as I stripped off my coat one day.
I didn’t want to do that, but we had to do as we were told. So I took the pieces of sealskin and settled down to chew. It tasted awful and burned my tongue, but I kept chewing and grinding it with my teeth until she was satisfied.
Once the skin was soft enough, Mommy sewed the tongue to the front part of the leggings first. While she was sewing that, we had to chew all around the perimeter of the bottom section, then around the bottom of the leggings. She then sewed them together, using a very fine stitch. Pleating and pulling tightly on each stitch with immense concentration, she made the boots waterproof.
With all of us children to practise on, Mommy gradually learned to make fancier boots with different coloured fur. She cut out diamonds and sewed them onto the front of the leggings, making them both beautiful to look at and to wear. As years passed and she got better at her craft, she began sewing all manner of items for the Grenfell Mission’s Industrial Store across the harbour, where authentic crafts were sold to visitors from around the world.
The main meal of the day was always dinner. And if food was available, I enjoyed watching Mommy prepare it. Sundays were our special days. For Sunday breakfast we always had fish and brewis. For dinner on Sunday, Mommy cooked a big meal of wild game, with salt beef, vegetables, pudding, and duff (dumpling). For supper we had fried fish — cod, salmon, arctic char, trout, or smelt. In later years we even had canned fruit with jelly for dessert on Sunday nights. Monday we had leftovers from Sunday. Tuesday was bean soup day. Wednesday was fish or wild meat. If we didn’t have meat or fish, we had to settle for stewed potatoes or doughboys (boiled dumplings) and jam. On Thursday we had fish and brewis, and on Friday we had fish. Saturday was pea soup day.
Mommy’s main concern was not to run out of flour. Homemade bread was our staple food. We could almost always rely on bread and tea, which in earlier years was our mainstay. For the most part, meals were basic: no treats, no frills, no snacks between meals, except maybe a piece of molasses bread or a clump of hard tack. And many times there was nothing at all.
Cooking wild game is an art. Ducks and geese have to be steamed to pluck the feathers out. Partridges don’t have to be steamed. They can just be plucked, and my mother performed this job efficiently.
“Mommy, I wants de crop!” I cried as she was pulling the innards out of a partridge one day.
The crop was the stomach of the partridge, which always contained spruce twigs. She blew it up like a balloon and hung it near the stove to dry. Once dried, it made a hollow rattle like the sound of maracas. When we were little, we argued over who was going to get the next one. We ate everything except the guts of the bird. We consumed the heart, the gizzard, the liver, and the head, and usually fussed over who would get the wishbone for good luck.
Cooking wild meat took several hours. First, Mommy boosted the heat by adding a few pieces of dry wood to the fire. Then she fried up some fat, filling the cabin with smitch (smoke). Next she dropped the meat into the hot fat. The small room was filled with sharp smells and sizzling noises. Mommy waited for the meat to brown a bit, then added water, salt and pepper, and an onion, if we had any. Lastly, she added a sprinkle of flour. After that she gave the whole thing a gentle stir to fuse the flavours, then placed the lid on the big iron pot. Filling the stove to capacity with carefully selected wood, she proceeded to her next chore.
We were hungry and knew there was at least a two-hour wait before dinner. About three-quarters of the way through the cooking time, Mommy started to make the duff. Out came her favourite mixing bowl, flour, butter, baking powder, and a little water to bring it all together.
“Wass ya doin now, Mommy?” I asked as she flattened the dough onto the table.
“Watch me an ya’ll see,” she answered in her matter-of-fact way.
Once the dough was flattened, she made a big hole in the centre and placed it gently on top of the meat in the pot. It only took 10 minutes to cook. That was our cue to set the table. Sal and I lifted the table out from the wall, exposing the long bench placed there for us little ones. When the table was set, we had to make the tea. I poured a handful of loose tea into the pot and filled it with water from the huge kettle, which was always at boiling point on the back of the stove. The clang of the teapot lid and someone placing the teapot on the back of the stove to steep were sure signs that the meal was almost ready. The next thing was to cut the bread.
“Can I watch ya cut de bread, Mom?” I asked, tugging at her apron.
“Awright, but don’t get too close ta de knife.”
Mommy always wore an apron. Placing the bread in her lap and holding the loaf firmly in her left hand, she picked up her long, very sharp knife and positioned it ever so lightly into the corner of the bread. With one smooth stroke she pushed the knife about a third of the way through the bread. Her second and third strokes made a perfectly even slice, as if the bread had gone through a slicing machine. Every slice was uniformly cut as she piled the plate high and put it in the centre of the table.
Every Monday we had to fetch water from the well for washing. Mommy lifted the huge galvanized washtub and washboard off the nail in the porch. She stoked up the stove to heat buckets of water and then sorted out the clothes that covered the whole floor of our tiny cabin. It was backbreaking work. I felt sorry for her as she scrubbed each piece of clothing, wrung it out, shook each garment, and placed it in a pile ready for hanging. On extremely cold days the clothes froze even before they reached the line. Steam from the warm clothes billowed around Mommy in the cold air.
The washing remained on the line for a few days to dry, and if it didn’t dry because of the extremely cold temperatures, Mommy had to bring it back inside and spread it over the stove to finish drying. It smelled wonderful. As the family grew, Mommy couldn’t continue doing everything herself. We had to help as we got older. The blisters on my knuckles would peel and bleed, but it didn’t matter. We had to keep scrubbing. I hated it!
Since my mother was never still, there was always something to be learned by watching her.
“Whass ya doin now, Mommy?” I asked as she scurried around with enthusiasm.
“I tink I got nough rags ta hook a mat, Josie.” she said, pulling out a bag from under her bed.
With amazing skill, using a piece of line and a huge needle, Mommy attached the burlap bag to the wooden frame Daddy had made for her. Once the burlap was sewn into place, she drew a pattern on it. It could be flowers or a winter scene or something around our cabin. She tore the rags into long, thin strips, keeping the colours separated. When she was ready, she placed a piece at a time underneath the burlap. She pushed the hook through the top, hooked the string up through the tiny burlap hole, making a neat loop, then poked it down for the next loop, and so on, until the whole pattern was filled out. Mommy finished the mat with a colourful border.
I didn’t know then that our mother was exceptionally talented in her work, and I don’t think that she was aware of it, either, especially in the earlier years of her marriage when we were all babies and so very needy. I wonder how she learned everything. I don’t know if anybody taught her, whether she had to learn as she went along, or if she learned out of the sheer necessity to survive. I know that she made good use of the rifle and the sewing machine Daddy had given her on their wedding day. It was all she really needed to keep us warm and fed.
My mother did the best she could under dire circumstances. Many times I watched as she rubbed her hand over her head, smoothed the straggled hair that had fallen around her face, and just kept on going. In later years she sewed every day for the mission store. Once her order was finished, she had to deliver it back over to the mission. Mrs. Keddie, who ran the store, was extremely
