Linda Goyette - Rocky Mountain Kids

Acknowledgments

I owe my first thanks to the generous storytellers across Alberta who worked with me to adapt their life stories for this book. It was a pure pleasure to listen to them, and I appreciate their help.

The Edmonton Public Library provided a creative place for me to complete the manuscript when I was Writer in Residence in 2007. I am grateful to Linda Cook, the Director of Libraries, and her colleagues for offering firm support to the writers in my city. I value the insights of Albertas librarians, and their commitment to readers of all ages.

In my research for Rocky Mountain Kids, I relied on the thoughtful suggestions and advice of Albertas archivists. I am especially grateful to Ted Hart, Elizabeth Kundert-Cameron, and Lena Goon at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff; and to Doug Cass and Jim Bowman at the Glenbow Museum and Archives in Calgary.

I am also grateful to Sherry Letendre, Liz Letendre, and Tanja Schramm for their careful reading of the Iyarhe Nakodabi stories; to John and Maria Koch for their groundbreaking research on Marcelle Nordegg, their suggestions for her story, and their generous assistance with photographs; to the McDonald and Wanyandie families of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation; to Jasper naturalist Ben Gadd for sharing his knowledge about the Canadian Rockies; and to Pamela Cunningham, Cheryl and Peter Mahaffy, Kathy Coxson, Colleen Skidmore, and Brian Brennan for ideas that became stories.

I have been fortunate to work on this project with publisher Ruth Linka, a consummate professional who defines the word patience, and her fine colleagues at Brindle & Glass Publishing. I am grateful to editor Lynne van Luven for her helpful advice on the manuscript, and to Christine Savage, the copyeditor.

Finally, I thank my husband, Allan Chambers, for the pleasure of his company on research trips to the mountainsand for his enduring support for my work.

LINDA GOYETTE is a writer, editor, and journalist with a strong interest in oral history and contemporary storytelling. Lindas non-fiction books include Edmonton in Our Own Words; Standing Together: Women Speak Out About Violence and Abuse; and The Story That Brought Me Here: To Alberta from Everywhere. Linda is also the author of three of the four Courageous Kids books: Kidmonton: True Stories of River City Kids; Rocky Mountain Kids, and Northern Kids. Linda lives in Edmonton, Alberta. Visit her website at lindagoyette.ca.

Copyright 2008 Linda Goyette

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, audio recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher or a photocopying licence from Access Copyright, Toronto, Canada.

Originally published by Brindle & Glass Publishing Co. Ltd. in 2008 in softcover
978-1-897142-32-5

This electronic edition was released in 2011
ePub ISBN 978-1-926972-16-9

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

Cover design by Frances Hunter
Cover image by Tobyn Manthorpe, inspired by Whyte Museum Archives image V683-111.F.1.
Map by Wendy Johnson, Johnson Cartographers
Author photo by AlbertaViews

Brindle & Glass acknowledges the financial support for its publishing program from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and the province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

www.brindleandglass.com

To Kira and Peter, who love the mountains too.

~

They had better not mine Third Hill: thats for sure. When I was a girl, I pounded a handmade cross into the dirt and rocks, and I put some salami inside a bottle to leave behind as a marker. I claimed that hill for Queen Isabella of Spain.

Gloria Dagil, formerly of Mountain Park, Alberta, 1997

We had a tremendous amount of freedom, and fun and good times. Oh, to feel that free in a lifetime!

Kay Farnham, formerly of Mountain Park, Alberta, 1997

Help! Im stuck with Old Belly Ache!

Louis Battenottes son, age thirteen,

Tte Jaunes Trail, 1863

Rocky Mountain travellers: (left to right) Louis Battenottes thirteen-year-old son, Lord Milton, Dr. Walter Cheadle, the Nakoda guide Louis Battenotte, and his unidentified wife, at their camp in 1863.
AS SEEN IN CHEADLE'S JOURNAL OF TRIP ACROSS CANADA, 1862-1863, BY WALTER B. CHEADLE

Do you know how to cut down trees to build a raft? Can you ride a bucking horse across a wild river? If the rapids pull the horse into deep water, can you rescue him?

Can you fish for trout, or hunt for mountain sheep, or build a shelter in a thunderstorm?

If you come along with me, I can promise you plenty of fun and adventure, but I need help in a hurry. I am travelling through the mountains with three strangers who couldnt find their way across a field of grass by themselves.

The three strangersRich Man, Strong Man, and Belly Acheasked my parents to guide them from Fort Edmonton to Jasper House, and through the Rocky Mountains to the other side.

We will pay you three English pounds a month, Rich Man promised my father. If you stay with us until the end of the trip, we will pay you an extra five pounds.

My father looked at each man carefully. He looked at Belly Aches soft hands and skinny feet, and he whispered to me and to my mother in our language: My friends warned me about this man. I need you both to come with us. These men dont know our territory. This lazy one will be useless in the mountain country.

The baby in our family had just died, and we needed to travel to get away from our sad feelings. We loaded our pack horses and left Fort Edmonton at the beginning of the summer. My dog came too. By the time we reached Colin Frasers house at Lac Ste. Anne, we knew the three strangers would bring trouble to us.

They fight too much. They dont hit each other with their fists, or pull knives or guns, but they yell at each other all day and half the night.

Rich Man loses his temper every minute. He is sick a lot of the time, holding his head and falling down, so he brought Strong Man to give him medicine.

Belly Ache complains all day. He is the laziest man I have ever met, and the noisiest. He refuses to learn my name, and he thinks I am on this earth to serve him.

My feet hurt, Boy! he says to me. Pack my horse!

I call him Belly Ache because he is always moaning and groaning about something. He has a long face like a horse, a big nose like a hawks beak, and no teeth. He wears a long, woolly coat, a tall, black hat, and flapping pants. Strings hold up his narrow, little boots.

One night on the trail, Belly Ache sat down to rest with his boots off. A confused horse ran through the campfire, and dragged sparks and hot ashes into the woods. Soon a big forest fire started! We grabbed axes and started chopping down trees, and fetching water, to save ourselves.

Belly Ache just sat on the ground, looking at his toes.

Why the devil dont you bring some water! Strong Man yelled at him.