Canadian Heroes, Heroines, and Rascals ~ They're "All in the Family"!
Alberta has legislated a February long weekend, with Family Day, to ensure its citizens a holiday in each month of the year. So now we have a holiday on which we have to be especially nice to our Canadian family! Let us look at a few "Thumbnail" stories that you may want read to the children to make them proud of their family North of the 49th parallel and from Sea to Sea to Sea.

Historically, Monday was Washday. I can remember the smell of Lye soap and sheets frozen hard as a plank being brought in and hung over doors and chairs to finish drying. The sharp smell of "clean cotton" pervaded the house. I remember my mother's red, cracked hands making supper amid these sheets and towels. I do not remember any complaints. But the memory I miss the most was the smell of air-dried sheets and pillowcases. If you want to experience "Our Canadian History" just hang a set of bedding outdoors to dry!

Laundry Advice to A Bride from Her Grandmother Circa 1800 (sic)

1. Bild a fire in back yard to heat kettle of rain water
2. Set tubs so smoke won't blow in your eyes if wind is pert.
3. Shave 1 hole cake soap in bilin water.
4. Sort things-make two piles, 1 pile white, 1 pile cullord.
5. Stur flour in cold water, to smouth, then thin down with bilin water.
6. Rub dirty spots on boaed, scrub hard, then bile, rub cullord but don't bile- just rench
7. Take white things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then rench,blew, and starch.
8. Spred towels on grass.
9. Hang rags on fence,
10. Pore rench water in flower bed.
11. Scrub porch with hot soapty water.
12. Turn tubs up side down.

Go put on a clean dress - smooth hair with side combs - brew a cup of tea - set and rest and rocka spell and count your blessing.

R. Lewish Bowman, Bumfuzzeled

So you Got Laura Secord Chocolates for Valentine's Day, did you? Who was Laura?

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Canada's Joan-of-Arc
By Jack Harley http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/submitting.htm

In late June 1813 Laura Ingersoll Secord awoke one morning to find her small village, Queenston, Upper Canada, surrounded and taken over by invading Americans. With 600 men and 2 artillery pieces they were planning a surprise attack on Lieut. Fitzgibbons at Dew Cew falls 20 miles to the west. Laura's shrewdness and patriotism compelled her to gain passage through the American lines by pretending to attend to her cows in the distant fields. She then trekked through dense forest and swamps to warn Fitzgibbons of the impending American action. With 46 soldiers and seventy Caughnawaga & Mohawk Indians the British force reversed the surprise on the Americans and captured over 500 men. Laura's heroic act probably kept the Niagara peninsula in Loyalist hands and saved countless lives on both sides of the conflict.

Historical Note:
Ingersoll Ontario was the birth and the final resting-place of my maternal Grandparents so it is possible that Laura and I are kin.
The Galloping Geezer.

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Sir Isaac Brock Defender and Savior of Canada In the War of 1812 Jack Downey CD

General Brock was a great General who had experience in several theatres of war in Europe including the Battle of Trafalger along side Horatio Nelson. He was a brave, decent officer who personified the word "gentleman". Brock is commemorated for his ride to Queenston heights to drive the Americans back across the river. His untimely death was the result of a musket ball fired by an American sharpshooter. Seldom are our school children taught about Brock's duel when he was stationed in Bermuda.

Here is the story of another lead ball that could have ended Brock's life some years before he came to Canada. Brock was present in the Garrison Officers Mess in Hamilton Bermuda when a fellow Captain (and a renowned "Rake") insulted a lady. Brock came to her defense and a challenge to a duel was given. Brock was given the choice of weapons and chose pistols. His Second was appalled with this choice and advised Brock that "the Rake was an expert pistol shot and had already killed three others in duels." Brock was a below averages shot with a pistol, but refused to change to sabers in defense of the lady's honour.

On the morning of the duel, the adversaries met on the field of honour. The Seconds loaded and primed two matching dueling pistols. The first selection of pistol belonged to the Rake. His choice made and the weapons checked, the Rake asked of Brock " and sir how many paces would you like to take before you die?" Brock reached inside his tunic and drew out a handkerchief. Holding it by the corner and towards the Rake, Brock said, "Hold the other corner." The Rake lost his nerve, and, as the coward he really was, left the field of honor, and then the military, in disgrace.

Note:
My eldest son was named Brock in admiration of this great Canadian.
The Galloping Geezer

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The Mad Trapper of Rat River By Jack Harley http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/submitting.htm

Albert Johnson's arrival in Fort MacPherson, July 9th 1931 on the southern edge of the Mackenzie delta (67 degrees N latitude) was by all accounts non-eventful. He was approximately 35 years of age, a very taciturn individual with cold blue eyes coupled with a stocky muscular build. These physical characteristics in men that trapped for a living in the north were nothing out of the ordinary.

What the local people considered strange, however, was the fact that Albert did not bother to obtain a trapping license even though he built an 8' X 10' cabin with a good view on 3 sides in a prime trapping location on the Rat River.

With the trapping season in full swing by early December 1931 some of Albert's neighbours began having someone disrupt their traps. The only change from last season to this one - was Albert Johnson. On Dec. 31 Constable Alfred 'Buns' King and Special Constable Joe Bernard, each of whom had considerable northern experience, decided to call on Johnson to investigate. When they approached his cabin they noticed smoke billowing up from the chimney giving the impression that he was in the cabin. But Albert wasn't in a talking mood.

After numerous attempts to strike up a conversation in 40 below temperatures and getting nowhere with a man holed up with a gun, they decided to return to Aklavic to get reinforcements.

They returned with 2 more Mounties plus one civilian. After the initial knock on the door and without, warning suddenly a shot rang out wounding Constable King. A hasty retreat and a 20 hour dog sled ride back to Aklavic saved the life of the Constable.

On Jan 4, 1932, with 9 men, 42 dogs and 40 pounds of dynamite, a posse was determined to bring this fugitive in. Once their positions were secure on the cabin perimeter, the dynamite was thawed out by holding it under their coats close to their bodies.

The dynamite was thrown into the structure and a massive explosion ripped the roof clean off with one of the walls caving in.

As the Mounties entered the cabin to remove the corpse, Johnson stood up from a fox hole he dug firing 2 weapons narrowly missing both officers. A hasty retreat was in order again. After a 15 hr siege and food starting to run low they returned to Aklavic to contemplate their next move.

While all this was going on people in the rest of the continent were fixed to their radios listening to the first live reporting of a RCMP manhunt in Canada's north as it occurred. The whole affair was now dubbed the Mad Trapper of Rat River.

A third patrol was dispatched on Jan 14. But this time Johnson had fled his cabin fortress. For 2 weeks in near 50 below zero weather and 2 blizzards Johnson evaded his captures.

On Jan 30th he was confronted once more. After a short shootout, Constable 'Spike' Millen lay dead - shot through the heart. Johnson made his escape by climbing a shear cliff in the dead of night.

Albert Johnson seemed to be no average trapper. The Mounties said of him to be capable of great feats and crafty beyond belief. The local Inuit said at one point in the chase that Johnson could snowshoe 2 miles for every 1 mile a dog team had to break trail.

Johnson had been back tracking in ever larger circles for the past month to evade capture. At this time hundreds of men were now tracking him. He had guns but could not use them to hunt for food - they would give away his position. He had means to light a fire to cook what food he could snare but the fire again would aid his pursuers. He also had to build shelters in snow drifts, surely his clothes must have started to get wet from perspiration and/or the elements.

When and where could he build a fire large enough to dry his clothes out or eat properly to help ward off the effects of 50 below zero weather? A tantalizing question.

Now Johnson's greatest feat was about to happen. Johnson could see that the Arctic Red River district was becoming to difficult to manage. His only escape was traverse the Richardson mountains and head into the high country of the northern Yukon. The Mounties had already closed the door on that idea by guarding the only 2 passes through this range. But the quick thinking Johnson pulled another fast one on the Mounties. During a raging blizzard he climbed over these 7,000 ft mountains with very little food and no climbing gear. With visibility during the blizzard at near zero, trying to cling to sheer cliffs of slippery ice and numbing cold, the mountain men of the area told the Mounties it would be impossible to do at this time of the year even with the proper gear and food.

A native trapper traveling through one of the guarded passes told of strange tracks on the upper reaches of the Eagle River, Yukon. Assuming that this could be Johnson on the other side of mountains, the Mounties knew they were no match in overtaking this fugitive.

In a Canadian first, on Feb 7, 1932 a monoplane piloted by W.R. (Wop) May was pressed into service to aid in the search to finally corner Johnson.

On February 17, 1932 May directed the Mounties to a hairpin turn in the middle section of the Eagle River where a gun battle eventually brought Johnson down. It took 9 bullets to Johnson's body to finally end this 5 week ordeal.

Where did he come from (his finger prints were no help)? No family member ever claimed the body. Before entering the Arctic River area no one had ever heard of him. During the entire man hunt the Mounties never heard him speak a word. And yet he had over $2,000 in cash and some placer gold in his possession.

The story of Albert Johnson is truly a Canadian Mystery that still beckons to be solved.

Ed note: You can still visit the grave of the Mad Trapper in Aklavic, NWT

Historical note:
The chase for Albert Johnson included a young RCCof S (Royal Canadian Corps of Signals) by the name of Cpl. Hershey. The Signal Corps were the radio contacts in the north as well as the meteorologist in lonely outposts in the sub arctic and high arctic. Johnson was scrambling up a riverbank when spotted by the Mounties and Hershey. Up went Hershey's 303 rifle. " Crack! Crack!", it barked and both rounds smashed into Johnson's back. Surely, both were killing shots, but Johnson kept going. Later when Johnson was shot down, it was determined that Hershey's shots had been true, but Johnson was carrying a heavy cast iron frying pan in his rucksack and in that pan were two deep dents where the 303 rounds had hit the center of it, temporarily saving his life. Some years later Cpl. Hershey was a Major, at the Royal Canadian Armored Corps School in Camp Borden, and my CO. He won the enormous sum (at that time) of $125,000 in the Irish SweepStakes. The reporter that rushed there from Toronto to interview Maj. Hershey at work was none other than that "son of a Yukoner" Pierre Berton!

The Galloping Geezer.

Here is a group that is "Family" but we like to keep them in the closet with all the other weird Canadians that make children's hair stand up and eyes grow large. When you tell the story of the Black Donnellys over on "The Roman Line," even the dog will know enough to hide under the bed!

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The Donnellys of Biddulph Township
by: Bruce Ricketts http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/submitting.htm
The temper of the Irish has been spoken of since time began, but I am not sure that anyone in Lucan, Ontario, could have predicted the Black Donnellys.

The family of James and Johannah Donnelly emigrated from Tipperary, Ireland, to Canada, and settled on land being given away at the time by the Governor of Upper Canada. They staked a claim and built their homestead on Lot 18 of the sixth concession of Biddulph Township in the spring of 1847.

By the spring of 1880, the Donnelly homestead was a pile of burnt rubble. James, Johannah and some of their children also lay in the rubble, having been murdered by their neighbours (although no one has ever be found guilty of this crime).

What happened in those intervening 33 years is the stuff that makes this unsolved crime a Mystery of Canada.

Almost immediately upon their arrival to the new world, the Donnellys began to feud with their neighbours. Whether it was over land, business ventures, horses, cattle, money or pride... there was always a reason to fight.

The Donnelly family consisted of James and Johannah, sons, James Jr., William, John, Patrick, Michael, Robert and Tom, and daughter Jenny. (Playing a bit part in the final scene was their cousin, Bridget.)

In case you are skeptical of the depth of the feuding between the Donnellys and their neighbours, here is one illustration taken from the "Black Donnellys":

One evening Johannah was returning home on foot. She shortened her trip by cutting through a neighbour's pasture. As they are wont to do, a bull chased Johannah. She escaped by jumping a fence. Needless to say, Momma Donnelley's dander was up. There is no proof, nor any eyewitness to the deed, but the next morning that very bull was found dead, with its tongue cut out, in the very field that it had chased Johannah.

Of course you cannot have a feud with only one feuding party. The party of the second part included almost all the townspeople of Lucan and residents of Biddulph Township.

So now that you understand the nature of the Donnellys and their relationship to the community, then it would not surprise you to learn late on the evening of February 4, a mob stormed the house, killed all the occupants and set the home ablaze.

The best kept secret conspiracy in the world (next to the grassy knoll issue with JFK) is who killed James and Johannah, sons John and Tom and cousin Bridget? Why were the killings done in such a brutal manner? Who set the house on fire?

This was a conspiracy of silence not only between the participants but, being a small town, the residents of Lucan must have had some knowledge of the murders. The police, lawyers and the judges were powerless to convict a single murderer.

To this very day the majority of the residents of Lucan do not talk about what became known as the Black Donnellys. They have removed or replaced virtually all landmarks associated with the clan and we understand that books on the subject are not carried in the local library.

If you visit Lucan these days you can find a gravestone of the family, although the original one was replaced in 1964 to eliminate the word murdered on it.

So there were some of our Canadian Family stories. There are many more "Thumbnail" stories at http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/submitting.htm that should be made into movies or TV shows. Somehow, Canadians are unaware of our kinfolk and their eccentric ways. I remember, as a boy, being glued to the radio to hear the USA radio programs "The Green Hornet" or "The Great Gilldersleve." Where is the producer who can take these stories of our Canadian family heritage and bring them to today's Canadian families?

Next week let's find out the origin of some Canadian place names.... The Galloping Geezer.



Jack C. Downey CD
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