Chasing the Comet: A Scottish-Canadian Life

6. The Okanagan Valley—Surviving Together

My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, And my Freedom’s my lairdship nae monarch dare touch. —Robert Burns, “Contented Wi’ Little” CHAPTER SIX The Okanagan Valley—Surviving Together This page intentionally left blank F From Calgary I caught the train to the West to Kelowna, located in the Okanagan and Kalamalka Lake country. It was spring so Kelowna was all in bloom. Here, I lived with my sister Mary and Tom, during the considerable time I spent taking medical tests, searching for the cause of my severe bloating and pain. My brother Bob had recently married, and his wife was also called Mary. In between bouts of sickness, I helped Bob with his orchard job. Eventually, my doctor decided my ailments were caused by my appendix, so he removed it and I began to feel much better. About 1932, in the heart of the depression, Bob lost his job when the market for apples collapsed. Though it was a disaster, we all survived because we weren’t living in town. We could get food. If a deer run past us, we shot it and ate it. We had to. With my health improved, I accepted an offer that helped me as well as Bob and his family survive the hungry thirties, when there were no paying jobs available, when almost no one could buy farm products, pay rent, or purchase anything requiring money. The offer came from a man named A.S. McArthur, who managed the “Save Store” in Salmon Arm, where we dealt when we lived just south of there.1 Like Kelowna, Salmon Arm is located on a beautiful lake—the Shuswap—with a look to it that reminded me of lakes in Scotland. McArthur owned a three-quarter section of farmland with a house on it—in Tappen—located fifteen miles from Salmon Arm. Note to chapter 6 is on page 240. 67 The land near Tappen had been prime beaver country in the early and mid-1800s. By the time we arrived, the small village was well-established, built close to the CPR, which connected it to the trade routes of the world. There was no trans-Canada Highway, so trains transported all freight and shipped the farmers ’ produce, as well as moving to market all the trees felled in the local logging industry. There were a few crank-handled, wallmounted telephones in use and some electricity. The town had a post office in the Tappen Co-op. The Co-op had been established by the Tappen Farmers’ Exchange in 1915, in order to get a fair deal for the local farmers when marketing their produce or buying supplies and equipment for their farms. The Co-op enabled locals to buy their livestock feed in carload lots for reduced rates. Because the main source of power was still the horse, this Co-op even handled harness repairs. Eggs were graded here, then shipped to market in wooden crates. In the 1920s the store had been a success for the local farmers, up until the Depression slump hit here, as it did everywhere. Neither the Co-op nor McArthur’s Salmon Arm stores were exempt from the devastating effects of the slump. This was the reason McArthur had made us his offer. His rental place had some cleared land, but it was mostly bush, and he stood to lose it all to taxes if it couldn’t be made profitable. McArthur offered us free rent for the clearing of it. Because it was now fall, we weren’t very keen on accepting, at first. We knew there was no hope of seeing any profit or trade goods ‘til at least the spring. We didn’t know how we would buy food or fuel in the meantime. Yet every time we wrote to refuse McArthur’s offers, by return mail he’d up the ante for our acceptance. I kept every one of his letters, which later proved to our advantage. In his replies, McArthur offered $25 worth of groceries, at that time enough to carry us to spring, plus a supply of coal we could use when blacksmithing for the stock. (Blacksmith’s coal is specialized to give very high heat, so you can’t use it in a closed burner. It is so full of gas it will blow up. Bellows have to be used for blowing it to increase...