DE BIG-SHOT TRAIN: A Northern Love Affair with Algoma Central Country
A Rough and Ribald Story of a Lifetime in the Bush
Chapter 3 Blowin’ ‘er Out
Bushed
Bushed is what happens if you stay too long in the bush alone or even in camp with others. The symptoms are melancholy, irritation, lassitude, loneliness, and anxiety. Unchecked, a man can devolve to the craziness of a loon. It can happen after an hour or a near lifetime.
You can help yourself. You do little things, cook well, keep a tidy camp. Saturday nights I would festoon the camp with maple or pine boughs and bath in a steel wheelbarrows in front of the stove while smoking a cigar, drinking wine, and listening to the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game on radio. Sundays, I just did light chores, read, washed my clothes, and darned my socks. Being busy and self-contented is the best defense.
Failing that, you have to go “downtown” on a spree. Long ago, a man on his way to a spree would whittle a spruce club, smash it on the first bar he came to, and announce his intention. He bought every man in the house a drink or, if he didn’t drink, a cigar. If he neither drank nor smoked he was beneath contempt, and that was what the club was for. He would go from bar to bar leading the drunken, staggering crowd with his club.
Now I never did have the resources for such a spree but tried to uphold the mystique. We rode in the baggage car on the way to town- too restless for the coaches. The doors would be open, and we’d swing out on the overhead bar whenever we crossed a bridge, hanging on with one hand while banging on the roof of the car with the other calling for more speed. A spree always sorely tested the Christian forbearance of my wife to whom I am fortunately still attached.
On Being Bushed
I will not wash my face
I will not brush my hair
I pig about the place
There’s nobody to care
Nothing but rock and tree
Nothing but wood and stone
Oh, God it’s hell to be
Alone, alone, alone
~Robert Service, The Telegraph Operator
Symbiotic
Back in the horse-logging era the boys from the bush would come downtown on the Algoma Central Line primed for the hurly burly, drink, and women. Before discarding prudence they did a couple of things: got their teeth fixed, and then headed over to Davis Clothing next to the station to buy a suit for their spree.
There they would settle last season’s bill and leave a good deal of their cash in the impeccably honest hands of Isaac Davis for safekeeping.
They knew everyone was going to peel them. Honky tonks! Davis would help them moderate their spree. He ran accounts, bailed them out of jail, paid their fines, and doled out their money to them a few dollars at a time. How much was based on his assessment of their immediate sobriety. They felt free to call upon him in a pinch, even on Sundays or the middle of the night. He was their angel, confidant, and banker.
They returned the respect. When it came time to go back in, they went to Davis for an outfit. He sold top of the line, quality, sturdy, workwear at fair prices. Of course by this time they were broke, and they had to put it on the tab. Davis charged no interest. They never stiffed him. It was a mutual, honourable business and on a personal level that is rarely seen nowadays.
Hand Dog Hotels
There were a few hotels around the Algoma Central train station in the Soo that would cater to the bush trade. They were the Algoma, the Central, and the Grandview. They were well-run, tidy but rough. You’d think you’d have to swear, puke and flash a knife to get in. Fellows would come, belly up to the bar, and begin what was sure to become a considerable investment in cheap liquor. And if a man arrived in late afternoon just after the train had come in he could usually find a woman, currently on her feet, to take up to his room for a diversion at matinee prices. The whole idea in these joints was to get blinded, bathed, and bedded.
Some couldn’t take the madding crowd, and even though they were starved for company they’d sadly lock themselves in a room with their bottles and beer, passing oblivious days.
The gregarious often used the barroom as a stage, a place to sow off. Oscar Boyer would lift a fully loaded four-legged barroom table by grasping leg at floor level. He would often bend dimes between his thumbs on a bet. On occasion, to deter a challenger who might want to fight (some guy always wanted to be the Bull of the Woods), Oscar would order wine, drink it off, then bite into the glass, chew, swallow and glare at the pretender.
All of them were prone to geographical bipolarity. In camp they spoke of all the wonderments that would ensue when they hit town. Once there they sat around barroom tables talking about their exploits in the bush. Go figure.
Loneliness
There’s a long distance train
Pullin’ through the rain
Tears on the letter that I write
There’s a woman I long to touch
And I’m missin’ her so much
But she’s driftin’…
~Bob Dylan
Going Back In
Most of the bucherons along the ACR track could be said to be good and responsible men but would readily admit that in town they were no good for dog dirt. Leaving the Soo and making it back to their camps showed it. Take old Rochefort. One time while detraining he couldn’t decide whether he was coming or going and repeatedly fell onto the side or under the train. The exasperated train crew drove him into a snowdrift, liberated one arm, stuffed his bottle into his hand, and left. They had spotted Eddy’s pick up man snowshoeing towards the track and knew he’d be all right.
And then there was “Cinci” who trapped on the Batchewana River and caught the train up at Searchmont. The train crew, knowing when he was coming back in, would watch for him and slow the train to a crawl so as not to run him over as they approached the station. They’d round up a bunch of us to help pour him into the baggage car. He had to stay put, since he was never allowed to ride the coaches as a result of past indiscretions. I used to wonder how he lived because many times the only thing he had with him was the “Cinci Suitcase”: a case of beer with one missing and a pair of wool socks tucked into the empty socket.
Going back in, men were often sick, sullen, and quarrelsome. Some were overwhelmed with sadness at the thought of leaving their families again. For many going back was a blessing, for they would soon be themselves again.
Titles
Once a man winters in the bush he earns the sobriquet “Sourdough” or “Homme du nord”.
Spruce Haven Bar
My buddy, John Wilson, owned the Spruce Haven Lodge. I was headed out on a spree when we met at the track and he told me his problem. His dad was dying, and he needed to do downtown to the Soo. Would I run the lodge and guide a university art class for a week? He would pay me, but the contract was a little lean.
John had hoped to make up some ground by having me run a bar in the evening. He’d stocked it right up figuring on a thirsty synergy between the college kids and an exploration outfit that was also staying there.
And so it began. I sold the first round and collected the dough, but Hell! I had a better marketing strategy: self-serve and a wide-open bar. We’d take up a collection at the end of the week. John would do so well, and I wouldn’t have to be counting quarters. The bar was dry in three obscure days and nights.
I never knew how it turned out exactly. I told John that I had drunk my wages while turning over the collection that I thought covered the booze but might be a little light on the profit side. Nothing was said, and our friendship endures to this day. Each of us learned something: bartending wasn’t my calling, human resources management not his.
Strong Drink
Cinci had just come in off guiding a moose hunt where he had been constrained to sobriety by his employer. “How’s it going, Cinci?” One of the boys said. “Dry, very dry,” he said. “Yesterday I had to resort to water.” He was finished for the season anyway, so the boss said, “Well come on in and we’ll give you something to wash the taste out of your mouth.”
That started it, and with Cinci there was no end. The next day we decanted him into the baggage car on the down train. Someone ragged the train crew saying, “How about that, you’re getting him back this time the same way you deliver him.”
Social Engineering
Wolves eat sporadically, and when they do can gain up to one hundred pounds at a sitting. Long ago Indians did the same: they might stay in one place alternately eating and sleeping until they were pot-bellied after making a kill. They were eating against a time of hunger: times could be lean before it occasioned to plenty again. Maple syrup time saw them binging and on outrageous sugar highs. I believe the bucheron may have absorbed this behavior and that’s why they have to divest themselves of money, energy, and good sense on any trip downtown. They’re storing up the high times for future need.
*****
Robert Currier, or as many know him- Farmer Bob, has lived on the land traditionally most of his life. He has built wilderness log cabins, logged, guided and prospected. He was the first recipient of the CBC/Big Brothers “Northern Moose Award” for best personifying the spirit of Northern Ontario.
Farmer Bob lives on his Mockingbird Hill Homestead Farm in beautiful Hiawatha Highlands, which backs onto Odena, Mile 9 on the Algoma Central Line. The farm is a singular burst of colour and beauty and one of Sault Ste. Marie’s premier attractions. It is open to the public year round.
Mockingbird Hill is a horse drawn replica of a Métis homestead in the thirties and forties. In summer the farm features wagon rides, market gardening, a petting barn, a corn maze, and a spectacular wild flower walk.
In winter Mockingbird Hill offers horse drawn sleigh rides and cutter rides on trails that are breathtakingly beautiful by day and romantically lantern-lit by night.
De Big-Shot Train by Robert Currier can be purchased at the Art Gallery of Algoma.
1.705.253.4712
Did you miss previous installments of the De Big-Shot Train? Catch up on Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.
