St Johns Ravenscourt School - Eagle Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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A The scorching summer sun hung halfway down the sky. The three of us had been driving all day with a break for lunch. Despite the rolled down windows, large drops of perspiration ran down my uncle’s fore¬ head as he drove the car along the twisting road. My aunt lay stretched out in the back seat, dropping off into small dozes only to be reawakened by another deep pit in the road. It was Sunday, our fifth and last day in the mountains. We were winding our way out of the south-east corner of the Canadian Rockies. The large mountains were long behind us and now we were just making our way back along the broad wooded valleys. The unbearable heat and our boredom brought about by long hours in the car, was having its effect on us; as for me, I had a hollow pain in my stomach. Out-stretched across my knee lay a half folded map of British Columbia and Alberta. I etched another pen mark along the red line on the map keeping track of our journey through the mountains. On the previous days I had done this at night, but now every few miles I extended the pen line a little further. During the course of late morning and early afternoon it had gone through Wardner, Elko, and Fernie, and was now twist¬ ing its way up to two small twin towns, Natal and Michel. I was looking forward to them, for they were the last towns before Crowsnest Pass. I wanted to see this famous landmark for it would be some thing in¬ teresting in this uninteresting day. With the long summer day the torrid sun still clung above the mountains. No cloud moved across the blue sky. No birds flew from bush green trees. No car drove on the long black mountain road, just us. It was quite lonely, but we knew that around a few more bends we would be in Natal and her twin town. Yes, just around a couple of bends and there they were. I lifted my head from the map in which it was buried, and looked around. My aunt opened her bleary eyes and gave a noisy yawn followed by a question: Is this Natal?” My uncle stirred from his trance-like posi¬ tion at the wheel and answered in the affirmative, and continued, But it sure doesn’t look like the Natal I saw here ten years ago.” I did not think it was worth the commotion. There it lay just in front of us, black and lifeless like a ghost. Nothing stirred down its main street, the highway. Maybe it was just because it was a Sunday afternoon? Two rows of houses stretched down the road getting more closely packed and nearer to the road as we went along. Each house was a blackened brown, not a patch of white showing through, except maybe a board just recently nailed across a window. Each house looked the same, each with the veranda hanging off the house like the tongue of a baby. Their tiny yards were unkept, but someone must have cared some; many had small neatly built fences a- round the house. But they had deteriorated: the fences were dark, many had lost their gates. The remainder of the gates hanging cockeyed leaned on the old stone paths leading to the rotten brown coloured steps of the verandas. Some verandas had screens, but they had been neglected for some years now. The windows were dark, not only from the shadow of black protruding roofs. If there was a store or a church among these first set of houses they were well disguised, yet this was just the entrance to the town. If these first houses were drab and slummy the following ones were worse. The high¬ way served as a kitchen view for many and we could see the odd clothes line strung across the small deep grassed yards from dark timbers. We passed some brick stores, but they had also turned black. We never did see a church; maybe it was down one of the muddy lanes? There was a half mile break between Natal and her twin. From a large hole in a ridge on the left a mining car rail came out. My uncle began explaining that this was not a ghost town, despite its looks, but still a much lived in coal mining town. Beyond the ridge and around the town was a large coal mining industry. A coal mining town deteriorates much more quickly than any other town because of the coal dust in the air. The town had been left uncared for over the past couple of years and now the black coal dust had found its way into everything; the town had taken on a de¬ graded look. The half mile was just a small break between two ugly spots. Michel was every bit as black as Natal. I was greatly depressed by Michel. It was dirty. Not just coal dust but litter, muddy ditches through the middle of town, and dilapidated houses. Actually in most re¬ spects it was much the sameas the other. It was just my impression that was worse; having to go through a second town of this ugly blackness and being depressed by its surroundings. Then suddenly in the midst of this darkness I saw a glimpse of light. In front of the most black houses with a dark veranda declining for¬ ward from its original level near some half dead scrub bush sat a girl on some brown stairs. I saw just one glimpse of her: — a red blouse and yellow skirt which matched her golden hair, far out of place in these ugly shapes. We drove on into the sunset. We passed through Crowsnest Pass. I can hardly remember it now, but I will always remember that day. I will forget some of the magestic mountains or the beautiful waterfalls. I probably will not remember many of happy moments on the glaciers or in the hot sulpher pools, but I will always remember Natal and Michel, and my glimpse of the girl on the stairs. ANGUS CAMBELL FORM VI

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LITERAIV

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Voidt It is this afluent age Is that man’s undoing Nothing corrupts like success Rome proved that in 410. When he struggles This beast is noble Like the wild animals He stands pure, happy. He sets his sights and works Towards the aim. In hard toil and great sweat Happy in striving. But soon he cannot work Jobless. He used to worry about leisure Once Now there is to much, the dole feeds him Useless Life without living, life without pleasure Hopeless. Machines that send us to rendezvous with the stars Machines that make things far better than men Machines that think quicker than men by far Machines are killing the happy toil of men. Oh where is the machine That gives the world happiness? JOHN NANSON FORM VI Emrfti fmt, a Gontflmio i ojf JwU off tU Eo dk mi Om 7Wwe In this essay I will endeavour to compare Fruits of the Earth with Over Prairie Trails in relation to the basic elements of fiction, and later, to show what the first book, Over Prairie Trails , sheds light on in the later novel Fruits of the Earth. Over Prairie Trails was written by Frederic Phillip Grove in the fall of 1918 and the spring of 1919- Fruits of the Earth was written much later and was, in fact, the last of his prairie novels. It was first published in 1933, eleven years after the publishing of Over Prairie Trails. The two books are basically very different in that Over Prairie Trails is not a work of fiction, whereas Fruits of the Earth is. The first book is a collection of seven true accounts of trips made by Grove to see his family, while he was teaching thirty-four miles away in a different Manitoba town. The second book, the novel, is the tale of a farmer carving a life for himself and his family on the prairie at the turn of the century. This great difference in form sets the two books in very different categories. This must be realized before any contrast or comparison can seem to be comprehensive. The main character in Fruits of the Earth is Abraham David Spalding, who in no way symbolizes Grove. Over Prairie Trails is autobiographical, leav¬ ing Grove as its main character. The two characters are very different, however. Abe Spalding represents primitive man or humanity as a whole, and Grove is not a fictional character. . . Both Over Prairie Trails and Fruits of the Earth are set on the Manitoba Prairie, and both take place in the early 1900’s. Fruits of the Earth has two dominant moods, which are largely governed by the plot: the first is an atmosphere of rising success; the second, which prevails following Abe’s favorite son, is one of steady decline. Ove JPrairie JHails has several moods, ranging from physical pain and difficulty, to wide-eyed wonder, to urgency. Each account has its own prevailing atmosphere. Apparent in both books, however, is the never-ending battle between the two main characters and the environ¬ ments. Abe fought the land to earn a living; Grove fought the elements on his trips. . . . Over Prairie Trails sheds a great deal of light on things employed and mentioned in Fruits of the Earth . Most important of all, it illuminates clearly, and in plain language, some of the symbolism in Fruits of the Earth . This illumination is especially obvious with regard to the setting of Fruits of the Earth . In constructing the symbols for that novel, Grove needed a primeval setting for his strong farmer, Abe Spalding, who was to represent primitive man or mankind. He chose the Western Canadian prairie. The proof of the entire symbolism is given in Over Prairie Trails. On page fifteen of Over Prairie Trails . Grove numbers him¬ self among the few” who think this backwoods bushland (to be) God’s own earth and second only to Paradise.” Grove states that he moved to the prairies because he wanted the simpler, the more elemental things, things cosmic in their associations, nearer to the beginning or end of creation.” What could be more clear? In recounting the fourth trip, Grove says that the snow, lying smoothly on the