrel had disappeared. It was said that the only thing that saved their lives or prevented serious injury was the fact that they were inside the doorway of the house, thus with the house behind them, the force of the explosion had thrown the flying metal outward. When I rushed out of the bedroom, they were just recovering from the shock; my father had quite a cut on his forehead, and some smaller ones on his arm; my mother was untouched. Both had some black powder marks. For years afterward, my father would hit pieces of metal as he mowed the field with his scythe. It became a family joke.
As the shotguns were old, often passed on from generation to generation, my father's exploding gun could have been due to metal fatigue, or as more likely, a fault in loading the shells. If parts broke or wore out, replacements were made. New wooden stocks would be carved and fitted. I do not know how old my father's gun was, nor can I remember how he managed to purchase another. No household was without a shotgun or rifle.
In winter the upper reaches of the harbour would freeze from shore to shore. The ice was usually unsafe or non-existent down at our end of the harbour, due to its proximity to the open sea and greater tidal action. However, our rocky shoreline was a clutter of broken ice, as the rising and falling tides carried the ice up and down over the rocks. The ice broke and refroze with each tide. Further up the harbour, away from the shore, the ice stretched in an unending sheet with a slightly rough surface, with sometimes patches of drifting snow.
We took advantage of the ice to travel up the harbour to visit and to go to the store. We would have to walk up the road a distance, before we could go out on safe ice. An axe was carried to test the ice, because salt water ice can vary in thickness over a small area. My father would put us on a sleigh and off we would go, usually to my Uncle Alan's in Oyster Pond; this was straight up the ice, and was shorter than following the twisting road with its slippery hills. Other times, we visited my other uncle, Harland Mills,who lived in Myers Point,Head Jeddore; this trip took us far out and diagonally across the harbour. It would be too far to walk by road; in summer we went by boat or later in my father's old car.
One time my mother was alone on the ice with us kids, returning home from our Uncle Alan's. We were on the sleigh. She carried the usual axe. On this occasion when she tested the ice, the axe went right through, and ahead she could see a damp area. She realized we were on thin ice with softer slushy ice just ahead. She made a wide detour and got us to shore by the most direct route. She could not swim: anyway, she or we kids would not have had much of a chance in the icy water. Unknown to her, she was seen making her way down the harbour, and if she had gone in and could have held herself up, help would have arrived. We kids on the sleigh, with spread weight may not have broken through. Contemplation makes me shudder.
Our house was isolated by trees, from the road and from our nearest neighbours. The only visible human presence was across the harbour about five miles away; by day the scattered houses could just be seen, by night a faint light from the windows was visible. Often the thick fog and storms made even these invisible. Here my mother lived for weeks on end, with only us small kids for company. When my brother and I were just babies, it must have been lonelier still. She could hear deer prowling around the house at night, or at least she hoped that they were deer.
I remember one occasion when fear got the better of her and she took off late at night. There was a tremendous thunder and lightning storm and heavy rain. My mother must have been afraid of such storms. You would often hear the sharp crack as a bolt of lightning struck a tree; in the morning you would see the trunk split apart from top to roots. Anyway, she got Garth and I out of bed, dressed us and set out for my grandparents' house. This meant going up the lane to the road, along the road, then down the field to their house. I can still remember the trip - the thunder and lightening, the rain and the darkness. My mother seemed to run or hurry all the way. I was held by the hand, my brother was carried. We must have presented a sorry sight to my grandparents, when they opened the door to my mother's pounding. Having my grandparents nearby, about half a mile away, must have made life easier for my mother. We kids were back and forth all the time. How my mother must have welcomed my father's return !
The brook, which filled our well, ontinued to run behind the barn, through the gully below the house to a short swampy area. Then it ran down an old path through the trees to the shore near the wharf. This path was steep and wet, so it was no longer used often, as we preferred to go further along the old Jeddore road , past the orchard, then cut directly down the field to the wharf. In winter this old path was impossible to walk, but it became one of our main playgrounds. In winter as the stream entered the swamp and started down the path, it would freeze, then more water would run over the first ice, and it in turn froze. The result was a cascade of ice down the path. Here we used to slide for hours on our bottoms, on boughs, or on old cardboard. It was too steep and short for our sleighs.
One day Garth was chopping the ice with a hatchet. My sister, Maureen, and I were sliding about. She continued to slide right under his hatchet swing and nearly got her nose chopped off. The hatchet came down and cut through the lower top of the nose and by luck did not continue any further. We soon were all hollering and crying, and our mother came running. By this time there was blood on Maureen and the ice. My mother took her quickly to the house to wash the wound with clean water with maybe some iodine. I cannot remember how she bandaged it. The cut healed OK, with only a faint scar. We used to hear stories of a woman who had a wooden nose, because a horse had bitten her's off.
Another time we were running around in the house, which was possible because our four rooms entered one into the other, so with the doors open, we could run in a circle. Our mother usually put a stop to this right quick. This day I fell and badly cut the right side of my forehead on the head of a long nail which stuck out near the floor. My father was home and he ran to someone down the Jeddore road, about four miles there and back, to get sticking plaster. My parents must have known there was none at my grandfather's or great uncle's. I guess this is what was used locally instead of stitching. I remember the cut being washed and being held in my mother's arms until he returned; all the while she applied a cold cloth. Again no infection; healing took place with only a faint scar.
We always had iodine in our house. My family had great faith in its antiseptic powers. With soap and iodine our mother was able to keep our cuts and scratches from becoming infected. I suppose sticking plaster also was another regular household item, but it would run out and it cost money. To call a doctor, for other than a major emergency, was not done. It would be miles to a phone, the doctor could be out on a call while his office was in another locality, so delays could be hours. And doctors cost money.
As the harbour water was very cold, we kids did little more than jump in and out again. Neither of my parents could swim. So we kids never learned to swim in Jeddore Harbour. Not knowing how to swim nearly cost me my life. Garth and I were playing on the wharf and, if I remember correctly, jumping from the wharf to the boat and back. It was high tide. I missed and fell in the water. I can still remember going up and down, and on one of the ups grabbed the bow of the boat which I could see above me. My brother went hollering for my father who was mowing hay up in the field. Unfortunately, my brother was screeching so loud that my father thought he was hurt, and some time was wasted sorting out that it was me in trouble. By then my father could hear me as well as I held on to the edge of the boat and howled. Luckily all ended well.
Another event which ended well, but could have easily led to disaster. One day my father was preparing to go to the store in Oyster Pond in his old car. As usual, we kids wanted to go. My father said no and eventually set off. What he did not know was that Garth had climbed up on the back of the car and was clinging to the spare wheel. Here he clung all the way to Oyster Pond, despite all the twisting, turning and swaying of the car. One lady saw the car passing and tried to alert my father, but he took it as a greeting and waved back.My father must have had a shock when he stopped at Hostings Store and found Garth.
The community of East Jeddore was small, everyone knew everyone else. A tragic happening was felt and a conern to all. One evening, an elderly lady slipped out of the house after her husband had gone to sleep and disappeared. It was assumed she had committed suicide by throwing herself into the harbour. She had this tendency and so had to be watched. High and low, there was a search for her, which involved all the adult males. She could not be found. About two weeks later, a man was collecting seaweed; he was standing at the water's edge and filling his boat. He looked up the shore and there she was, or what was left of her. He was very distressed by the time he rowed round the point and got up the hill to the house to tell his parents. The Mounties came; my uncle identified the body.
It was assumed she had gone into the water near her home which was lower down the East Jeddore road from us, but her body had been found about two miles the other side of our property. Therefore, her body may have drifted with the tides past our place. My mother said she had been right, because the day after the lady's disappearence, while the men were away searching, my mother said she saw something dark on the exposed flats far out opposite our house. If she had had a boat she would have gone to investigate. I do not know where our boat was at the time; maybe used by the men or in the garage. By the time the men returned, the tide had come in, so there was nothing to see. My mother always believed it was the body she had seen.
Well, from day one, this was the topic of conversation of the adults, my parents and grandparents included. I listened, shivered and remembered. All the details stayed with me, including the names. I felt the concern and the fascination of the adults for the topic, and embellished it all with my imagination. Afterward, I always looked at the point of land, beyond which the body was found, with a feeling of dread and fright.