She and her husband were kindness itself. They fed us and took us back to where we had lived

The Mckenzie highway proved to be the loneliest road we had been on. There was hardly any traffic, save for a truck or two. The good road surface seemed to go on forever. Surely round the next corner there would be a building of some kind. But there was nothing the eye could see, only dark scrub fir trees lining the road that had a broad verge of well-kept green as a firebreak.

There was the occasional road sign that said: Buckle Up, or Emergency Airstrip where the road ballooned out, or a slowly decreasing number of ks still to go to the next settlement called Enterprise.

Half way there, however, much to our surprise, there was a campsite. We went in. No gas but somewhere you could get a cup of coffee. Also a tourist office – modern and state-of-the-art and silent and strange. There was a woman there in a cabin half hidden in the trees. She was hanging out clothes and certainly not expecting any visitors.

Shortly before reaching Enterprise we pulled into a rest area and got out to stretch our legs. We looked over an incredible valley of trees to the widest of horizons. Along the horizon there was a band of white, straight, like a frieze bordering wallpaper.

“What’s that?” I said to Henry. “Must be cloud,” he replied. “No, it’s not cloud, it’s too regular.”

Strange horizon

Just then a juggernaut pulled in. The driver, a rugged fellow jumped down from its high cab. We got talking. I asked about the strange horizon. “Must be cloud,” he said. He took a second look. “I know what it is, never really noticed before. It’s the ice on the Great Slave Lake. It’s sure not all melted yet.” It was June 1.

I wanted to see the Great Slave. “How far is it?” I asked. “Hay River,” he said. “That’s where it begins. Goes right up 100 miles to Yellowknife.”

Next day we went to Hay River for gas and to see the Great Slave Lake. It was a bigger place than I expected with modern buildings. We went down to the lake and spent a lovely sunny day there. The next night we were heading for Edmonton.

On the way I wanted to take in Lake Nakamun – the lake that my late husband, Ronald, had worked to open up all those years ago when we emigrated to Canada. It was a difficult place to find.

It had been fairly simple in the old days when there weren’t many roads to choose from. But now there was a grid of roads all numbered but unnamed, mostly serving the little cabins and farms.

At last we came on it, by luck more than anything, a great, big sign saying Camp Nakamun. We went up a well-kept drive to a green sward of close-cropped grass leading down to the lake. On top of the rise stood a big wooden lodge.

We heard voices down at the lake. Young fellows with canoes told us it belonged to the Alliance of Churches and was a holiday camp for youth and for older people. We found the warden drying dishes. We told him our mission and he offered to take us on a sail round the lake in a barge. “The summer village of Nakamun,” he pointed as we approached the opposite shore, “self-governing and rather exclusive.”

I saw the attractive cabins peeping through the trees as I tried to work out where we had been. That wooden mansion on the rise was no longer there but a new one had taken its place. I tried to work out where the lots were that Ronald had sold for cabins.

“These very ancient cabins,” said our host. “Oh there are very few of them left.”

The words ancient struck me as odd. In some ways it seemed just like yesterday to me. I realised, all of a sudden, how time had moved on.

Our next stop was Wainwright, the township close to where we had lived and worked on a prairie farm all those years ago. I hardly recognised it.

I had forgotten, too, how much oil there had been around this area. For a great part of the road from Vermillion to Wainwright there are woodpecker oil pumps working. When we got to Wainwright there was no room at the inn with all three campsites full of oil workers.

A storm

“We’ll just journey on ‘til we find one,” Henry said. I looked up at the sky. Up until now the weather had been fine, but what I saw coming I immediately recognised – a great black anvil of cloud coming towards us, a storm. “We’re not going anywhere,” I said. “We’ll book into the motel for the night.”

Next morning we visited the small museum down by the railroad. One of the first things I saw was a photograph of the Queen and her consort on the occasion of her visit to Wainwright 35 years ago. It brought back immediately that day we all went to see her there, waving to us from the back of the rail car.

That same day we headed for Edmonton. We had been told of the campsite down by the river and almost in the centre of town. In the busy traffic we began to go round in frightening circles reminiscent of Langley and drew into a Mcdonald’s, which had a big parking area and calmed down over a bag of chips. A taxi drove past.

“Tell you what, Henry. How about hiring a taxi to lead us there?” “Good idea,” said Henry and so it proved to be. We got through the streets no bother.

In Edmonton we got in contact with our first landlady, who had been so kind to us all those years ago. Like me, her first husband had died and she had remarried.

She and her husband were kindness itself. They fed us and took us back to where we had once lived.

I remembered a pleasant avenue with attractive wooden houses all of different designs. Would it have changed? No, it hadn’t changed much.

The house we had lived in was no longer there but others were similar and trees and bushes had grown along the wide streets. I was not disappointed.

We stayed a day or two in Edmonton. I went to the main bookshops. They were enthusiastic about Far from the Rowan Tree and got me to sign copies.

The camper had to be at its destination by 11 o’clock on the day we were due to fly out of Calgary. We decided to take it a day early to leave time to find the place. The camper, despite all predictions back in Vancouver, had not one dent or chip. We had it washed – it was pristine clean – and only one useless wing mirror was missing.

Important

Arriving in Calgary about 11 the next day, Henry suggested a train into town, visiting a bookstore, and returning by taxi. This might have been a great idea had we not left our all-important bag with passports, air tickets and driving licences in the cab. It was off at speed just as we remembered.

Henry had the presence of mind to note the name of the cab company. A taxi driver from the same firm was helpfulness itself and eventually the missing essentials turned up at the police station.

That night we stayed in a hotel in one of Calgary’s main streets. Next morning, in brilliant sunlight, we walked down the pedestrian precinct. At the beautiful square at the bottom all was bright bustle – the Caribbean Canadians were having their Spring Carnival.

When it was ready we followed the lively procession dancing up the street. The music from the floats was such that those watching and following couldn’t help but dance too. Me along with them.

I’ll never forget the dancing streets of Calgary, a suitable and moving end to an emotional journey. At midnight we entered the silver bird to fly over the North Pole back to the fresh green fields of home, mission completed.

The End.

Our new serial, Stranger At The Door, by Neilla Martin, begins on Monday.

Margaret Gillies Brown