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Chapter 4: Off to the West
May 19th found us up very early, & getting all in readiness for the train which left in the middle of the day, we had arranged with the trades people, to take back some of our furniture, the rest we took with us consequently our packages now numbered 23 besides the hamper for the dogs, & the 13 small ones consisting of travelling bags, rugs & shawls, the weather had been very warm May 3rd the ther 73° still we knew the nights would be cool, so we provided ourselves with the same wraps as before, & again replenished the provisions hamper; altogether my sister & I thought we had enough to take care of besides the children & the dogs, which always came for a run whenever we changed cars. My husband had some difficulty in deciding the best way of taking our luggage, at last we determined to take the smallest boxes & have the packing cases & barrels in which our beds were packed, to come by freight; this cost 40 dol & delayed us a night at Port Hope, I was greatly disappointed at not being able to stay at Toronto instead, as it was we were only there long enough to change trains & saw nothing of the town.
At 6:30PM we reached Sarnia here the Custom Officer came to inspect all our valises before allowing the cars to go on board the boat which took us across Lake Huron. It was certainly a novel mode of travelling, the whole train was on the ferry & we could get out & walk about the boat & enjoy the cool breeze, for during the day, it had been very warm; on reaching Port Huron, we were in the States & arrived at Detroit about 10PM. Here we had to change & gladly availed ourselves of the opportunity to have some coffee, which we liked better than the tea, as that was generally allowed to boil & was consequently bitter & disagreeable. The next morning we were at Chicago & went in an omnibus to the St. Paul & Minneapolis depot.
This city too we should like to have seen more of, the part we passed through from its large buildings & immense traffic reminded us of Liverpool. The journey had so far been a most enjoyable one, the country in its spring freshness looked everywhere beautiful, & we all felt glad that we had not farther in April. A short time before reaching Chicago we passed the extraordinary sand hills or dunes on the shores of Lake Michigan to us they appeared mountains if sand, pointed at the top, there were a number of them of various sizes.
Leaving Chicago at 9 A.M. we travelled through some beautiful scenery, passing Milwaukee & several pretty places. It was unfortunate that we crossed the Mississippi at night. We had been told that this part was very picturesque & the scene by moonlight was certainly lovely, still it was only a limited view & I longed to see from windows on each side of the car at the same time we arrived at St. Paul about 7 o'clock on the morning of the 22nd & went to a hotel near the station. It was one of the cleanest & most comfortable we had been in since leaving Peterborough, we were shown into a nice little ladies room where we were able to refresh ourselves with soap & water & the use of a brush, for oh! the dirt it was disagreeable beyond expression in England we thought ourselves uncomfortable after a journey for a few hours, but that was nothing to what we felt after 2 days & 2 nights with only an occasional wash of our hands at the stations where we stopped for meals when it was a dreadful rush to get into the lavatory. We had provided ourselves with soap, & towels so sometimes got a little water from the large tin of iced water placed in each car, & sponged the little ones hands & faces, for poor children their discomfort was worse than our own. We had taken our tickets to St. Paul before leaving England & here the emigrant agent befriended us, allowing us to travel 1st class at a lower charge. At 9 o'clock we resumed our journey, but the scenery was of a most uninteresting character. We were 33 hours passing over the Minnesota plains which seemed like a sea of land, for as far as the eye could reach, it was flat treeless prairie, only a belt of fir trees occasionally to be seen in the distance, there was few houses but the stations were more frequent than I expected from so sparsely a populated country. At each there were a few small houses, generally some wagons & implements for sale & invariably the words "Billiard Salon" were painted on the board of the small hotel. We saw some land cultivated, but very very little compared with the thousands of acres unbroken, one very noticeable piece of ploughing, was a furrow four miles in length, we were told the ploughmen went from one end to the other & back before his dinner & during the afternoon the soil was very deep & apparently free from stone & looked exceedingly dark & fertile, but at this season much of it was under water. The tediousness of the first long day was greatly relieved by our making the acquaintance of a party of engineers from Ottawa who were joining the CPR Survey at Winnipeg. They were most kind in lending us books & gave us much information about Manitoba, cheering us greatly, for we had been almost afraid to think of what we might expect, after hearing such terrible accounts of the cold & everything else connected with this new country when in Ontario. We stopped at Breakonridge for our evening meal & as we were returning to the train an official met us with the news that a telegram had been received & the train would go no further that night. Imagine our dismay! The Hotel was extremely small & the only alternative was to spend that night & the whole of the following day Sunday in the stationary cars. Being a case of "Noleus voleus" we arranged ourselves as comfortably as we could & prepared for a quiet night, just as we were settled another official walked through with the intelligence that we were going on at once, a freight train having arrived our car was to be put on to that, to this we should not have objected, but all from the other cars who were anxious to go on, were crowded into our's making it most unpleasant. The water too which was in the car, made us all ill. We had been very thirsty during the warm day of Saturday, & the whole of that night & Sunday, my sister, myself, & the children were so ill, that I was quite frightened & thought we must be going to have a fever. We started on at 10PM & the hours until we arrived at St. Vincent the next evening at 7 were some of the most irksome I ever spent, long will that Trinity Sunday be remembered by us all. It was raining when we reached St. Vincent & everything looked miserable the tiny Hotel was none too clean, still we were only too glad to get there & go to bed; my sister, self & children, being fortunate enough to get a bed-room with 2 beds in it, my husband sleeping with a young Frenchman. After a nights rest we felt better, & the sunshine made the little place look more attractive. Having breakfast we went to the station, to ascertain when the train would leave & could not restrain a smile when the man said "The cars stayed at Breakonridge yesterday, I guess they'll be here presently" we were evidently to wait for the train we had before travelled by to arrive before the one from the Manitoba station would start, for here we leave the States & enter Manitoba.
Accordingly we prepared to spend a long morning at St. Vincent & determined to brave the mud & go for a walk, so going to the Hotel to leave the younger children, we were just on the point of starting when who should we meet? But our late travelling companions the CPR surveyors. Had it not been for the comfortable nights rest, which we so much needed I think we should have felt provoked that they had travelled in 14 hours, what it had taken us 21 to accomplish & under much more favourable circumstances. After some delay we once more took our seats & really started for Winnipeg, the appearance of the country was decidedly uninteresting being flat & much under water & we missed the beautiful trees of Ontario & Eastern Canada. The train went but slowly & it was 10 o'clock before we completed our journey, thanks to our friends we were soon in our omnibus & on our way to a hotel.
The mud was such as is never seen in England, so everyone was anxious to ride, 19 occupying the inside only, the road was rough & the jolting which was beyond anything we had before experienced caused much merriment, though we had 4 horses it seemed sometimes doubtful if they would be able to take us to our various destinations. We had to cross the Red River before going into the town, a steep hill led to the river side & when we had safely descended it, the omnibus & horses went on board the boat & we were ferried across, Altogether our modes of travelling had been various & at 11 o'clock May 24th 1880 we arrived at the Rossin House Winnipeg.
The Proprietor at first demurred at taking us in, but knowing the town full, we agreed to occupy a large room containing 2 double bedsteads & 2 stretchers covered only with buffalo robes & to share it with 3 sisters, that we had travelled with from St. Paul, on hearing the next day of others who had been obliged to sleep on the parlour floor, we considered ourselves fortunate.
