Fort Wrigley 1952/53

After he finished Fur School in Montreal my father received his first post as HBCo manager in Fort Wrigley. We arrived in May, 1952. My sister was one year old, I was four. My sister and I would sit on the riverbank watching the boats pushing long lines of barges on the river - oil from Norman Wells going south and annual supplies going north. The first HBCo boat of the year was called the banana boat. I clearly remember Wrigley Rock, as well as seeing the hills beyond the rock. My father would get the mail from the Wrigley airport 7 miles upstream and across the river, by canoe in the summer and walking in the winter. I vaguely remember watching him walk home along the far shore of the river before crossing on the ice in front of our house. Using the radio to contact the airport would have been Mom's only recourse if he hadn't shown up. Four years earlier two RCSignals members had a near tragedy making this walk! Our family socialized with the RCSignals staff at Wrigley airport, but not often. The only other non-Indian people in the village itself were the priest and brother at the RC Mission next door. My father learned the basics of the local South Slavey dialect to trade merchandise for fur. In the winter we had occasional visits from the RCMP patrolling by dogsled from Fort Simpson 150 miles upstream.

The settlement of Fort Wrigley was abandoned in 1965 and residents moved to a new townsite at the Wrigley airport. Nothing remains at the site (63°15'56"N, 123°36'32"W) now.

In the summer a family of Christian missionaries visited Fort Wrigley for a few days. They used the upstairs of the warehouse for sessions which included drawing with crayons. I remember drawing an apple and being so surprised when the young woman suggested adding a leaf - I had never realized apples came from trees!

Our family sitting on the missionaries' boat, summer 1952. Notice Mike is wearing a tie - he loved to dress well for any occasion.

My sister Tania, aged 10-11 months, held by the daughter of the missionaries.
Wrigley Rock in the background, and that is likely the HBCo canoe.

A local boy, the missionary family, my sister and I on their boat.

Tania and I on the bank of the Mackenzie at Fort Wrigley watching bulk fuel being barged upstream.

A playmate and I picking flowers on the riverbank.

Behind me are the store and lighting plant.

Our house from the store window. 

Mike painted this tiger on the master bedroom wall. Years later I heard that the wife of next HBCo manager couldn't stand it so he put a sheet of plywood over the wall. 

Mike on his way to the airport in late spring 1953, I'm guessing near the east shore of the MacKenzie River at about 63.23619° -123.52181°. Those are blocks of ice along the shore - it looks like he turned the canoe so the photographer, possibly Mom, could include them in the shot. 

Me picking crocuses on a hill a kilometre west of town. Our house and the store are just visible.

Our house. The wind charger tower was gone as we had moved to a gasoline-powered generator to charge the 32-volt battery of lead-acid cells in the building on the left.
Photo from RCSignals website.

The fence on the left is our yard.
Photo from RCSignals website.

Photo from RCSignals website.

This 1957 view of Fort Wrigley shows the store and our house at the very edge of the aircraft wing, from what may be a Nordair DC4.
Photo by Bart Hawkins, from NWT Archives, N-1992-254-0289. 

Fort Wrigley was abandoned in 1965 when Indian Affairs and Northern Development moved the residents to a new Wrigley townsite north of the airport, ostensibly because of the swampy nature of the land and for convenience of access to the south. However, this Google Earth image from 2022 shows structures at the old site, almost exactly where the HBCo buildings once stood. These don't appear in older Google Earth images. I don't have an explanation for this apparent re-settlement. If any readers know please share....

In the summer of 1953 Mike was transferred to Arctic Red River.

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.

Fort Providence 1954-58

In the summer of 1954 we left Arctic Red River for our semi-annual holiday with family in Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, then moved to Fort Providence. This was our largest town yet - a RC Mission with a residential school, RCMP detachment, and Royal Canadian Signals operation, in addition to a large population of Indian and Métis families. I started Grade One here at the Sacred Heart Mission School, with only one other non-native kid - Carol Upton whose father Al worked for RCSignals.

Me with a raven in front of the Sacred Heart Mission School, 1954

The HBCo in 1954, store on the left, lighting plant, our house, toolshop and warehouse. The overhead lines are for telephone, we were one long two short, my father would answer "Here Before Christ", which was factually incorrect as the RC Mission was established in Fort Providence (1860) before the HBCo opened business here. 

Fort Providence had an airport 4 miles upstream from the community that was built by the US Army at the beginning of the war to support the Canol project.  Canadian Pacific Airlines would bring our mail in Dakota C-47's (Douglas DC-3's)which were converted from military to commercial use after the war. The HBCo ran the post office.

Spring 1955, meeting the mail plane with the HBCo truck. The face in the truck window might be Mom. My father insisted I call him Mike when we met the plane - he liked to flirt with the flight attendants, and didn't want Daddy mentioned. I happily went along with the charade - eventually he ignored me calling him Dad or Daddy at any time, and I ended up calling him Mike the rest of his life. Kodachrome, 1-25.

1956, lounging in front of the store. The man with the guitar may be David Bonnet Rouge.
 Kodachrome, 5-16.

Angus McLeod serving customers in the store, 1957. Forty years earlier the bodies of Angus's uncles Willie and Frank McLeod were found in the Nahanni Valley without their heads, leading to the area being named The Headless Valley. The door behind Angus opened to a storeroom with stairs to the attic. I kept my comic-book collection between the joists under the floorboards up there. The store was eventually given to the community as a pool hall - my comics may still be there... Kodachrome, 9-11.

Angus McLeod in the mid 1990's, © Leslie Philipp.

Spring 1958, Mission procession attended by most of the town. Buildings from the left, priests' house, Sacred Heart Mission School, Our Lady of Fort Providence church, teachers' house, HBCo store. That might be Ernie Goltman on the roof, he was a clerk who grew up in Africa somewhere, and told great scary stories of the jungle to my sister and me.  Ektachrome, 10-34.

Note the roof on our house is longer now - two bedrooms (one was mine) and a bathroom were added to the house in the summer of 1956 while we were in Fort Rae. Also running water and a drain were added to the kitchen. The new bathroom still used a chemical toilet that needed to be emptied into the outside toilet. Ektachrome, 10-35. 

Mission procession winding through the tent village behind our house. This field had large tea dances on holidays - people would come into town from the bush and drum all night long. Alcohol was a bit of a problem as fighting often became too violent. Mike would ration out the sale of raisins and prunes before holidays to prevent large batches of brew or the Mission and the RCMP would be overwhelmed with injuries. I loved climbing the trees on the far side of the field, and exploring the trail system in the bush. 10-36.

Sandy Davidson and Mom enjoying his very strong beer. Sandy was a "white trapper" who spent his winters on the trapline and summers in Fort Providence. Sandy made his beer during the summer and let it age all winter (!) to enjoy it between trapping seasons. Note the electric light-bulb on the wall - he must have connected to Signals - his little house was right beside their fence.  Ektachrome, 1-36.

1958, resident students and nuns from the Mission. The Mission school closed in 1959 when a federal public school was built. I'm on the bicycle by the store, and my sister Tania is on the far right. The building on the far left is the ice house - ice cut from the river during the winter provided coolant in the ice-box we used for storing perishable food. The blocks of ice were covered in sawdust to slow the melting. Anscochrome, 11-2. 

For some detail on the town see Jean Watts' detailed chronicle of living Down North in Fort Providence from 1948 until just before we arrived there. 

We were in Fort Providence for four years, but never spent a whole summer there. We spent the summer of 1955 in Fort Norman, 1956 in Fort Rae, 1957 on "holidays" in Winnipeg and Kamsack, and in 1958 moved to Fort Chipewyan. 

Fort Rae (Behchokǫ̀) 1956

We spent the summer of 1956 in Fort Rae. We were expecting our “holiday” to Winnipeg and Verigin to visit family that year, but Mr. Doug Stevens and his family in Fort Rae were overdue for their family trip “outside”. I’m unsure what got discussed in the negotiations, but there must have been a flurry of wires (telegrams) to and from the HBCo Northern Stores Division office in Edmonton. Mike ended up “relieving” Mr. Stevens’ post from June until September while a significant extension was added to our house in Fort Providence including a bathroom with a tub (but no flush toilet) and plumbing in the kitchen. I was an unhappy 8-year-old about postponing our trip though, at least until we got to Fort Rae. It was my first experience playing on the rocks of the Canadian Shield, and living by a lake instead of the dangerous Mackenzie River. We had a wonderful summer in Fort Rae. We overlapped with the Stevens family (Ann and Doug Stevens with their three children Mike, Ceci and Chris) for a few days to familiarize with the routines of their house and 16-year-old Springer Spaniel, Chester. Mike and Mr. Stevens reviewed the books and operational details – the previous winter’s fur still had to be shipped and the store’s merchandise for the next year would arrive by barge before Mr. Stevens returned. And Mike learned how to run the boat. The three Stevens children helped orient my sister and I too, including where to swim in the channel below the house. The water was wonderful, although my inability to swim nearly caused my demise when I let go of an air mattress and Mike Stevens had to pull me out. It was only six feet to shore, but I couldn’t touch bottom and floundered. Thank you Mike, wherever you are. 

Fort Rae in 1952, as we would have seen it flying in from Fort Providence.
Photo from NWT Archives.

Fort Rae is on a series of rocky islands on the east shore of Marian Lake, which is connected to the North Arm of Great Slave Lake by Frank Channel. At the time we were there the lake around the settlement was contaminated with waste. We got our household water by boat far from the shore. Swimming in the channels had occasional unpleasant surprises. 

Behchokǫ̀ in 2020

Bay Island in 2020
The HBCo store building was expanded after 1956.  
The Faraud Hospital was closed in 1974 and the building removed.

Our house, with my sister Tania, the Stevens' dog Chester, and Mom. 

The house in August 2022 has the same picket fence, 66 years later!

The HBCo buildings - our house, a small warehouse, the store, the lighting plant, and another two warehouses. 

The HBCo buildings - a warehouse from the original fort, our house, the lighting plant, fuel storage, warehouse, and store. Another original building is behind the store.
Mr. Stevens was a ham radio enthusiast with a license for two-way voice communication - the three tall poles with braces support his antennae wires. 
Photo from Father Amourous' St. Michael's Parish gallery.

Looking East from our house, with the lighting plant, fuel storage and old warehouse. The building in the centre above the canoe is the schoolhouse that I attended for a few weeks after we arrived in June. At the end of each day we lined up for one hardtack biscuit.

The old warehouse, St. Michael's Parish church, and the causeway over the channel.
The Faraud Hospital is on the right behind Mr. Stevens' antenna pole.

HBCo store, 1949
Photo from NWT Archives.

HBCo store in 1974 after the expansion.
Photo from NWT Archives.

Abandoned store building in August 2022.

The priests' rectory, and construction of a new building which I think was to be a school. Earlier there was dynamite blasting for the foundation which was exciting as rocks flew everywhere.

Looking West from the rocks behind our house. I have a scar on my knee from falling on these rocks.

Marian Lake

RCMP warehouse and living quarters.

Faraud Hospital and RCMP buildings. The hospital was built in 1936 and expanded sometime later (note roofline and windows on the East side), and closed in 1974. 

The HBCo ran a fleet of boats and barges throughout the North. Here I'm on the Hearne Lake, a 72hp diesel tug that was assembled and launched in Fort Smith in 1934 and ran until shortly after this photo was taken.  

We met the barge in Frank Channel with a smaller barge that was pushed and towed across Marian Lake with motorized canoes and dories.  

Empty 45-gallon drums are being loaded onto the Hearne Lake barge to be returned to Norman Wells. The HBCo barges were distinctive in design and brown colour.
The entire HBCo's fleet was sold to NTCL within the next year. 

A doctor from the Faraud Hospital. I can't remember her name, if any reader can identify who this is please make a comment or email me...

A beauty of a lake trout. The abrasion on its side give away that it was NOT caught on this fishing gear, but in a net... There were always lots of fish around town - whitefish, trout and jackfish (pike). The Eliason girls and I would squeeze roe out of whitefish and cook it over a fire by the lake - caviar!

Later in the summer a group of caribou hunters were late returning from a trip to the barren-grounds, and an airplane search was organized. They returned safely after the failed search. Mike joined the search as another set of eyes and took the following three photos.

Ozzie Eliason, Fish and Wildlife officer, in a De Havilland Beaver, possibly a DHC-2 Mk 1.

Somewhere North of Great Slave Lake. I've searched Google Earth for this location, but no luck...

This is not the lost hunting party.

Bird hunting with Chester and Butch. I can't identify the man.

The same man with Butch and Chester, firing a pistol at ... what? 
Butch was a Cocker Spaniel that Mike bought from a guy on a barge.

Fall colours

Ernie Goltman, an HBCo clerk who grew up in Africa. He told wonderful stories to my sister and I about lions, hyenas, rhinoceroses, and other scary stuff.

The Northmart store in Behchokǫ̀ in 2020.
The HBCo no longer operates stores in the North. In 1987 a group of investors, including 415 employees, purchased the Northern Stores Division and three years later adopted "The North West Company" as their formal name.  

Fort Rae has changed a lot in the 65 years since our summer there. The local Dogrib people now call themselves the Tłı̨chǫ. They are a vibrant tribe of about 3,000 living in four communities – Behchokǫ̀ (Rae-Edzo), Gamètì (Rae Lakes), Whatì (Lac La Martre) and Wekweètì (Snare River) – in the rocky boreal forest between Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake. The Tłı̨chǫ Government has complete authority within the 39,000 km² of land that they own under the Tłı̨chǫ Agreement proclaimed by Parliament in 2005. This includes managing all renewable and non-renewable resources, planning land use, making and enforcing laws, and protecting and harvesting fish and wildlife. See the Tłı̨chǫ website.

This successful community is a far cry from that described in the 1955 MacLean’s magazine article When the Dogribs get their Treaty Money which is, I have to admit, reflective of the then prevalent negative attitude of most Canadians towards the Tłı̨chǫ, and indeed all indigenous peoples at that time. I find particularly poignant the refusal of the chief, Jimmy Bruneau, to accept treaty money until the Crown dropped criminal charges of possessing a beaver that was shot without a license – it is clear now that he was within his rights under Treaty 11 to hunt and trap as he pleased. The Behchokǫ̀ community’s unanimous support for him was evidence of their social coherence, and their understanding of the treaty violation.  

Tea Dance on Treaty day, June 1955, with Father Jean Amourous participating.
Photo from NWT Archives.

The Treaty 11 government negotiating party blitzed through all the MacKenzie settlements in the summer of 1921, intent on getting signatures at any cost since oil had been discovered at Norman Wells. Promises were made, but not written. Hunting rights dominated negotiations as the Dene were well aware of the hardships experienced by those south of Great Slave Lake since they signed Treaty 8 in 1899. In Fort Rae Chief Monfwi pressed the treaty commission to draw out a boundary within which his people’s rights would never be infringed upon. This was done, but a copy of that promise never arrived in Ottawa. “We made an agreement, but land was never mentioned,” recalled Jimmy Bruneau, who was present at the treaty talks and was Monfwi’s successor as Tłı̨chǫ chief. “A person must be crazy to accept five dollars to give up his land.” Read this article from Up Here for a synopsis of the North's relationship with Canada.

This photo intrigues me - the woman's expression,
the beautiful marten (or is it a mink?),
the long-spring steel trap,
the bloody mouth...
Photo from Father Amourous' St. Michael's Parish gallery.

In my research on the Tłı̨chǫ I ran across a wonderful and respectful article by Roger Brunt on his time in Behchokǫ̀ in the early 1970's - see Remembering the Guns of Fort Rae. 

Thank you for reading this. Please comment or email me with any suggestions or corrections. 

And be kind. Be calm. Be safe.