Arctic Red River (Tsiigehtchic)1953/54

In June 1953 we moved from Fort Wrigley to Arctic Red River (now Tsiigehtchic, "Mouth of the Iron River'). I was five and my sister Tania was almost two. This community was quite a bit larger than Fort Wrigley, having an RC Mission, an RCMP detachment, and a school with one teacher (Maggie) in addition to a sizeable Indian community. The Indians here spoke Loucheux (now Gwich'in), so my father learned the fundamentals of a new trading language. Our primary outside contact was by scheduled radio telegraph with RCSignals in Aklavik, using Morse code. We also had monthly mail service from Aklavik by air, and once or twice in the summer supplies arrived on HBCo river barges. 

The settlement is on the southeast bank of the confluence of the Arctic Red and Mackenzie Rivers, at 67.44852° -133.74678°. This is about 100 km north of the arctic circle, so the winter days were very short and in the summer daylight never seemed to end. Tsiigehtchic is across the river from the Dempster Highway which opened in 1979 to connect Dawson City to Inuvik. When we were there Inuvik was being planned but construction hadn't started. The only settlements downstream from Tsiigehtchic were Aklavik and Reindeer Station. 

Google Earth image from 2022 showing the Mackenzie River ferry crossing for the Dempster Highway to Inuvik. 

Tsiigehtchic in 1957, with the Arctic Red River flowing from the left and our house with the white fence. The RCMP detachment is to the right of the frame, and the school on the trail at the bottom of the photo. The lake was reputed to be the site of the massacre of an Inuvialuit camp many years earlier. There was a telephone line connecting the mission, school, RCMP and HBCo - the posts are visible in the photograph from NWT Archives, Robert C Knights fonds. This collection has many excellent photos from his time as RCMP constable in Tsiigehtchic. 

The view from our house. My friend Archie's house is near the centre of the photo. The HBCo was at the top of a steep hill with a rough road up from the river. Mike used a small caterpillar with a sledge to haul freight up from the riverboat landing. In the spring the constable borrowed the cat to haul the RCMP boat the river, and it slipped into a boggy creek near the detachment causing days of consternation getting it out. 

My first school experiences were in Tsiigehtchic. The RC Mission had a school not far from our house, in the bush behind the rest of the settlement. The teacher, Maggie, became good friends with our family, and I would go to her home/school often, even sleeping over at times. She taught me how to snare rabbits in the bush behind her house - how to see their paths and set the snare-wire loop at the right size and height. I remember the screeches of rabbits getting caught at night when we were lying in bed. I also remember her washing the lice out of kids’ hair with kerosene when it was warm enough outside. I learned the alphabet, how to read and print, do numbers, and sing French songs, like Frère Jacques. We lost touch with Maggie when we left, but 30 years later I learned from a friend that she was retired and living in Edmonton at the General Hospital Grey Nun’s residence. Unfortunately I postponed visiting her there until it was too late.

That winter we staged a play of a justice court proceeding, with myself as judge, Archie as policeman, and several kids as jury. There had been a murder in the town earlier that year. Fred Cardinal, a well-to-do Métis fur trader, was being tried for killing his wife - he was found guilty and hanged in Fort Smith on May 18, 1954 (Last NWT Execution). I remember banging the gavel. Our play was well attended!

Our Christmas school play, 1953. My best friend Archie is in the police uniform, with a borrowed RCMP hat. I got to be the judge, with my spectacles, moustache, robe, leather shoes and bible! Check out the beautiful mukluks and moccasins. 

I mostly played with Archie, whose family name I don’t know. We would tunnel deep into the snowdrifts, burrowing into roadside ditches and making rooms inside. It was a lot warmer out of the wind. Blizzard winds swirled a huge drift in the middle of the HBCo compound that we hollowed out for a room that we could stand up in. A bunch of kids joined us and kept pulling snow off the roof until it collapsed on us. Archie and I also used toboggans on the long hill in front of the store. The packed snow was very fast - we could go half-way to the river. One day a loose sled dog approached us growling and snarling. I was taught never to run from a dog, just stand still and shout for help. If one ran, the risk of tripping was too dangerous, as you could become dog-food! So I hollered and cried until Mike came out of the store with a rifle and shot the dog. The owner was not pleased. 

Tania and I standing by the master bedroom window.  Above the house is one of the radio antenna poles for the shortwave radio. In addition to communication with Aklavik, we could listen to the English broadcast from Radio Moscow. 

My sister and I sliding on the hill in front of the store, 1954. 

Tania and I were drawing with pencils in the kitchen when she decided to run into the office room by the back door. She tripped on the doorjamb, and fell with the pencil pointed upwards, and the point stuck in her face underneath her eye. There was blood everywhere, and for a few minutes we thought she had punctured her eyeball. If she had required emergency medical help the only option would have been for Mike to contact RC Signals in Aklavik by radio, using a telegraph key switch with Morse code.  Mike struggled with some of the operators who became impatient with his slow keying. I can't imagine how he would have managed in a crisis!

Tania and I busy in the kitchen. There was no plumbing in the house, so in the winter water had to be melted from ice. The light over the sink is powered by a 32-watt DC circuit connected to batteries in the "lighting plant" building that were charged with a gasoline-motor generator. A kerosene heater kept the acid in the bank of batteries from freezing. 

Me with Mackenzie River ice blocks for household water.

Playing outside in winter had its hazards for a five-year-old. When we were in Montreal I had received a Lionel train set for Christmas. I left some cars outside in the winter and they got wet and froze, so Mom put them in the oven to dry them so they wouldn’t rust, and sadly the wheels melted flat on one side. I also had a die-cast metal alloy toy tractor, an International Harvester like my Dedushka’s, that my Uncle Mike bought from the dealer in Kamsack. It had a steering wheel that actually turned the front wheels. One winter day I was outside playing and found it covered in frost. I decided, like kids do, to taste the frost. Aaahhh. I ran into the house in a panic, wailing with this heavy thing hanging from my tongue. Mom had to warm it with water to release it. One of my favourite toys for a while was a cardboard box with holes in it that I put over my head so I could pretend to be a flying a helicopter around the house making whop-whop-whop sounds. Helicopters fascinated me after riding in one in Fort Wrigley the previous year. 

The inside of the house was finished with varnished plywood walls and linoleum floors. There were always lots of books in the northern HBCo houses, and new magazines like Saturday Evening Post and The Moccasin Telegraph were highly valued. The ornaments on the shelves are still in the family, some with me, some with my sister's daughter. 

Our mail came every few weeks from Aklavik by airplane landing on the river. In winter, when the pilot had to stay overnight because of bad weather or lack of daylight, he would cover the engine of the airplane with an insulated tarp and leave a kerosene burner under it to keep the -40° temperature from freezing the engine. 

Associated Airlines flew to Tsiigehtchic from Aklavik, bringing our mail and other freight, such as frozen meat from Reindeer Station. This de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, CF-GQN, was in a serious accident, flipping over while landing on weak ice in Fort Rae on November 7, 1953. The aircraft appears to be leaving, based on the moving propeller and the frightened dog-team with the driver keeping a foot firmly on the brake. Note the trees sticking in the snow marking safe flat ice for the plane to land and take off. 

One warm sunny spring afternoon some kids decided to take a couple of dog-teams to Aklavik, which is about 80 miles downstream from Tsiigehtchic, in the Mackenzie delta. I went along, and we got several miles away before the RCMP constable caught up with us and made us return home. When we arrived at our house Mike told him to “lock him up if he won’t stay home”. So he took me to the jail and I spent a few hours alone in a cell, pretty sure that I wouldn’t have to stay the night, but very relieved when Mike came to pick me up for dinner. 

The constable, whose name I recall sounded like 'Ozhay' , was a character. He called our house one night mumbling inarticulately on the phone. Mike rushed over to the detachment to find him in agony on the kitchen floor. He had a bad tooth, and had attempted to extract it with pliers, using over-proof rum for anesthetic. Mike had to finish the job. He had a cat. Getting sugar for his coffee one morning he found the cat had used the sugar bowl as a litter-box, carefully covering the job.

This letter to Mike was on a TCA North Star passenger plan that collided with an RCAF Harvard trainer over Moose Jaw on April 8, 1954. It was found in the wreckage that scattered over a five kilometre radius in the city's northeast end. One of the North Star's engines landed on the city's main street, and its fuselage crashed into a house near a school with 360 students inside. Thirty-seven people died in the tragedy, including one Moose Jaw citizen. No responsibility for the accident was ever determined. 

We left Tsiigehtchic in July 1954 for our first vacation out of the North, and then moved to Fort Providence. 

Mom, Tania, me and my father Mike at his family home at #1 Frank Street, Winnipeg, August 1954.