Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 27 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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Genesis of a Book
"Hurling Down the Pine" had a haphazard start as did the author's start as an historian. It's described in my autobiography, "An Iron in Many a Fire" (Courtney C.J. Bond) University of Ottawa Press, 1982.
In 1961 I had done some maps for the National Capital Commission, illustrating Wilfrid Eggleston's "The Queen's Choice". The N.C.C. was advertising for an historian. I asked Peter Aykroyd, then Director of the Commission's Information and Historicial Division if I could apply. He advised me to keep on drawing maps. However, a few days later he changed his tack and warmly invited me to apply. It seems the high school teacher with an M.A. whom he had in mind had faded away when he saw the salary figure. I could draw some military pension, the pay was acceptable. So, by a sort of accident, I became the N.C.C's historian.
Liaison with the Historical Society of Ottawa, then under Dr. Bertie MacKay, had been continuous and extensive. One warm link had been with shy, reserved Dr. H. Townley Douglas, who wrote snippets on local lore for the papers. One late winter day he came to my office in the Daly Building, proposing to show me an early account book of the pioneer Philemon Wright.
We visited the Lindenlea home of Mrs. Edward Wright, who had married a descendant of the pioneer. After presenting the account book she produced from her cellar marvel and archival marvel. Finally, when asked what else she had, she replied: "Seven trunks full." SEVEN TUNKS! Those key papers had been sought for years! She offered them to the N.C.C.
We summoned a truck. Dr. Douglas had a week heart but he joined with a will in carrying those trunks up from below. At the Daly Building Peter Akroyd, delighted, began to publicize the find. Suddenly the phone range. It was Dr. Kaye Lamb, the Dominion Archvist, as the title was then, whom Mrs. Wright had informed of her gift to the N.C.C. After the media had had their way the documents went to the Public Archives on the understanding that our office would have first crack at them.
When the Archives had put the paper in order I was permitted to exercise the N.C.C.'s reserve. Old John Hughson, descendant of a family that had exploited the Gatineau forests, had been sporadically dictating for months to one of the stenographers his memories of life in the shanties. With information from the Wright papers and Hughson's story woven into it, I put together "Hurling Down the Pine".
The Historcial Society of the Gatineau, under the very capable presidency of Moiya Wright, published it in 1964, a bold venture on their part. It sold out and a revised edition was put out in 1965.
A further episode in this story is worth telling. I had prepared maps for the 1965 edition and took them to the office. It was a Saturday morning, a customary work period in those days. I put the maps in a big evenlope that had held maps for an "Ontario History article on Alexander James Christie, inscribed in large letters CHRISTIE. In the parking lot I put the maps on the car roof while I knocked snow off my rubbers and drove off with the maps still there, en route to the Snow Goose (specialty store) on Elgin St. where Moiya Wright was to carry them on the the printers. Consternation on arrival. I rushed back. No sign of the envelope, anywhere, in the fresh snow.
I rushed home for a quick lunch, then to the office. The maps were needed Monday. Working full out, using xeroxes I has lucky to have, a new set was done. Moiya got them in time.
30 YEARS LATER - A THIRD EDITION - $11.95 each.