The first year I lived in Fort George the teachers at the remote and isolated community on the Quebec side of James Bay were given the opportunity to fly south to Ottawa for Christmas on a Canadian Forces military transport plane. After flying Native high school students studying in Hull back home for the holidays, the old Canadian Forces clunker would be returning empty. Teachers were therefore invited to fly back with it free of charge. It would be anything but luxurious, we were warned, in an unheated cabin on a cold winter night several thousand feet up, but the price was right!
On the Saturday we were to leave, our departure was delayed a number of times because of bad weather. It wasn’t until midnight that we finally left. The passenger section was like a frozen meat locker, but we were all dressed to withstand the extreme cold, with hooded parkas and down vests, wraparound scarves, heavy mittens, and mukluks. Still, even so, just sitting there, buckled in, you had to blink hard at times to keep the cold from pricking your eyeballs.
My travel companion was a fellow teacher from Montreal. On the rebound from two failed marriages, Jane had gone north in lieu of joining the Foreign Legion. But the hardship involved, what with the stress of isolation in the wilderness, was becoming more than she could bear. She was uncertain of how much longer she’d be able to continue teaching and had decided, as a pre-caution, to use this free ride to bring along several suitcases bulging with her many personal belongings.
Jane also brought along her pet dog in a travelling cage. She had gotten the black-haired mutt from a native family, and so named it
Cheemoosh, which meant “little dog” in Cree.
Our plane touched down at the Ottawa airport at 3 AM. By then all of the dozen or so teachers who had made the trip were groggy with fatigue and abjectly miserable from the unremitting cold. I had already alerted an old friend from my Carleton days I was coming and was invited to crash at his parents’ home in a distant suburb. I called him and asked if he could also accommodate Jane; he said she was welcome.
It was only after I summoned a cab to take us there and helped to load her luggage into the trunk that I realized how much of it Jane brought and how heavy much of it was; suitcases filled with books can be quite heavy. There was barely room for her all alone in the back seat. I had to sit up front with the taxi driver. Whenever I’d look back, I glimpsed Cheemoosh in his cage perched atop Jane’s luggage.
Our taxi driver, judging by his accent, seemed a Central European immigrant. He didn’t know his way around the capital very well. We could see that right away, given how he kept stopping and, under the beam of a pencil flashlight, consulting a booklet filled with city roadmaps; then scowl at me with a jack-o’-lantern expression, as if to say: “See what grief you are causing me, with your outrageous, out-of-the-way destination!”
To assist him, I reminded him that the Morisset Street we sought branched off of Merivale Road. Speaking slowly and, no doubt, just a tad unnecessarily loud, I said: “First. Find. The. Merivale. Road. Then. Look. For. Morisset. Street.” Just like that. I carefully spread out and clearly enunicated each word.
For, by now I was beginning to wonder whether his English was on a par with his orienteering skills. Minutes later, during which again
we seemed to be going round in circles, I asked the taxi driver if, in fact, he was Czech. “Are. You. Czech?” I inquired with a nod and an engaging smile.
Whereupon, th cabbie’s head jerked up in alarm and he declaimed (you can’t make this stuff up): “No! No pay cheque! Pay cash!”
Finally, around 4:00 AM, we arrived at our destination. Once more, there was the tedious process of unloading Jane’s heavy luggage in the aspic cold. No sooner had the driver left than Jane noticed that Cheemosh was not in his cage. We looked up the mist-bound street and there he was: A frisky black ball lit by an arc light on a slab of hard frost.
Jane called to him in a kind of loud whisper. “Cheeee... Moooosh!” Instead of running to greet his mistress, the little critter darted on toward the front walk of a nearby bungalow; then scampered up the walk and to disappear into the shadows. I bounded over. For a while, I just stood and surveyed the scene, trying to locate him. But the light was so murky and the clouding up of the lens of my eye-glasses, in addition, made it hard to see clearly.
The nadir of this travel experience came as I stood bum-deep in a snow drift inside stranger’s front yard in an Ottawa suburb in 40-below cold, at four in the morning, softly crooning “Cheeee . . . Moooosh! Cheeee . . . Moooosh!” One of those Tell-Me-This-Isn’t-Happening moments.
I anticipated house lights switching on and curtains parting, blinds rolling up and the front door being flung open, with a frightened, old pensioner in housecoat and slippers emerging to demand to know just what the hell I was up to, and threatening to alert the police unless I decamped, pronto!
Suddenly, I heard Jane softly call out: “Here he is!” When I came back into the street, I saw Cheemoosh pattering toward her. I followed hard on his furry heels, quite prepared to swan dive and grab him were he to detour by a millimetre. I so very badly wanted this silly farce to end.
Jane was able to scoop him up and return the dog to his cage. A minute later, we were both hauling luggage into my friend’s house. It was at least a half hour before I felt warm enough to remove my parka; I was trembling so that when I was handed a mug of hot tea I inadvertently made the Sign of the Cross as I raised it to my lips.
Later that morning, with gravel in my eye and a nip of frostbite on the tip of my nose, I boarded the train for Montreal, confident the second day of my Christmas holiday would not be as eventful as the first day had been.
Orest Slepokura is a retired schoolteacher, after 30-odd years spent teaching, much of that in Alberta; but also in and around Montreal, as well as in a Native community on James Bay, over in London, England, and Toulon, France. A lifelong reader, Orest continues using much of my time reading books, journals, and newspapers.
