By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 6, 1943.
“How do they do it!” exclaimed Jimmie Frise.
“Who?” I inquired.
“The Russians1,” cried Jimmie. “With the whole resources of Europe – except Britain – against them. With the trained might of Germany, backed by the enslaved production of all the rest of Europe, concentrated on them. With most of the factory owners and moneyed and managerial classes of conquered Europe hating them and really aiding the Germans.”
“And Italy,” I reminded him.
“Phoooie,” said Jim.
“Phooie nothing,” I informed him. “I bet you, when the smoke clears away, that most of the skulduggery in North Africa and the confusion of the French cliques and parties will be traced to Italy. Don’t forget, it was Italy’s fear and hatred of communism that gave rise to the Fascist party. Don’t forget that Italy set up Mussolini long before Germany set up Hitler.”
“Italy,” said Jim. “Phooie.”
“Okay,” I warned. “But when history is written, I bet you it will be Italy’s demonstration of how to set up a boogey man and organize a Fascist party that gave all the rest of the world the idea of setting up another boogey man in Germany as a barrier against Russia. It was Russia the whole world was scared of 10 years ago. It was finagling against Russia that set up this whole devil’s kettle of a war. And now Russia appears to be the savior of the world.”
“Next to Britain,” said Jim.
“Next to us,” I agreed. “Us being whatever we are. Next to the good old U.S., if you are an American. Next to China, if you are Chinese. Next to Malta, if you are Maltese.”
“Don’t be cynical,” said Jim.
“I’m not cynical,” I assured him. “I am merely reminding you that you can’t help having a point of view. And your point of view depends entirely on where you happen to be standing. You wouldn’t deny a Chinese man the right to believe that but for China’s stand against Japan, years before our war broke loose, our war would now be lost.”
“Yes, but never forget we…” began Jim.
“Us?” I cried with passionate patriotism, “we’re wonderful!”
“Well, we are!” declared Jim angrily.
“That’s what I’m saying,” I retorted.
“But I don’t think you’re sincere,” said Jim.
Source of All Troubles
“I’m this sincere,” I submitted. “That so long as you allow Americans, Frenchmen, Chinese, Argentinians, Italians and all the rest to believe they are wonderful, we have a perfect right to believe we are wonderful too. The trouble is, however, with us, and Americans, Frenchmen, Chinese, Argentinians and so forth, is, we don’t include anybody else.”
“Aw, well,” protested Jimmie, “it’s human nature you’re complaining about.”
“Never cease complaining about it, Jim,” I pleaded. “It’s the source of all our troubles.”
“A fat lot of good complaining about human nature will do,” said Jim. “Human nature is as unchangeable as the very rocks of the earth. You might as well try to change the shape of the Rocky Mountains as change human nature.”
“Jim, not a day goes by,” I informed him, “but that the shape of the Rocky Mountains is being changed. The everlasting complaint of the winds, the rains, the snow and the ice, is forever changing the shape of the mountains and of the very earth itself. And never forget, one earthquake can change their shape so tremendously, they can be sunk right out of sight under the sea.”
“Are you looking for an earthquake to change human nature?” inquired Jim.
There have been plenty of earthquakes,” I submitted, “that have changed human nature. The birth of Jesus was an earthquake. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The invention of gunpowder was an earthquake. A peasant with a flintlock could destroy a king hedged round with battle axes. It would be a nice way to spend an evening, discussing which events in history were earthquakes that changed human nature.”
“I bet we’re not much different from the men who lived in caves,” said Jim.
“The winds of Shakespeare blew and are blowing on the granite of human nature,” I enunciated. “The rain of Charles Dickens’ tears, the snow of Alexander Hamilton’s logic, the ice of Charles Darwin’s speculations, all have eroded the Rocky Mountains of human nature…”
“See?” interrupted Jimmie triumphantly. “Every name you have mentioned is one of us!”
“When Marco Polo, in the year 1250 A.D., arrived in China,” I countered, “he found a civilization more advanced than Europe’s, and 1,500 years old.”
“Marco Polo!” scoffed Jimmie. “Who ever heard of him!”
“Each nation,” I said, “thinks it has its Shakespeares, its Dickenses, its Darwins.”
“Think is right,” said Jim.
“Well, you can’t help even us thinking,” I asserted.
“Anyway,” proclaimed Jimmie, “I think the Russians are wonderful. And I only wish I could feel we had done more to help them. I’d have more self-respect if I thought we had done something to help them. The performance they have put up, not only without much help from us but in spite of all the opposition we put in their way, across the years, makes it kind of embarrassing.”
“Geographically,” I pointed out, “they are the nearest people to Canadians in the world. We share with Russians the northern hemisphere.”
“I’ve often thought of that, this past winter, reading about the battles,” agreed Jim. “Leningrad is on a level with White Horse, in the Yukon. Lake Ladoga is on a level with Great Slave Lake.”
“Brrrrr,” I said.
“Sure,” said Jim. “Fort Churchill, away up half way on Hudson’s Bay, is south of Leningrad. The northern tip of Labrador, where it juts out towards Baffin Land, is level with Leningrad. Sure, we share the northern hemisphere with the Russians. But we haven’t occupied our share yet.”
“I had no idea,” I gasped. “I thought of Leningrad and Toronto or maybe North Bay or Timmins.”
“In the banana belt,” snorted Jim. “All of them. Even Stalingrad is away down south, about level with Winnipeg. But Leningrad is north of Juneau in Alaska. Remember all the fuss we made about the Alaska highway2?”
“Now who’s belittling us?” I demanded. “Well, I was just thinking about the railroad,” said Jim, “the Russians built over the ice of Lake Ladoga. We quit work on the Alaska highway just as winter arrived.”
“Well, some day we Canadians may have cities and towns up in northern Labrador and along the Hudson’s Bay coast,” I declared.
“There’s two million citizens in Leningrad normally,” retorted Jim.
“One thing we might have done for Russia,” I asserted, “and that is, ship her a few thousands pairs of good Canadian snowshoes.”
“Skis are better,” said Jim. “And skis come from Norway. The Russians will know all about skis.”
“Snowshoes,” I insisted. “Skis are all very well in open fields and for playing around in civilized country. But in the bush, you’ve got to have snowshoes.”
“Slow motion,” cracked Jim.
“You never hear of lumberjacks and trappers wearing skis,” I asserted, “except as a novelty. They use snowshoes. And since much of the fighting in Russia in winter is through vast forests and swamps, I bet you snowshoes would be of the most tremendous tactical importance.”
“Skis,” said Jimmie.
“Listen,” I stated warmly, “long before skis were ever heard of in this country, I was a champion snowshoer. I belonged to a snowshoe club here; and there was a Canadian Snow Shoe Association, with clubs all over Canada. And I may say we didn’t spend our time trying to wear out a couple of local hills. We didn’t wait until somebody cut a trail for us through a couple of local bush lots, either. We got out and travelled. We searched out the wildest regions of the country round about and explored it. The tougher the going, the denser the bush, the wilder the swamps, the better we liked it.”
“Waddling,” said Jim. “Bow-legged. Squish. Squish, squush, squish, squush!”
“Waddling my eye,” I cried indignantly. “An export snowshoer can drift over the ground faster than any skier, on a mile of ordinary rough bush country. Or on 20 miles. Put a skier in ordinary brush country and he’s sunk.”
“Squish, squush,” remarked Jim.
“I won my Winged Snow Shoe in 1914,” I announced. “And if you don’t believe it, I can dig my old Snow Shoe Club outfit out of the attic and show you. I’m entitled to wear a crest and a shield, with the Winged Snow Shoe. I’ve got a ceinture fleche3, too, that I won in a 10-mile cross country.”
“A what?” inquired Jim.
“Ceinture fleche,” I said. “It’s a beautiful sash.”
“Are You Game?”
“In the attic, did you say?” asked Jimmie. “Has snowshoeing gone out of fashion then?”
“Of course it has,” I said. “The young people are no longer interested in exploring and going places. They only want to go nowhere fast, down hill.”
“Now, now,” said Jim. “Don’t be hurt.”
“In a trunk in the attic,” I stated, “I have my whole old club outfit and two pairs of snowshoes. Are you game?”
“Game how?” asked Jim.
“Game to come for a hike,” I said, “right this afternoon, until I show you what snowshoes can do. I’ll take you into bush that no skier can penetrate. And maybe, if I can get you interested, you and I might start something real for Russia. We might launch a campaign to send half a million pairs of Canadian snowshoes to Russia. Great oaks from little acorns grow. You’re complaining about not having had any share in Russia’s triumph. Okay; here’s your chance to do something strategic.”
Along which lines, I persuaded Jim to come along for an old-fashioned afternoon in the open on snowshoes. I got my old club outfit from the mothballs and, though the webbing of the racquettes was dry and the frames slightly warped, 20 years in a trunk had done them little injury.
In the street car which we took to the end of the line, there were many skiers who took a lively interest in our appearance; but Jimmie insisted they were not laughing at us; it was just their youthful and joyous nature.
While the skiers headed straight away from the end of the car line to the nearest hill which they gathered on like ants on a cookie, Jim and I put on the racquettes and steered for the bush. It took me some little time to persuade Jim to let his legs hang loose, in the proper snowshoe stride, and simply drag the snowshoe over the snow, instead of tightening his legs up in a cramped curve.
“Walk,” I explained, setting the example, “with an easy loose shuffle, forgetting the snowshoes entirely. It’s not like skiing, where you have to think of the skis all the time. Just stride ahead, with loose legs, and trail each shoe naturally.”
Jim tumbled several times, because he walked too naturally, toed in, thus stepping on his own shoes, which naturally threw him on his head. But after crossing a couple of fields, he had the hang of it pretty well and we entered our first bush.
It was a dense bush. And we had not gone 50 yards in its pure and secret sanctuary before we picked up the fresh trail of a fox.
“See?” I cried. “He’s never been disturbed by any skiers. In fact, we’re the first to stir him from his security.”
We trailed the fox to the end of the wood lot and finally got a glimpse of him, his tail blowing sideways in the wind, as he raced across an icy open field for a neighboring woodlot.
“Here,” I said, “within the sound of a city’s factory whistle, we have seen a fox. That’s what snowshoers see.”
And we saw also, in the sanctuary of undisturbed bush lots, many birds such as partridges, jays, chickadees, nuthatches and a whole chime of redpolls and siskins, which are the confetti of the bird world. And in the quiet woods, we were sheltered from the cold and we climbed over windfalls and through dark deep cedar swamps where the highways of the rabbit kingdom were worn in the snow; and saw many and delightful manifestations of nature where she hides where man does not come.
Mal De Racquette
And then Jim sat on a log with a sudden exclamation.
“My leg,” he said, grasping the inside of his thigh.
“What?” I inquired.
“A red hot knife seemed to stick into me,” he said.
“Ah; mal de racquette4,” I informed him. “You’ve been walking with your legs tense. You didn’t walk loosely.”
“I walked the way I had to,” replied Jimmie, painfully. “Squish, squush!”
“We’ll have to head for the nearest road,” I said anxiously. “That mal de racquette is pretty serious.”
“How do you mean?” demanded Jim.
“It ties some people up,” I said, “so they have to be dragged on a toboggan. They can’t even walk.”
Jim rubbed his thigh and then stood up. He sat down again promptly.
“Hey!” he agonized.
“Does it hurt?” I inquired.
“Ooh,” said Jim, starting to sweat.
So we sat for a little while on the log and then I got some birch bark and twigs and started a fire.
“Keep warm,” I advised, “while I go and scout out where the nearest road is.”
One thing about rural Ontario, there is always a road just over the hill. So I took what I believed to be the nearest cut out of the bush lot and found a good sideroad, well packed down with ruts, less than 400 yards away from Jimmie. And as I turned around to rejoin him, my snowshoe caught in a sharp stub sticking up through the snow. I was thrown on my face and what was worse, the dry babiche5 webbing of the shoe was ripped not only in the toe, but right in the mid-section where my foot fits.
The webbing was so old and dry it was like wire. So when I rejoined Jim, I was moving in a rather complicated fashion. My good shoe carried me on the top of the snow. But my other leg sank each step to the knee or hip, depending on how deep the snow was.
Jimmie watched my approach with considerable relief from his pain.
“Now that,” he said, “is something! You look like one of those old-fashioned side-wheeler steamboats.”
“Jim,” I warned him, “it is going to be no fun getting out to the road.”
We extinguished the fire carefully. And then set out for the road. Part of the time Jim wore his snowshoes, and part of the time, he took them off and just waded. But it was more painful to have to lift his strained leg out of the drifts than to swing the snowshoe in a specially bow-legged stride.
But we reached the road and headed, on plain foot, towards the city and the street car terminus.
And when we stamped safely into the street car, in company with many ruddy and happy skiers, Jimmie remarked:
“What do you say if we start a movement to smuggle a few thousand pairs of snowshoes over to the Germans? That would finish them.”
Editor’s Notes:
- When this was written, the battle of Stalingrad, considered to be a turning point in World War 2, was just finished. ↩︎
- The Alaska Highway was under construction at the time. ↩︎
- The ceinture fléchée (French, ‘arrowed sash’) is a type of colourful sash, a traditional piece of Québécois clothing linked to at least the 17th century. ↩︎
- Mal De Racquette (Snowshoe sickness) is a term used when a person went lame while using snowshoes. ↩︎
- Babiche is a type of cord or lacing of rawhide or sinew traditionally made by Native Americans. ↩︎
Leave a Reply