The Serial: Far From the Rowan Tree Day9

Here we were, thousands of miles from the island of our birth, without the slightest idea of where we would sleep that night

Iwould need to be very careful from now on. We may speak the same language, I thought but the understanding is quite different. No one at home would have picked up that remark wrongly. Hank and Linda took a desperately disappointed and tearful farewell of Ronnie. Very early in the morning, in this large, warm station in northern Canada, I clutched my brood to me while Ronald went to announce our arrival.

There were lots of people in the station, despite it being so early. They stood or sat in small ethnic groups.

Some had found corners where it looked as if they had slept all night and were now breakfasting off sandwiches and flask coffee.

I heard one little group beside us in conversation. They were not speaking English and I didn’t recognise the tongue. It wasn’t French or German.

Vast emigration Later, I learned that they were probably Ukrainian, Hungarian or Polish people; the tail-end of a vast emigration, half a million or more, from the ramshackle Austria Hungarian empire, the Ukraine and central Europe, who in the beginning came as tough peasants in sheepskin coats in the wheat-boom years.

Mostly they travelled beyond Winnipeg to settle in the frozen, lonely Prairies, living the first year, perhaps, in sod huts while waiting for cash returns on their wheat crops.

Ronald was soon back but only to tell us we would have to wait for a couple of hours before we could get any further information. The organiser of immigrants didn’t come on duty until 8.30am.

Here we were, marooned thousands of miles from the island of our birth, without the slightest idea of where we would sleep that night.

All we knew was that it would be somewhere in Alberta.

Two hours took a long time to pass that winter morning in Edmonton station.

Ronald had been told that when the organiser arrived he would come to see us. He had pointed out where we would be.

The children, refreshed after their sleep, showed no ill effects of having being roused so early.

They were happy to be alive and enjoyed the freedom of running over the smooth tiled floor which, several acres in size, must have seemed to them to go on forever.

The station, as with the previous stops, was too warm. I took off the boys’ red duffles, giving them strict instructions not to run too far.

Immigrants They tried to make friends with two little boys in a neighbouring group and even although they had no common language, they succeeded. It was a strange feeling to be immigrants among immigrants, few of whom, it would appear, spoke English.

While I waited impatiently for the next stage of our adventure to begin I took note of these people from different lands who were to be our fellow countrymen and women. They were engrossed in their own families and hardly glanced towards us.

I wondered if they knew their destinations or if, like us, they were completely in the dark of where they would be that night. There was no way of finding out.

It was about 8.45am when a casually dressed man came striding purposefully towards us. He introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Jackson Hunt.” He wasted no time. “Welcome to Alberta.

“You are to travel a few miles further south this afternoon to a place called Red Deer.

“Schulz Muller, the dairy farmer you’re to work for, will be at the station to meet you. Your trunks and hand luggage will be on the train with you.

“The rest of your boxes, crates, etc will follow but may take a few days for them to catch up.”

He told us the time of the train we were to catch for Red Deer. Everything was neatly arranged. “Any questions?” he asked briskly. He had the air of a man in a hurry. There were so many questions we couldn’t think of one in particular! Jackson Hunt disappeared back into his office and we were left to put in the morning as best we could.

Ronald and I felt both apprehensive and excited. The children felt only excited.

We ventured out of the station into the clear frosty air of Alberta’s capital city.

It looked clean and new with no smoking chimneys it to make any sort of veil between the city and the sky.

The sidewalks had been cleared of snow. Everywhere there were dirty hard-packed ridges of snow but embroidering the buildings there was plenty of clean white powder sparkling in the sunlight.

It was intensely cold but, unlike Winnipeg, there was no wind.

People walked briskly. Large cars whizzed by. Traffic rules had to be observed – no jay-walking was tolerated. Crossing was strictly at the lights and quickly. Here, car drivers were the important ones.

The train south for Red Deer left Edmonton at 2pm.

I wondered how long it would take to go “a few miles”. This turned out to be 70.

We left sharply on time and sped along.

Barren plains We looked out of the windows and saw huge barren rolling plains crisscrossed at intervals by gravel roads that looked as though they went nowhere in particular.

Anxiously, I watched the landscape for any sign of farms.

There weren’t many – only one or two lonely houses, bare and unprepossessing, with hardly anything in the way of farm buildings.

We passed Leduc, where an airport for Edmonton was under construction.

At this place, enormous reserves of oil and natural gas had been found several years before.

We passed Ponoke, a small rough-and-tumble place inhabited mainly by native people.

By 3pm we were in Red Deer. We were the only passengers getting off the train.

Ronald climbed down first on to the frozen ground and lifted the three boys after him, then held out his hand to help me.

The brass bell clanged impatiently and a man came to help us off with our luggage but, apart from this one man, there appeared to be no one else about.

For a moment we huddled together, recovering from the shock of the cold air after the heat of the train.

(More tomorrow.)