White Christmas, Pioneer Style
Happily, most of us spend Christmas warm, dry and safe. It was anything but for Higgins and his three companions in 1858.
Se also… My First Christmas Dinner in Victoria
Christmas Day, 1858.
For pioneer British Columbia journalist D.W. Higgins this was his most memorable Yuletide of all—the time Christmas dinner almost cost him his life.
It was almost half a century after that the Nova Scotia-born newspaperman, publisher, businessman, politician and Speaker of the House recounted that unforgettable Christmas Day at Fort Yale where, after a brief and half-hearted attempt as a prospector, he’d served in the position of agent for an express company.
Yale as it was at the time of D.W. Higgins’s Christmas tale.
As the winter of 1858 had approached, most of the Fraser River miners lived in a row of tents before the Hudson’s Bay Co. fort. The more fortunate, those who’d erected some form of more permanent shelter, were little better off.
On December 1st the wintry siege began in earnest when the lower river froze and all but those daring enough to brave the ice were effectively imprisoned in town. Cut off from the outside world, with the “prime necessaries” in short supply and over-priced, the prospect of a joyous Christmas became dimmer by the day. The arrival of Christmas Eve Day brought crisis as the miners faced having to go without a seasonable dinner.
“There was no poultry in town,” Higgins recalled, “but at Hedges’s wayside house, some four miles up the Little Canyon. It was known that there were a small flock of hens and geese that had been specially fattened for the festive occasion...”
Fired by visions of a succulent roast goose, Higgins and three young friends, Lambert, Talbot and Nixon, decided to hike the four miles to Hedges’s, buy six of his birds and return tot town in time for Christmas dinner. Setting out in two feet of snow, they headed for the summit where they encountered snow three feet deep that “render[ed] locomotion exceedingly difficult.”
By 6 o’clock that evening, they’d been on the trail for four hours—almost three times as long as it usually took them.
Darkness had fallen by the time they dragged themselves to Hedges;s door, the glare of a light in the window serving as a beacon A great log fire and a few drops of ‘oh-be-joyful’ soon thawed their benumbed hands and feet. Proprietor Hedges then served them a warmed-over banquet of pork and beans.
The fire, the drinks and the food (despite its simplicity) soon had all in excellent humour and, as the wind howled about the inn, rattled the windows and banked the snow in large drifts, Christmas Eve was spent in warm camaraderie.
Besides proprietor Hedges, Higgins and company, there were a number of miners who’d hiked down the frozen Fraser. They reported a heavy snowfall along the river and said that they’d reached the safety of the roadhouse only after having had to abandon their packs and supplies en route.
Higgins described the scene:
“All, together with out contingent from Yale, were gathered about the blazing hearth on that Christmas Eve, speculating on the chances for reaching Yale on the morrow. The landlord declared that it would be a physical impossibility for any person to pass up or down the river until the storm had abated; but we Yaleites did not agree with him.
“We told him that we had promised to return to Yale by noon on Christmas Day with some of his fowls, and that we intended to start in the morning for home in any event...” (Higgins suspected that Hedges wanted to discourage them from departing until “he had milked us of our last coin”.)
However, yielding to their determination, he agreed to sell them “five fowls and one goose at $4 apiece. We closed with the offer and the birds were duly slaughtered and became our property.
“In the morning the storm still raged. The cold was intense. The building was almost buried in snow which lay three feet on the level at the river[‘s] brink. This meant four feet on the summit, and enormous drifts everywhere, but in spite of these obstacles we four foolish young men proposed to start for home with the birds after an early breakfast.”
Several of their companions, older and more experienced, tried to dissuade them, without success. Upon giving up in disgust, one miner insulted them, a second said they should be committed to an asylum, and a third, upon producing a tapeline, proceeded to measure them.
Identifying himself as a former carpenter, he said he’d begin building their coffins as soon as they left, and his friend Bill would “dig four graves as soon as the storm is over”.
Higgins, Lambert, Talbot and Nixon laughed heartily, ignored the miners’ final entreaties to stay and, Christmas dinners over their shoulders, headed up the mountainside. They intended to follow the winding trail but soon encountered six-foot-deep drifts: “Before we were well out of sight of the cabin the trail had vanished, and every landmark by which, under other circumstances, it might have been regained, was gone, too.”
After three hours they’d made, by Higgins’s calculations, no more than a mile. Without a compass and unable to identify the trail, it was “impossible to tell whether we were going north or south. We floundered on through snow which grew and deeper as we ascended the mountain.
“Sometimes one of the party would step into a hole and disappear in a few moments. We would all stop and, having hauled him out, would press on again...”
Although “fairly wrapped in woollens,” they began to suffer as the temperature dropped and the wind increased. Despite his wearing a fur coat, Talbot was the least robust member of the troop and he felt the cold more than the others. Time and again he faltered, his companions having to urge him on with coaxing and false humour.
When another hour passed, Higgins admitted, “we were four as completely used up and penitent men as ever tried to scale a mountain in the midst of a howling snowstorm.”
By this time the temperature had plunged to zero degrees Fahrenheit and poor Talbot was failing rapidly.
At last, panting for breath he sank in a drift and began to weep in frustration. When the others dug him out, he attempted to stand then fell back, exhausted. After a final attempt to rise he said with sigh, “Boys, I am done. I can go no farther. Leave me here. My furs may keep me warm until you can get help; but, at any rate, save yourselves if you can. I am not afraid to die but I would rather not die on Christmas Day with my boots on.”
“Fiddlesticks!” replied Higgins, more in hope than in conviction. “What nonsense to talk of dying. We are all right. Only make another effort and we’ll be at the summit.”
Talbot, however, wasn’t to be fooled by empty encouragement. With tears frozen fast on his cheeks, he pleaded that they not let him die with his boots on. Lambert and Nixon, according to Higgins, were young, hearty and brave although they, too, were feeling the effects of the intense cold. But Talbot’s tearful insistence that they leave him where he was sapped their spirits.
All four wished they’d listened to the others at the roadhouse. But it was too late for regrets; if they didn’t act quickly they’d perish.
Divesting themselves of their packs, they “cast the fowls from us as if we never hoped to see another goose or chicken so long as we might live. The fowls sank in the new-fallen snow, and we saw them no more, and with them disappeared the wherewithal for a grand Christmas dinner which we were taking to our friends at Yale.”
Higgins, Lambert and Nixon pondered their next course of action. Retreat was impossible as the snow had obliterated their tracks and all signs of the trail. Their predicament was momentarily forgotten when Lambert noticed that Talbot had fallen asleep, and he cried, “Wake him up, in God’s name, or he’ll freeze to death.”
Talbot, by this time limp and blue, had fallen over into a drift, his eyes half-closed and his breathing faint. Upon their forcing him to his feet, they rubbed his face, hands and ears with snow and “begged him to speak. We pounded him on the back and stood him up again, but although he began to show faint signs of awakening, he was so far gone that he could not rise foot or finger to help himself.”
Higgins snapped off some pine boughs, cleared snow from roots of an upturned tree, scraped off some shavings with his knife and started a fire. “To this fire we hurried Talbot. By dint of rubbing and pounding, and the assistance of a few drops of a cordial commonly known as H.B.C. Company rum, Talbot shortly revived and shook off his desire to slumber, but he was very weak, and kept calling on his mother, who was thousands of miles away...”
In their desperation to revive Talbot the others had forgotten their own discomfort and, somewhat warmed by the fire, resolved to wait out the storm. With a weak laugh Lambert joked that they shouldn’t have jettisoned their chickens as they might have cooked them over their little camp fire.
Inspired by the thought, they searched the immediate area. But they couldn’t find so much as a feather of their expensive, intended Christmas feast and had to tighten their belts and content themselves with their flasks and tobacco pouches.
Despite the fire Talbot remained weak and listless although able to keep his eyes open. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, it stopped snowing, the wind gradually abated and the southern sky, originally a flint-grey hue, became progressively darker in colour as huge clouds began to build along the eastern horizon. This change, coupled with a rapid rise in temperature, indicated a Chinook wind which renewed their hopes of regaining the lost trail.
Higgins decided to reconnoitre but couldn’t detect the slightest evidence of a trail or their tracks. By 4 o’clock, they’d been out eight hours and it was getting dark. Higgins, afraid that “we were little nearer our goal than when we started,” thought they had no choice but to remain by their fire until morning. He “tightened my belt another hole, and was in the act of retracing my steps, when—what was that sound that fell upon m years, and sent a thrill of joy through my timid and aching frame?
“I listened intently, and soon my doubting heart supplied the answer. It was only the beat of a woodpecker’s bill on the hollow trunk of a tree.” Despondent at the thought of having to spend the night in the wilds, and concerned for Talbot’s safety, he headed back to his comrades.
“Suddenly, another and more familiar sound reached me. My heart stood still as I paused to listen. Then there broke full upon my ear the deep bay of a dog!
“It rolled up from the valley, and reverberated through the rocky depths, disturbing the awful stillness of the forest, and imparting to me hope and confidence at the prospect of a rescue. I drew my revolver from my belt and fired five charges. I listened to the reports as they echoed through the forest and died away in the distance.
“Then—oh! Thrice welcome sound! Never in all my life did a human voice seem so sweet in my ears as that which I heard almost at my feet: ‘Coo—ee! —Coo-ee!”
Then all four shouted at the tops of their lungs as the dog, after dancing excitedly about them, led the way down the hill. Forging their way through snowdrifts that were up to their armpits, the tired, cold and hungry travellers spotted a large cabin.
Higgins could hardly believe it—was he dreaming? —Pexels.com
Higgins, almost beyond believing that they were saved, paused to rub his eyes. The closer he came to the cabin, he more skeptical he became. Surely he must be dreaming? Then, aloud, he mused, “This is not Hedges’s, surely?”
“That’s just what it is, Sonny,” replied a man at the door.
Then Hedges advanced, fat hand outstretched. “I didn’t expect to see you silly boys alive again,” he said with a grin, “and I ought to have tied you up before I let you go out in the storm. Come in, anyhow, and have something, then join us in our Christmas dinner, which is just about ready. You must be hungry.”
When the miner who’d measured them for coffins examined them from head to toe with a sad look, all laughed—Higgins, Talbot, Lambert and Nixon sharing in the merriment although painfully aware just how close to disaster their “obstinacy and self-conceit” had taken them. Then, the near tragedy all but forgotten, hey retired to the inn where all sat down to a regal feast of roast fowl and goose.
Two days later, the four travellers returned to Yale where they’d been given up for lost.
lifesaving fire and had informed their friends in town—much to the travellers’ annoyance. The location of the fire, Higgins ruefully confessed so long afterwards, revealed that “during all our wanderings and flounderings we had never been more than an eighth of a mile from the inn, having walked around in a circle after we lost the trail!”
Such, for D.W. Higgins and his friends, was Christmas 1858.
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