by Laura Manuel
Water-faring ghosts lure me in dreams. When I wake, I find myself drawn to the river, that lumbar curve that divides my city into north and south, blending urban with wild. Is this because I sleep on a graveyard of rudders, gunnels, starboards and ports? A century earlier, on the same land I lay my head, there was once a boat building factory….
As a young man, John “Cap” Matheson moved from the east coast of Canada to captain boats on the Bering Sea to Aklavik to Fort McMurray. Cap understood frigid water: thick ice on the MacKenzie River, frost-tipped winds of Great Slave Lake, and stinging spray of blue-cold Lake Athabasca. Cap had intimate knowledge about what it took for a vessel to perform in northern conditions. So, when Cap settled in Edmonton, he didn’t hesitate to purchase the Northern Boat Building Company. He gave the business a new home in the neighbourhood of Highlands in 1923.
During the winter months, Cap worked alone inside his factory. Dim, electrical bulbs and firelight illuminated his designs with apricot light. Miniature boat models constructed with wooden pegs filled a heavy table. Nearby, reams of sketches and measurements covered chairs and floor. Cap obsessively considered the angle of a deck, room for a giant open-valve engine, and the curve of a hull. Sometimes, to sustain himself, he took orders for other projects – dog sleds or window frames. But all the while he thought about the shape of his nautical characters. Barges, tugboats, long boats and yachts. While blizzards whipped at his door and icicles hung from eaves, Cap dreamed of water.
I, too, dream of water. Except I look through double-paned windows and hear an energy-efficient furnace click into action. I view a dark, sleepy street wrapped in a white blanket. Large boulevard elms, illuminated by orange streetlights, hover over a sheared sidewalk. My neighbour shuffles in front of my house, the hood of his parka is pulled up over his head. And I see puffs of life without a face. Today will be cold, so I carefully dress in layers. Wool socks are pulled high over a merino base from Mountain Equipment Co-op. I stretch a buff over my cheeks and nose, but I can still smell snow. People who live in warmer climates cannot fathom the idea of snow having an aroma. Yet, I inhale that unique trifecta of cold, humidity and memory. The world is just beginning to wake as I crunch towards the staircase near Wayne Gretzky Drive. From the top, I see the river’s breath hanging in a scoop over a small section of open river. Soon, her exhalation will dissolve in sun rays. I release my dog from his leash and descend towards the network of trails. Pathways glow in a spectrum of grey, blue and diamond. Flakes change from shadows to aquamarine to crystals in a single hour. Deep teal in the morning will turn into blinding refractions by noon. As I approach the Highlands golf course, I am confronted with a warning sign: “Keep dogs on a leash.” The long winter has left the coyotes hungry and they have recently attacked a small dog. I walk to the trails anyway, my dog bounding beside me. At the top of a hill, I see the leader silhouetted in the low, pink dawn. She calls to her pack. Sharp, clear replies echo across the river. Marco. Polo. The coyote stands her ground, watching me from her post. I quickly slip my dog to his leash. With mutual agreement, the coyote and I allow one another to pass, our trails overlapping. Later, I see her tracks on the river. The coyotes are crossing north to south, south to north. In this landscape, to exist is to persist. Frozen and flow.
In the early spring, dandelions grew against the white exterior of the Northern Boat Building Company. In front of the factory, deep puddles formed in the thick mud of the road. In the morning, a thin layer of ice covered the yawning holes. Up to twelve men worked for Cap during the warmer months and several of them lived nearby with their families. Cap could hear his crew approach from a distance as they cracked towards the factory. Ice splintered like glass; winter’s silence broken. Cap used European boat building methods that involved shaping wide, wooden planks. One of the more laborious tasks was to bend boards around the skeleton of a boat. In a room attached to the main factory, planks were heated by steam to make the wood malleable. When ready, the men quickly pulled out the hot lumber and affixed the boards to a boat frame. Skin to bones. As the men sweated through the steam, the North Saskatchewan River awoke. Ice groaned as it melted, broke and drifted. Dark, sluggish waters stretched, waking from winter slumber. The men smoothed wooden hulls and imagined boats handling moody currents.
I listen to the same unpredictable river. I am mesmerized by spring slabs of ice that float north from Edmonton’s downtown. They dam up the same areas every year – the curve near Dawson Park and the bend under the Ainsworth Dyer footbridge. The North Saskatchewan sings her spring song with scrapes and squeaks like an old-time jug band. Ice chunks as large as houses are pushed up and over riverbanks with astonishing force. Frozen blocks land on trails facing an unlikely demise. Cyclists, runners, and dogs circumnavigate the cubes with awe. One spring, I am overconfident. Since I know these trails intimately – every dip, root and rock – I don’t flinch when I see the annual ice dam on my path. At the base of the 50th Street footbridge, I scramble over the enormous obstacle. With little warning, my right leg sinks up to my thigh. The sun is high, cheerfully melting the river, but I am held by her frigid teeth. I reach for a stick to dig myself out and manage to pry my leg from her clutch. But my shoe is left behind. I lay flat on my stomach, tearing apart the frozen river to retrieve it. The North Saskatchewan has made her point. I move along with respect.
Through the 1920s, Edmonton’s Highlands neighbourhood developed around the Northern Boat Building Company. New houses popped up like wildflowers, brush was cut to build new roads. Children came to the factory’s yard to watch the assembly of enormous vessels. Sometimes, they would play hide and seek, hanging from beams and masts. A grainy, black and white photograph from the Alberta Provincial Archives shows an Inuit woman with her husband – a trapper dressed in a suit. Their infant son is in the man’s arms, squirming to escape. The small family travelled to Edmonton to check on a boat they’d ordered from Cap. In the background of the photo, their boat appears ready. Painted in clear, dark lettering on the side is the name, Hayokhok. The young infant was not even a year old and already had a boat named in his honour.
My children scramble from the city-sanctioned sidewalks to their make-shift playground in the river valley. Wind in their hair, dirt on their knees, they head towards the Highlands swing. A wide seat made from wooden planks is suspended above the river with heavy rope. It hangs from a large, amphibious poplar. I watch as my children pump their legs in unison until they fly through the summer air, mimicking the river’s pulse. I now push away millions of caterpillars that hang from trees over the trails. When I pause to clear my face, mosquitos take advantage. Better to be in the more exposed spaces of the valley. I propose an adventure to the island in the middle of the river. My children and I pull ourselves through the heavy current to reach the isolated crop of land near Wayne Gretzky Drive. I carry a picnic lunch above my head, water up to my armpits. The hum of traffic fades as we settle into a temporary private dwelling. I read in the shade as my children jump from the banks into the deep water. There is city and there is the wild, past and present. We live in the water between.
Cap and his crew hurriedly finished orders before leaves turned to gold. Workdays were long as the men completed RCMP boats to go to Regina and Calgary, three enormous barges for the Hudson Bay Company, and ships for northern fishing businesses. Most of Cap’s boats were completed on site before being placed on skids. Then, work horses pulled the boats nearly eight kilometres to the Calder railyards. Cap’s projects were loaded on a train with pulleys, ready to be transported north. The Northern Chief was Cap Matheson’s largest project. The enormous, thirty-six meter (120 feet) long fishing vessel was commissioned by the McGinnis Fishing Company. The Northern Chief was so large, Cap’s crew completed it in sections. Each piece was transported separately. Cap followed the boat north and assembled her, Frankenstein-style, on the shore of Lake Athabasca.
As we harvest a backyard garden, I imagine the Northern Chief splayed open on my street. The world outside my window is turning from dim green to a golden palace. The North Saskatchewan is resplendent in her display, like final words recounted at the end of days. River valley campsites are revealed as leaves fall. A world dismantled, there is nowhere to hide. A tent here, a tarpaulin over there. We call them homeless even though the river valley is home. Sometimes I get a wave or nod when I pass on the trails. It is getting cooler but the displaced will not leave until absolutely necessary. They huddle close together as the longer nights threaten frost. Soon, they too, will step away to put themselves back together again.
In 1942, the Northern Boat Building Company shut down. Cap’s two remaining sons were not interested in taking on the business, so he sold the factory and land to three teachers. Within a year, the new owners dismantled the building and used the lumber for three new houses. Today, I see these three houses from my front window. My giant spruce casts a shadow on what is left of Cap’s nautical venture. A lilac bush assertively blooms against the wall of one of the homes, just as it does every year. And I still dream of water. This afternoon, I will kayak up the river in and out of eddies. The North Saskatchewan’s current will play with me, bending me to its spine.
- Jenkins, Anita. “A Prairie Boatyard in the Highlands.” Highlands Historical Foundation Newsletter. Vol 2, No 4, Fall 1993.
- Kinch Family Fonds. Provincial Archives of Alberta. No. PR1089. 1884-197-.
Laura Manuel writes creative nonfiction and fiction. She is drawn to stories that explore the intersection of body and place. Laura is an avid trail runner and paddler and considers the North Saskatchewan River valley her second home. Laura was a finalist for the 2019 CBC nonfiction prize. She is currently working on a book about ultrarunning. “The Water Between” was a finalist for the 2021 Writer’s Union of Canada short prose competition.
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