Winter, the First

In honour of the first day of Winter...

Digging through Grandma Berg's Journals again . . .

Grandma and Grampa Berg were married in a small Lutheran church in Blackfoot, Idaho on April 20, 1919.

Throughout the summer, they worked on the farm they shared with another couple, Nanny and Axel Karlsson. In October of that year, they moved to their new land west of Millicent, Alberta, where they would raise their family.

But their first winter wasn’t spent on that land. Instead, they went with another couple, the Palms, to the Fort McMurray area to run a trapline.

Our story starts there . . .

What a winter it was! We had brought a supply of kerosene and food—flour, sugar, jam, beans, dried fruit, salted pork, powdered milk, butter and frozen potatoes—which supplemented with moose and rabbit meat made our diet quite adequate.

I baked bread in a stone oven built by Petrus outside the cabin. A fire was built inside the oven until the stones were hot. The heat from the rocks baked lovely bread!

The two men were often in the wilderness for days at a time, tending their trapline with snowshoes and dog teams. Although Petrus was bush wise, one time they lost their bearings in a storm and were wandering for nine days before stumbling on another trapper’s cabin. The trapper wisely, slowly brought the half-starved pair back onto food by allowing them only one pancake every hour over a period of hours.

Never had pancakes tasted so good!

I was expecting my first baby in January and plans were made to leave before that time. However, the snow kept falling and by Christmas time the train stopped running. [Mrs. Palm and I] prepared for the baby by knitting and sewing little garments out of yarn and flannelette we had brought with us . . .

When I went into labour, Petrus ran behind the dogteam twenty miles to Lac La Biche where he had been told of a midwife. When he found the experienced native midwife, she first hesitated until an RCMP constable persuaded her to come. Many precious hours had passed and Petrus was beside himself. The woman finally gathered the necessary supplies and settled herself into the sled.

With anxious urging, the hardy dogs made a short time of the twenty or more miles, arriving at the cabin about midnight.

Soon Petrus was greeted by the cry of his first-born son. 

All the frustrations of the day were forgotten in the joy of holding this precious child.

There is some disagreement among family members about whether Grandpa and the midwife arrived in time to assist in the birth. To settle the issue, my Uncle Roy put the question to Uncle Glen, the baby in the story.

“Glen, you were there. Were you delivered by the midwife or not?”

Uncle Glen turned his head at a wry angle and taking his chin in his left hand, with deep thought and deliberations, he answered, “You know, I can’t remember.”