Homestead Road

  In the novel “Crow Lake”, by Mary Lawson, the main character, Kate Morrison is talking about a trip back to the farm of her youth for a family reunion.  It’s a fictitious place, a farm in Northern Ontario, somewhere north of New Liskeard.  She describes the last few miles as she approaches the farm:

  "That last stretch of the journey from Toronto to Crow Lake always takes me by the throat.  Partly it’s the familiarity; I know every tree, every rock, every boggy bit of marshland so well, that even though I almost always arrive after dark I can feel them around me, lying there in the darkness as if they were my own bones.  Partly too, it is the sensation of going back in time, moving from “now” to “then,” and the recognition that wherever you are now and wherever you may be in the future, nothing alters the point you started from."

That paragraph brings back a flood of fond memories to me.  The road down to the family farm where I grew up with my brothers and sisters and which, by good fortune, remains in the family’s name today, has been the last stretch of many of my trips.  Indeed, it’s true of the all roads in the immediate area of the farm road, whether the part of the highway 515 to the local village of Quadeville or the section coming from Palmer Rapids, running alongside of the Madawaska River, down through Latchford Bridge, past the church, Helferty’s farm, Comeau’s place, and finally turning down what has now been named Homestead Road.  For three miles the road follows the river through curves and turns, past cottages and the King homestead and arrives at what we call the Madigan farm.

I think I could drive down most of it with my eyes closed.  In fact, I recall as a kid, often closing my eyes in the back seat of the car and imagining the road in my mind as we drove back from church or from visiting a relative.  When Fran first started coming up north with me –we used to call it “north” then but now we know it’s not north at all – she used to be alarmed at how fast I would drive down this narrow dirt road.  She’d be telling me to slow down, that she was nervous and I’d be assuring her that I knew this road like the back of my hand and exactly what was around the next corner.  I’m sure Glen Hanes and Johnnie King believed the same thing just before their respective car wrecks. 

At any moment I can let my mind wander off to those special fond images: Tade’s Creek, the bridge –although it’s a huge culvert now – where the creek goes under the road, the stretch above Freddie’s pulp pile where my father, James P, ran down the fox one night, the culvert just before the bad culvert where Jimmy Byrnes got stuck and where Donald ran poor Jackie King off the road, the Long Stretch where P.J. Ryan was pulling a load of hay and ran Carmel off the road.  “You could’ve snared her eyes with an inch rope,” he told us afterwards just as Clemmie was winding up with a bale to heave into the haymow.  Clemmie, bale and all, went tumbling off the wagon in a fit of laughter.  The reference to the “boggy bit of marshland” reminded me clearly of the swale just after Joan Marie’s Point and across from Ivan Schutt’s old place.  Even today, there is always a pond there in the spring and, as one drives by in the evening, the singing of the frogs penetrates right through a closed up car, stereo blaring and all.  Several times, over the years with my own family, I had stopped and turned off the car to just listen.  We’d roll the windows down and just soak up the surround sound of a ‘million’ peeping frogs until the whining of mosquitoes caused us to start up the car and get moving again. 

My father first moved down the road to the farm with his family when he was only six months old.  He often said “it was only a snye through the bush in those days, barely wide enough for the horses and buggy.”  It was as rugged as the river.  There were parts of the year, in the winter, and especially during the spring break-up, when it was virtually impassable.  Over the years they chopped back the alders and undergrowth, and built up the road to accommodate the age of the automobile.  Lumber companies, seeking to gain access to the crown land beyond the farm, made many improvements.  Today it is open year round and maintained as a township road.

The river running alongside is an inseparable part of the experience.  One catches glimpses through the trees as you drive.  Occasionally there is a full view of a smooth stretch of water, or the frenzied dance of the white water through Aumonds Rapids.  In the summer months, cars are stopped on the side in various places where the owners have gained access to the water for fishing, canoeing, or sightseeing.  Throughout the seasons breath-taking views attract the camera buffs and it’s a favoured Sunday afternoon or recreational drive for the locals.

The beauty of the river and its wildlife is a huge distraction for the driver who should be watching the road.  In the areas with fast moving waters, ducks can be spotted year round.  Muskrat, and beaver can be seen regularly and a keen eye may pick up the signs left by a mink or an otter from the night before.  My mother regularly led the family in prayer as we drove to church, or other events, and I recall the prayers were often interspersed with sightings.

“Hail Mary full of grace… look at the mink track out there!”  Or, “Look at the partridge!”

“Holy Mary Mother of God… Jim keep your eyes on the road or we’ll all end up in the ditch!”

Once, when James P. was in his seventies he might have hit the ditch.  A sizeable dent mysteriously appeared in the fender of his new truck.  He had various excuses for running off the road none of which made any mention that he was on his way back from the liquor store in Barry’s Bay.  My mother understood he had met “that young Michael King on a snow machine.”  He told me he had been looking at a deer on the other side of the river.

Years ago one of the locals had another ‘deer’ story.  He ended up down on the ice with his half-ton on its side.  Word was that he had “swerved to miss a deer.”  He had a “bottle” in the truck but, of course had not been drinking, yet.  Apparently he was on his way down to offer some Christmas merriment to James P.  In order to ensure there’d be no evidence for gossip he heaved the partial bottle of rye towards the water flowing about thirty yards out in the middle of the river.  He didn’t give it enough of a “heft” though, and for days thereafter all could see the curled pattern the bottle had left on the partially snow-covered ice as it swirled like a drunken hockey puck, finally coming to rest just before it got to the open water.  “And there she sits,” he complained, “for the whole world to see!”

It makes sense to blame the deer for driving mishaps.  They visit the cool waters in the evenings of hot summer days and in the winter months they use the plowed road to browse on the evergreens and to use their speed to escape the wolves.  It is not unusual to spot a deer or two on any given trip.  As a youngster, walking to school, I recall many deer sightings that became the exciting news to report as soon as one arrived home or at school.

The water and scenery are the main attractions.  There were several times I recall, on our way home from school, the natural beauty sidetracked my brothers and sisters and me.  Once or twice on gorgeous Indian Summer days, after the leaves were off, we climbed Tade’s mountain – actually it is just a low, rounded hogsback - and soaked in the view of the river wandering into the distance and pitching into the white water of the rapids a mile below.  The challenges presented by those same rapids, snaking around a small island, proved to be too seductive for young children out for an adventure.  If one could leap a fair distance and keep your balance upon landing, you could make jump strides from one rock to another and eventually make your way out to where the main current roared through a ten-foot wide sluice.  Only the oldest and bravest tried to wade across this swift coursing final passage of black water that separated the mainland from the island.  After experiencing the fear of partially losing ones balance due to the force of the water flow, and heeding the pleas of the younger ones, we usually gave up, gathered our footwear, and hopped back to the shoreline vowing to conquer it the next time.

Oh yes, Homestead Road has many cherished memories and stories that will be shared by family members and passed onto generations for years to come.  Each one of us has a particular caring recollection; perhaps of the old henhouse at Harry Jessup’s where the older brothers hid their cigarettes or, of the hollow fence post at King’s farm where a robin hatched a batch of young ones each spring.  The fondest images, for me, are those as you break from the trees at the cottage and the farm buildings come into view.  From there down, the images and memories are countless and almost synonymous with those of family members.  You can nearly feel a hugging and greeting of your being as you approach the machine shed and enter the farmyard.

All of those images are still there to be had many times in the future as my siblings and I advance into retirement.  I look forward to sharing countless celebrations and memories at the farm with Fran and our families and friends, as well as my own siblings and their families.

Thoughts of retirement have caused me to ponder about James and Gert as they reached this stage in their own lives.  I can picture the soul searching that must have gone on.  What to do with the farm must have preoccupied their conversations and thoughts for years.  They saw many around them, the Remus’s, the Kauffeldt’s and others selling their farms and moving into a cozy place in town.  Indeed, James helped the Forestry plant pine on many of the old farms so he surely thought of what he and Gert might do with their own.  There was talk, at one time, that they would build a house up at the turn.  Another alternative was to move into the senior’s apartments in Palmer Rapids as James was being sought after to act as a kind of caretaker/superintendent.  In the end they decided to live out their time at the homestead and to keep the farm in the family. 

I can recall, vividly, the day I sat with them in the office of Bob Howe, the lawyer, as they drew up the final papers.  At the same time they had him prepare their Power of Attorney statement and appointed me as the one to act on their behalf.  Just the day or so before, they had made their funeral arrangements at Goulet’s.  I would have been a mess.  But not them.  There was none of the Madigan watery eyes nor any snuffing or sniffing.  They seemed perfectly comfortable with what they were doing.  Fran’s family, the Dion’s, are the huggers and kissers.  Madigans are not so demonstrable but I remember the awareness of love, affection, and complete trust that I sensed.  They even set up shared bank accounts with me.  Through me they were placing such an overwhelming trust and confidence in their family to oversee their affairs.

The gift of the farm and the implicit expectation that the loving memories be enjoyed, shared, and passed on to the next generation was an inheritance that I believe we all need to appreciate more fully.  Fran may not have enjoyed her first rides down the road but it was through her eyes, a city girl, that I became more aware of the awesome natural beauty of the road and river.  Not much wonder I wanted to bring her up from Windsor and to share with her the delights of this “snye through the bush.”  It’s a three-mile stretch of nature’s treasures that keeps the tourists and locals coming back for more.  The natural beauty stands outside of the passing of time.  I'm sure outsiders come along and are dazzled by the sight of it.  Little do they know that, for a handful of people, every rock, every fencepost, every bend and curve has a name, a story, and a memory about our youth and of those – our ancestral blood and bones - who pioneered in the area, beat back the bush and flies and staked their future down Homestead Road.

 Ó Short Stories by Jack Madigan

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