You | Me

I don’t remember learning to play Canasta, although I am pretty sure I wasn’t born knowing. It is kind of a constant in our family and I don’t remember a time when we didn't play.

My grandmother and the girls seated at the table where we played Canasta at the family farm.

Canasta is a cross between bridge and rummy. It was developed in the late 1940s by an architect and a lawyer in Uruguay as an easy and time-efficient alternative to bridge. It became a craze in Latin America and then came to North America where it was all the rage for awhile. My grandmother took a course on how to play in the 1950s in Edmonton. She taught it to her husband and her three sisters. And so it went.

When we were kids in the 1960s visiting our grandparents in Beaverlodge, the aunts - or the “girls” as my grandfather called them, even though they were in their 70s and hated being called the “girls” or the “aunts” because "we're individuals"- would come over and we would play. My one brother would team up with Granddad, both of them with the same strategy of going out early just to catch others with cards in their hands. I doubt it won them any games. For them it was less about themselves winning and more about us losing. My younger brother played with my grandmother, both quiet and crafty. They won a lot. I often played with my mom, for whom the cards were secondary to the chatter around the table. Canasta is a game you can play without concentrating too hard, although it’s hard to win if you aren't paying attention. Which, as my husband kindly points out, is why I never win since I am not paying attention at all. (I think he's overstating it BTW.)

Hart is winning, Tumbler Ridge.

In later years in Tumbler Ridge my sister learned a version called “Hand and Foot” where you have a second hand of cards -known as your “foot” - that you can only access when you have played down your hand. You need a lot of cards to play “Hand and Foot” and my parents had a chocolate box full of cards for that purpose. Hand and foot became the game of choice and it’s the version we play when we get together wherever we are.

Everyone has some kind of idiosyncrasy when it comes to this game.  Elizabeth never picks up the deck. My dad and my husband always pick up the deck and if you sit on one side of them, you will inevitably throw away something they will pick up and if you sit on the other side, you’ll be getting nothing but black threes all night. Cause for some cursing for sure. My brother is still quiet and crafty. It's important to know your partner's quirks because your cards need to merge advantageously with theirs in order for your team to win. Dave and Geordie, take note.

Kerry ponders a move.

My cousin Kerry and I keep up the chit chat now, which is hard not to do because when you have a dozen people or more all playing, it takes a long time before your turn comes around. Sometimes there can be silliness, like the time the kids decided it would fun to play in crazy hats and speak with accents. Or they brought a dog to the table. My dad found that annoying. He played like he was in it to win it and didn’t appreciate the distractions. Although he would occasionally add his own distractions with some choice terms or an engineering song.

When we weren’t there, my parents often played with just the two of them, keeping score night after night. The records still remain in that Pot of Gold chocolate box. My mom complained bitterly that Dad always won, but did he? When they died, our eldest asked for that box. Inside, decks and decks of cards mingled together, many worn and dirty. And page after page of Canasta scores in my dad’s handwriting, columns neatly labelled “You” and “Me”, detailing every game the two of them played, year after year. Somewhere in those records is a tally of all their scores, completed by my dad. In all those years and years of games, the point total was so close. She must have won at least half the time.

Dad's scoresheets.

When my mom’s dementia set in, she told us she couldn’t play. She didn’t know the rules. But then someone volunteered to play with her, maybe my cousin or my sister. In no time she had her hand organized. She could play. She remembered the rules even when she didn’t know what day or year it was or the names of her grandchildren sitting at the table. I guess when you do something so repeatedly, the rules get ingrained in you. Maybe that’s why Mom still knew the rules when so much else had fallen away.

My sister is unimpressed with her hand 

Today's game doesn't much resemble the one my grandmother learned so long ago. It's a game so you should care about winning or losing but nobody really cares if it's "you" or "me" that ends up with the higher score. Our game spans decades and generations, modified by time, geography and family dynamics. And while the rules may have changed, the essence remains.  Sitting around a table late at night surrounded by family, in a room filled with laughter. And maybe a little cursing.

Not Written in Stone

In January years ago I stood in the Halcourt cemetery watching my grandmother's casket being lowered into her grave. In the snow, surrounded by farm fields, with distant mountain views,  surrounded by the Canadian red granite tombstones of my maternal ancestors. There was something comforting about knowing my grandmother's remains would rest near those of her family. I knew her soul had left her body and those were just old bones that we were burying, but still, it seemed right that she was interred near all those she had loved in a place she felt she belonged.

Eventually, I thought, my parents would be buried there. And so would I. Generations of a family all in one place.

Years passed. 

And my dad said he didn't want a funeral, a grave or a tombstone. And really, what would connect him to the Halcourt cemetery? Those weren't his ancestors. That wasn't a place he had ever lived. It wasn't a place where he belonged.

"Just throw my body into the ocean," he said, ignoring the law and the fact that he lived hundreds of miles from the sea. As he got closer to the end of his life, he made arrangements with the local funeral home for cremation. When we talked about his passing, he repeated that he did not want a funeral. I told him his funeral wasn't for him. He would not be there to witness it. It was for us and he couldn't tell us how to grieve. "Just let us say goodbye the way we want," I said. He conceded. "I just don't want a fuss. I don't want any crying," he said. We had a funeral. And a memorial service. And there was plenty of crying. Later, my brother and his partner put Dad's ashes into the ocean. That's as close to honouring his request as we got, as close as we got to returning his remains to the sea. 

My mom refused to discuss any details about her funeral. To her dying day she rejected the very idea she would ever pass away. When she died, we scattered her ashes in the Murray River. "The Murray runs into the Pacific, doesn't it?" my other brother said. He didn't say it but we all understood. Eventually mom and dad's remains would be united.

When my father-in-law died, my mother-in-law did not want a funeral. She wanted a notice in the newspaper and that was all. The family gathered for a dinner. She never asked what we did with the ashes. When she dies, she wants the same for herself. No ceremony. No grave. Eventually her ashes will be united with his. She doesn't know that and she doesn't need to.

There are no tombstones to mark the lives of my parents or my father-in-law. There won't be one for my mother-in-law. There probably won't be one for me. Or my husband, when our time comes. No words etched on a rock sitting in a field of other rocks to remind others of our lives.  My mom and dad live in my heart and memory and in the lives of all they touched-as all people do. As I imagine I will do. I don't need words on stone for that.

I talked to some of my friends about their plans. Some have cemetary plots or columbaria already purchased. Others have nothing. One friend said she did not know what she and her husband would do, but "there should be...something?" It is part of our culture to leave something tangible behind.

As a young person I took comfort in thinking my remains would be surrounded by my ancestors in the place they once lived. But it is not a place where I have ever lived, nor is it a place where my kids will live. Part of me feels I belong there, but that feeling is fading with time. Now, I am connected to another family. We have lived in many places. Where I once felt connected to a particular piece of land, now I feel more of a connection with "the land" . My perception has shifted. I wonder about the point of buying a chunk of granite to sit in a graveyard. Wouldn't it be better to use that land to sustain the living instead of celebrating the dead?

I wonder why the fuss about statues erected to the memories of the "famous" people of history. What is the point? To remind us of their greatness? Of our history?  If I don't need a tombstone to remind me that my dad lived, why do I need one for Sir John A MacDonald? Will I forget he was Canada's first Prime Minister if there is no statue in his name? Will I forget there was a world war without a cenotaph of inscribed names?

History is not written in stone. History is alive and around us and influences us every day. My parents shaped who I am just as those who went before shaped Canada. Those influences, for good or ill, will continue to shape our identity as time marches on.

But history is not just about our stories. It's also about place. 

I think about the indigenous children who were buried in unmarked graves at residential schools across Canada. Not only the tragedy of their unnecessary deaths, but that their families had nowhere to go to mourn their passing. Where was their place? Like their lives, erased as if they had never been. Shouldn't there be ...something?

My grandfather was sent to Canada as an orphan. He came here for a better life and stayed for love. He lies buried in the Halcourt cemetery next to my grandmother. But what about his ancestors? They are buried in a tiny cemetery in the UK. 

My daughter said she would go look for the tombstones as the town is not far from where she lives. Maybe if she finds them, she will find a link to her own heritage. A Canadian who left her home country to pursue an education, like her great grandfather, she stayed for love. Maybe those old tombstones will give her a sense of belonging to the land of her ancestors.

And in the end I wonder if that's the real point of a tombstone. Like a funeral, a tombstone is not for the dead but for the living. It's not to memorialize the past but to provide a connection for those who remain. It's a link to our heritage and to the people who left us their legacies-good and bad- and the land that shapes us. 

Halcourt Cemetery

All the things you took for granted

Packing the car, taking special care of the thing you're supposed to bring for dinner

The long drive and the luminous trees

The driveway full of cars

Cousins and aunts and uncles. Relatives that don't "get" you, even though they try

New girlfriends and new husbands and new babies and neighbours you've never met

The turkey plates

The kids' table where you once sat

Grandfather carving the bird

Small talk

The mounds of food. Turkey and gravy and stuffing and home made buns with real butter and harvard beets and cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts and turnip and ham 

And the pies. So many pies. Fruit pies. Pumpkin pies. Flapper pies. With whipped cream or ice cream or both.

The endless cups of coffee 

Cleaning up. The women in the kitchen. The men in the living room. Kids underfoot. You and your cousin sneaking another bun with turkey even though you feel you might explode.

The drive home 

Looking at the stars. Stars that seem to go on forever. 

All the things you took for granted.

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George Martin, My Grandfather

My grandfather was as charming a man as you would ever want to meet. He was also funny, romantic, opinionated, a devoted family man, a great writer, and a worrier, especially about money. 

We were always told that he was an orphan who came to Canada to train to be an Anglican minister in the Eastern Townships of Quebec but he wasn't suited for that so instead he went to work for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce where he worked until 1966. My cousin recalled being told he had once worked at the bank in Montreal where his job was to remove old bills from circulation. 

Homestead Application

He ended up in Lake Saskatoon in 1914 which was a small pioneer town at the time. He met and married my grandmother, applied for a homestead, and then enlisted. A story he used to tell from this time period is how he extended his leave one weekend to marry my grandmother. He got into trouble when he returned to the barracks. "I'm very sorry, sir. I left to get married." "Good for you," his commanding officer said. "The army needs more brave men like you." 

Grandad at Sarcee Camp

During the war, my grandmother took a ship to England to be closer to my grandfather. She lived with his brother and sister-in-law, worked at a munitions factory, and met his relatives. He came home and worked in Lake Saskatoon. He must have given up on the homesteading idea and kept working for the bank in Pouce Coupe, Monitor, Delia, and finally Edmonton where he was in charge of the foreign exchange at the downtown branch. Finally he became manager of the Highlands Branch. 

After he retired, he and my grandmother bought a farm near Beaverlodge, next to her family homestead. He relieved for bank managers in the far north, including Uranium City, Inuvik, Aklavik, and Fort Smith. He loved the north and in a letter, told my grandmother life was hard there but (and "don't tell a soul I said this") "I far prefer them to those quiet prairie farm towns". He would be gone up to 9 weeks at a stretch and kept this up every year until he was 74. His brother in law Harold was coming for a visit and he planned to take him on a road trip to Yellowknife.

The farm

I know a lot about my grandfather. My grandmother saved every letter he ever sent, and there were many. But I don't know anything about his life before he came to Canada. I knew he remained in contact with his brothers and sisters back in the UK. He visited the UK several times and a couple of his relatives visited Canada. But was he an orphan? Why did he come to Canada and his siblings stayed behind? Was he ever a domestic or farm labourer like many child immigrants? 

The young George Martin

The Virginian

Lately I started wondering if he was a British Home Child. A little digging told me he had arrived in Canada on the ship The Virginian in 1907 when he was 14 years old. From there I contacted the British Home Children Advocacy & Research Association and they were able to help me fill in some missing pieces.

From Granddad's letters.

His parents were Arthur Martin (born 1862 in St. Ippolyts, a small village near Hitchen) and Elizabeth (Jackson). They were married October 22, 1881 at Barton le Clay, Bedford, England. Arthur's occupation is listed as horsekeeper on farm and they lived at Pound Cottage. Elizabeth died in 1898 and Arthur died in 1901 when my grandfather was nine. One of my cousins remembers Granddad telling him that he watched his dad take his mom to the doctor in a wheelbarrow. According to my grandfather's postcard, they are both buried in St. Ippolyts Cemetery. My daughter lives in the UK and plans to look for those graves.

Pound Cottage today

My great grandparents had the following children:

Lilly Martin born 1882 married to Sidney Pinn, Child Ida Lilly born 1909.
Berty Martin born 1886 married to Annie M Mansell. My grandmother Marion lived with them during the war and was good friends with Annie, according to my grandfather's letters. Berty's occupation was listed as railway fireman and later railway mechanic. Children Marion and Victor. Marion was born in 1919 and I believe she was named after my grandmother.
Percy Martin born 1890 married to Emma Langridge 1911, occupation - railway carriage cleaner and later, woodkeeper. Children Lilian E Martin born 1917, Queenie S Martin born 1920, Stanley J Martin born 1923.
George Jackson Martin, later named George William Martin, July 20 1892,  at Bishop's Stortford, an historic market town in Hertfordshire. Married Marion MacNaught, Dec 1914 Children Margaret Elizabeth Martin born March 20 1920 and  (my mom) Janet Isabel Martin born July 9 1922.

Sarah (Cis) Martin, born 1895, married to Harold Pontin, 24 May 1919, child Ronald Pontin born 1932, died 1999.

Tunbridge Wells Home

When his parents died, my grandfather was placed in St Georges Home for Boys in Tunbridge Wells, run by the Church of England. I assume his older siblings were old enough to make a go of it on their own and his younger sister was taken care of by other relatives. By weird coincidence, my Canadian born daughter was married in Tunbridge Wells. Here she is in front of the old home for boys.

Jordan at the former location of St. George's Home.

Passenger List for The Virginian

From there Granddad travelled by ship along with 14 other boys, accompanied by a Mr. Brewster. My cousin Jansi remembers that he told her a nun on the ship gave him a small elephant carving. He collected elephants for his whole life and frequently made up stories about Jumbo the Elephant when we were kids . He went to Gibbs Home in Sherbrooke Quebec when he arrived in Canada. I don't know what those years were like before he started with the bank. Did he really start training to be an Anglican minister? Did he work on a farm as many home children did? 

Grandad's name appears in the middle column. 

The helpful archivist at the Bank of Commerce was able to find out that he started work as a ledger keeper in Bishopton Quebec in 1912, moved to Winnipeg where he was a clerk, and then Lake Saskatoon where he met my grandmother. He stayed with the bank for decades, relieving for bank managers everywhere from Beaverlodge to Aklavik for years after his official retirement.

My grandfather had a wonderful life. He loved his wife and family. He had a rewarding career, becoming bank manager in Monitor in 1929, and later manager of the Highlands Branch in Edmonton. He and my grandmother raised two daughters during the depression. Their home was a welcome haven for both new employees of the bank and soldiers from the Peace Country during WWII. My mom and aunt were educated with impressive careers of their own, they were great moms, and active members of their community. My grandparents were married for 62 years. They  left behind 10 grandchildren, 21 great grandchildren and 25 great great grandchildren at last count. 

Granddad at Lake Saskatoon bank, supplied by CIBC Archives.

Monitor Branch, supplied by CIBC Archives.

Taking Root

Last year I wrote about leaving our house behind for another family to use. Leaving the house was hard. Leaving the yard that we spent years nurturing was really hard.

Len and Pippa on the back deck of the old house

When we bought that house, we were the fourth owners in just over 20 years. Like many houses in our northern town, it had been owned by one family after another who perhaps knew they would not stay. Maybe that's why no one had had put much time or effort into the little yard. There was one spruce too close to the house, a pyramid cedar, and a scraggly lilac. You could see right into the neighbour's yards. The first year we were there, we planted 9 trees. We added more over the years, along with some shrubs and numerous perennials and even a tiny raised plot for tomatoes. By the time we left, our modest and somewhat exposed yard was a green bower, shaded on all sides by growing things. 

Back yard 

Every time we planted a tree in our little yard we would ask, "How big is this thing going to get? Will it be too big for the space?" And then we would shrug and say, "How long are we going to live here anyway? Not long enough for any tree to get too big."  That wasn't true. We stayed for 14 years. Long enough for the apple to produce more fruit than we could ever eat. Long enough for the volunteer mountain ash we dug out of our previous yard to tower over the store bought mountain ash, the amur maple, the columnar cedars and Hart's grade one spruce tree.

We had many failures in our tree planting adventures. A Chinese weeping willow from Hole's Greenhouse was a gorgeous tree for many years until a harsh winter caused it to die back. It kept regrowing from the base but it was no longer a tree- it was a weedy shrub that was impossible to kill. We had a fabulous flowering plum that thrived for years and then faded away and died. A hybrid rose that bloomed for years and then gradually died away. 

The maple thriving in the back corner

Our biggest challenge was in the back corner where a greenhouse had once stood. Try as we might, we could not get anything to grow there. We first tried a silver tip maple that lasted a year, obviously not hardy enough for that zone. Once we planted a Russian Olive, knowing that several neighbours had massive ones. Surely it would live. But no. It was frustrating.  Around about that time, a maple started growing outside our bedroom window. The key must have blown over from the Tange's massive tree across the street. Under the window was no place for a tree since it was in a narrow passageway between two houses. But we let it grow because I loved seeing something green instead of a blank wall. However, it did not take long before it was just too big for the space. "Let's dig it out and stick it in the hole in the back corner," I suggested. By then this thing was a good 8 feet tall. My husband had to hack out most of the root since it was growing right up against the house. "That's not gonna live," we said as we stuck the bare root in the sad mix of clay and old muskeg in the back corner. But if we didn't transplant it, it was going to die anyway. It didn't cost us anything but labour. And it obviously liked our soil and climate. Darn it if the thing not only lived, but flourished. 

Unlike our previous yard, the yard in our new house has not been neglected. Under the stewardship of its only owners, every inch of the yard has been meticulously landscaped and loved. The plants have been fertilized. The well-placed trees and shrubs have been pruned. When Jack and Nancy designed their yard, they designed it for the future. They grew a garden that they could enjoy for years. And now it's ours.

It is odd, tending someone else's garden. But it has also been fun discovering what grows. What plant is this popping up so soon in the front yard? Oh, it's a bleeding heart! The bears seem to like the shaggy nanking cherries-should we take them out? But oh no, look at how beautiful the blossoms are, how sweet it smells, how many bees buzz around. What are these, cropping up all along the retaining wall? Anemones nodding their white heads. Clematis creeping up the wall. The climbing rose. A little patch of rhubarb, nothing like abundant plant from the last house, which pleases my husband who apparently doesn't like rhubarb. Peonies that I was never ever able to get to grow in my muskeg based dirt. 

Peonies in the back garden

At the edge of the property, a patch of native mahonia aquifolium blooms. Oregon Grape. It has planted itself along with a little nanking cherry and a willow. Found throughout the nearby forest, its early yellow blooms have the most amazing smell. Its holly like leaves last year-round and its bitter fruit makes a lovely jelly.

Mahonia aquifolium

Towering grasses and Humpty Dumpty dwarf pines and a massive maple whose red leaves are a sight to behold in fall. There is almost nothing to do with this yard but to enjoy it. 

Sir Isaac and Guapo under the maple

Still we want to make it our own, just a little. We are trying to figure out where to plant an apricot tree and how to protect it from the deer and bears that wander freely through the unfenced neighbourhoods. There was a dead plant out front. "I think a hydrangea would do well there," I said to my husband. As he was digging out the old plant he said, "Did you know they used to have a hydrangea here?" For sure enough there was the old plastic tab of the previous hydrangea, a pink one, just like the one I bought with my Mother's Day gift certificate from my daughter. 

Deer hiding under the mountain ash

One of the clematis in the back is dead so I dug out a wild clematis columbiana- a native species also known as "virgin's bower" - from the wooded lot next door and planted it next to the dead one in the garden. It had an impressive root system and I am not sure if it will survive. It is is a native species, and like that volunteer mountain ash in our old yard, I hope it will take root. But I also know not all wild things can survive in the richer soils of the domestic garden.

Clematis Columbiana in the wild

Whenever I stick a new plant into the ground, I talk to it and encourage it to grow. "Bloom where you're planted' is nice sentiment. But it doesn't always apply to plants. Some plants cannot grow wherever we plant them, no matter how much care we give, any more than they can thrive wherever their seeds blow. But according to the saying plants and people are supposed to thrive wherever they find themselves. 

The McNaught descendents, Beaverlodge Alberta

My ancestors were pioneers. My great-grandparents and their many descendents have transplanted themselves far from where they were born, working hard to flourish in new environments from the Peace Country to southern Alberta to Vancouver Island to California to France to the UK. My husband's family is much the same. Some places are easier than others. Just as it is for plants, some species are best suited for certain environments. Some can adapt better than others. The ground may be fertile for a maple or a mountain ash, but not for a Russian Olive. The weather will be ideal for rhubarb but not hydrangeas. 

Some species will take root, but others will find their environment too inhospitable. They may find their tender new growth eaten alive by animals or insects, mowed down by weed wackers, destroyed by herbicides or even blasted out by a tiger torch. Or they might try really hard for a long time but be taken out in a single season by unexpected events. Or eventually they may succumb to the elements, wither and die. While some invasive and introduced species survive by nature or nurture, sometimes the indigenous species are all that will live. 

Arrowleaf balsalmroot, a native species in the forest nearby

Unlike plants, humans can try to create their own environment, water and fertilize and create their own little microclimate. Sometimes that works. But if you are fighting Mother Earth, eventually the real nature of the place will win. You might survive but you'll never blossom.

I have always tried to bloom where I was planted. Tried to live my best life no matter where I have lived. I haven't always succeeded. Sometimes I wonder if it's not just easier to relocate to a place where you fit in instead of constantly battling elements outside your control. 

Will we thrive here? Right now we are finding the climate and soil pretty sustaining. Let's see if those roots will hold. 

Before and After the Fire

 May 15 2011

If you didn't live there before the fire, you don't know.

You don't know what it was like that day, watching the sky, talking to your neighbours, scanning social media and internet news.

You don't know what it was like to listen. Listen so hard for a voice that told you to go. 

A voice that never came.

You don't know how the news the fire had breached the highway shot through town like an electric current.

You don't know the weird mix of fear and calm as you fled.

You don't know the anxiousness of waiting. 

Waiting to find out if anyone had died. Because surely someone had.

Waiting to find out if your house was still standing. 

Waiting to hear who among your friends was homeless.

You may have heard the stories, but you don't fully understand how people helped save each other.  

And you can't know the stillness in your car when you drove back into your town. When you had no words to describe what you were seeing.

You can't know the devastation that no picture can show, as much a feeling as an image. You can't know that particular sadness.

But you might know. You should know how people came together to try to rebuild something. Something better.

Before the fire. 

After the fire.

A day that defined Slave Lake.

In front of our house. Photo Credit: Len Ramsey

Fire breaches the highway. Photo credit: Bruce Turnbull

Making our escape

Watching the fire burn through town.

Photo credit: Len Ramsey