Page 11 - A Visit with Nan Morrison, Baddeck / Tommy Peggy MacDonald: The Cabin

ISSUE : Issue 47

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/1/1

hard of hearing. I said, "Don't worry, An? gus. I'll be up in the morning, and I'll be out waiting for you. He won't know a thing about it." So sure enough, I did. Met them outside, and then we left. (Who are we talking about?) Sandy and Angus (Urquhart). And Tommy (Peggy MacDonald). And myself. (Had they been going out there?) Oh, yes. Trapping. Trapping furs. (Did women not go out?) No, they were never out. There was never a woman out there but myself. They had a little camp out there. Well, I would say it was about 3 or 4 miles back of my house. You had to go up on part of a mountain, I guess, to get there. I can't remember much about it. I went on snowshoes. And again, Angus was behind me, you know. If anything happened, he was right behind me. We left at 4 o'clock in the morning, and we were out there at noontime. They had to shovel their way in. It was snow--you couldn't see the door. And when we got in-- I had breeches on, in that picture. And then the next picture you saw was in my dress. I took the breeches off. And they said they were going setting the traps, or to look at the traps and re-set them, and that I could cook the potatoes and herring. So I put the potatoes and herring on, and I laid on the couch. There were a couple of couches there, 'cause they used to sleep out there overnight. I laid on the couch and I fell asleep. And it was the boys com? ing back that woke me up. Potatoes and her- NAN CONTINUES NEXT PAGE Tommy Peggy MacDonald: The Cabin Oh, it was a good cabin. When we first started (trapping), there was an older log cabin there that (Sandy Urquhart's) father and his uncle--they used to go out trap? ping. So when we went out the first year-- oh, it wasn't too big, anyway--but it was getting pretty shaky. Logs were getting rotten. The following fall we decided we'd build a new one. And we had a dandy camp there. Just 10 by 12, you know. It was about 8 feet in the centre--standing room. And we built entirely of logs from the ground up. And we had a pitched roof on it, and brought it in just exactly like an or? dinary pitch. We built it in the centre of a nice grove of white and black spruce. And peeled every one of (the logs) clean and white. In a few years' time they were that hard, man, you couldn't notch them. We had them notched on the corner. And we notched them so they'd be quite close to? gether, and we chinked them--all kinds of moss out there. And then we had a grove of nice white birch right close by. We got the birchbark off that. Oh, they were beautiful birch trees--that white birch--got sheets about, oh, some of them 3-by-3 and 3-by-4. Just slit them down and they'd peel right off. So we put 3 layers of that on. (Was this for the roof?) The roof and down to about 3 feet from the ground. There was never a drop of water came through it. It was tight as a bottle. And warm. When you'd get that pretty well covered around with snow--when you'd open the door, when you'd go out--you'd think there was a fire in there.... (And you told me once about the table.) It TOMMY PEGGY CONTINUES NEXT PAGE (11)

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