I thought this strange as I had never been stopped before for walking up a street

Around the Rowan Tree, Day31

Grant’s friend Teresa’s timing had only been the catalyst he needed. After a while there came a letter.

One of Teresa’s friends had driven him to Swan Hills, about 100 miles north of Edmonton, to look for work.

Swan Hills was a very new town built by the oil companies and was made up mostly of bunkhouses and trailers.

There was also a bar, a mini supermarket, a general store, a Baco pizza parlour, a coffee shop and a RCMP Station. And the Swanhill area was famous for “Swanhill Grizzlies”, giant bears whose ancestors used to roam the prairies. The gun had nearly wiped them all out but they had survived in Swan Hills.

Within an hour of job seeking Grant had got work through a labour and tool hire firm, digging holes looking for lost pipes. He was fairly useless at this; digging into virgin soil and permafrost was difficult and the guys that he worked beside told him he looked more like 15 than 18 years old.

They got him out of the way by putting him on lookout so that he wouldn’t get caught doing nothing. If he saw the boss coming he’d get into the hole again.

He stayed in a bunkhouse at night with three ‘Nufies’ – a strange tribe of Canadians, according to Grant, who come from the far north east, Newfoundland.

Sweltering

The room he shared with the Nufies was very small, with two sets of up and down bunks. There was one on the left and one on the right with about four feet in between them. On the left as Grant described it, there was enough room for an oil-fired stove which had two settings – sweltering or arctic.

The Nufies seemed to like the first setting and sometimes, at night, Grant found himself outside in the snow, gasping for air. However, after work, they often went out because of the cramped accommodation and, as often as not, found themselves in a bar.

Later Grant got work with a firm called Tamarisk Plumbing and Heating. He wrote that he felt homesick but that work was the best cure. So he wrote about his work.

“The name of my boss is Jerry,” he wrote. “He’s a big stout fellow who likes big game hunting as he calls it and also doughnuts. He has two brothers Vernon and Allan. They are stout also. Allan is married, so is Jerry. Vernon is single. They all live in various trailers about town. There is also Gary Byrne from Conche, Newfoundland who started work at the same time as I did,” he carried on.

“We have a whole bunkhouse trailer to ourselves. It belongs to Jerry and he takes money off our wages for the rent. It is spacious compared to my previous place.

“In the living area there is a giant electric stove which I am told is quite a normal size for Canada, a table and two or three chairs.

“The bedrooms, which are situated one on either end of the living area, each have two home-made beds with plastic mattresses.

“The walls are fake wood panelling which is getting dingy. The window looks onto a giant porch which is attached to another trailer. The entrance into the bunkhouse is through the porch.

Outlandish

“At the far end of the porch are the showers and toilets. Then there is another bunkhouse complex and then Jerry’s large workshop. It’s all laid out to form a large court yard, car park.

“The bunk houses are one of Jerry’s money making schemes. The complex is in a good situation at the entrance to Swan Hills with a gas station on one side and a coffee shop on the other, the Red Rooster.

“Soon I hope to get a car – an old banger when I have saved enough money. You can’t do without a car in this outlandish place. Everyone has one. You are not supposed to walk even here. You are thought odd if you do. On the first week I came here I was walking up the windy street of Swan Hills when I got stopped by the mounty (or rather a RCMP officer as they now like to be called).

“He drove up to me in his four wheel drive, a massive vehicle, and asked me in. He asked me questions, quite a grilling – where was I born, where did I work etc.

“I thought this strange as I had never been stopped before for walking up a street but it seems to be a mounty tradition in these parts to find out who strangers are and what their business is.

“He kept asking my age – said I looked about fifteen. Fortunately I was able to show him my passport which seemed to satisfy him. I think I’ll try and grow a beard to make me look older. Since then I’ve met him once or twice. He’s always very friendly and helpful.

“We are doing the plumbing in a big new housing scheme up at the top of the town. On the first day I came Jerry took me up there and helped with the roughing in. I was useless and eventually he told me so. However he decided to leave me to it one weekend and I found I got on better without him at learning what to do and for the first time since arriving in Canada felt useful. After that he left me to it teaching me each new bit of the trade as the need arose. Some of the jobs are a bit dodgy though.

“The water and sewer pipes have to be around eight feet deep as the frost goes down five or six feet. I have to work at the bottom of this deep ditch.

“I’d been told to watch for the ditch collapsing and that there is not much you can do when it does. A few weeks ago a big heap of sand fell on my back and buried my legs.

“Jerry dug like crazy and got me out. Don’t worry Mum, I’m much wiser now and will be much more careful and watchful.

“We got some good moose meat from Jerry after his hunt. Jerry cuts up the moose meat in the workshop with a chainsaw.

“He also knows someone who has a sausage making machine. We all had moose meat sausages for ages. They were great.”

Permanent

More mother-worrying tales came in subsequent letters. He eventually managed to buy his own car – a Chevrolet Impala – “all black, a great, giant beast of a thing”. Grant “thought it was a goner” not long after he got it.

“One morning I got up looked out the window to find the snow had a more permanent look to it – like it was here for the winter – serious,” he wrote. “It had been snowing and melting for some time but this looked different. I had my breakfast and then went out to start my car.

“The moment I walked out I got a shock. It was perishingly cold. I ran round to my car, jumped into the front seat. It didn’t sink beneath me as it usually did. It had turned into solid ice.

“I turned on the ignition, the engine turned but a terrible noise came from it. It sounded as if it was full of gravel. Jerry asked if I’d plugged it in. Plug it in? What was he talking about?

‘You have to plug it into the electricity when it’s this cold or the water in the radiator freezes, Jerry explained to me.

“I’d wondered what the plug on the hood or, as we would say, the bonnet was for. Jerry showed me where to plug it into the mains. After two hours the car started like normal.”

More tomorrow.