Christmas at the Soo 'Long Time Ago - 1813: Schooner Days MLXXXV (1085)

by C. H. J. Snider

AFTER the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813 the Nancy's was the only British sea flag aloft west of Niagara. The Nancy was an armed fur-training schooner which had been turned into a transport, and for a long time was our only Upper Lakes man-of-war.

She fought her way out of the St. Clair river after the disastrous battle. She was tempest tossed and almost cast away on the lightless shores of Lake Huron, but arrived at her destination with all the King's powder, with which she had been entrusted, safe from the invaders of Canada.

She was full of bullet holes and her sails and cables were in rags and tatters, and her planking was in such condition that she had to have a complete refit. Thus she limped to the Northwest Company's post at Sault St. Marie just before the St. Mary's river freeze-up, which have imprisoned her in Lake Huron for the winter.

As it was, snowdrifts had to be shoveled from her decks, and her stone ballast thrown overboard, to get her up the Neebish channel.

At the fur company's post at Sault Ste. Marine, Alexander Mackintosh, master of the Nancy, moored his vessel in a small bay in the vicinity of the present government wharf, and within sight of the tiny lock 38 feet long, which the Northwest Company had built to lift laden canoes over the worst of the St. Mary's rapids. This "soo" (sault or leap) of nine feet there was the principal fall between Lake Superior and Lake Huron.

In early days a small island gave complete shelter for the little bay. The company had warehouses on the island, and landings for small craft, but there was no wharf large enough or in sufficiently deep water for the Nancy. She had to be moored out, her crew coming and going ashore by canoe, or over the ice which soon formed.

NO 40-HOUR WEEK

The Nancy was still manned by lake sailors, her fur-trading crew of nine, They had sailed her all through the war so far. Lieutenant Miller Worsley, RN, and 21 blue-jackets did not come aboard until they marched up from Toronto in the following summer of 1814.

Captain Mackintosh and his crew lived on board until the Nancy was frozen in, then they moved to "the house," a log structure ashore, for the rest of the winter.

They were as self-dependent as polar explorers. Captain Mackintosh drew provision for all from the company's stores on the government commissary's order. Some of it was on the hoof, some in barrels.

There was not an idle moment. First of all they slaughtered the cattle and swine and salted down the beef and pork, though the Soo offered deep-freeze preservation gratis. Each man was allowed daily a pound of meat, a half pound of flour, a half pint of peas and a gill of rum; and in addition a half bushel of potatoes weekly. Evan Richards, a Welshman cooked for all of them.

They were working all the time, either on the vessel or in the bush, or at salvage or in "the house" when the weather was too bad. Then they patched sails, picked oakum, made sennet, wove plait and overhauled running and standing rigging. Exact account was kept of each man's product.

GOT RICH QUICK

Wages of seamen in the Provincial Marine on the Great Lakes, to which the Nancy belonged, were $8 per month payable at the end of every two months. Commercial owners paid a little better.

Whenever high water in the running river gave promise of success, Captain Mackintosh toiled hard in the frost and ice at the herculean task of salving the company's schooner Mink, which had sunk near the rapids after striking a reef. During the winter they got two skids under her and succeeded in moving her ten feet. In the following spring they got her up, so the British fleet of the Upper Lakes had two ensigns to show for a time in 1814.

They had stripped the Nancy of everything but her two lower masts, and even these were bared of their heavy tarred shrouds and stays, and the 30-foot bowsprit was lifted out to make repairs forward.

Repairs were the responsibility of master carpenter Jonas Butler Parker and Joseph Lamotte, the carpenter's mate. But everyone had to bear a hand. Six men were at work in the forest, which came down to the river bank, cutting and squaring new midship rails, knees and rails for the head, chocks for the longboat (carried on deck), hatch coamings, topsail sheet bitts, partners for the foremast, which had been damaged in the gale which almost tore the windlass out of her.

They built a sawpit where they felled the trees in the bush and there made boards for the replanking of the vessel's deck and quarters. They also made new yards, booms, and topmasts, casks and oars. When not more nautically employed some cut and hauled firewood, for "the house" was a great consumer.

The mate, a sullen dog named Jacob Hammond, threatened to cut just enough firewood to warm himself. So he did. He burned his foot soon after, sleeping with his feet to the fire and had to "lay off." Having to pick oakum while so enjoying himself his recovery was the more rapid. When he did go back to the woods a tree fell on him.

REINDEER TO THE RESCUE

But Santa Claus Came even if man worked from sun to sun, and woman's work was never done because woman wasn't there to do it. Alexander Mackintosh worked hard himself, but, he was no slave driver. His logbook, kept in his own neat running hand with plenty of flourishes, contains this entry for Saturday, Dec. 25, 1813: "Gave the Men 3 qts. Rum & Mr. Logan 1/2 gallon, 28 lb. flour & 4ps. Beef to the Seamen."

The next day was Sunday, and of course a day of rest. Monday following would be Boxing Day, and the logbook contains this ominous entry:

"Gave the men 3 1/2 gallons Rum for a Dance."

Ominous? Nineteen quarts of rum for seven or eight men in three days? Alexander Mackintosh, what would you expect?

For Tuesday, Dec. 28, 1813—when the whole Nancy crew as giants refreshed should have been raising the Mink or that other place, cutting firewood, sawing plank, squaring timber, spokeshaving oars, and making sennet, plait, and oakum by the pound — Alexander recorded with firm unquivering quill but no flourishes:

"NO DUTY PERFORM'D BY THE MEN THIS DAY."

And so ends Christmas, 1813, in winter quarters at the Soo.

IN THIS BAY AT SAULT STE. MARIE the famous NANCY Christmassed 139 years ago. She was then very different from the spick-and-span model of her now decorating a corridor in the City Hall, Toronto, for she had just been "through the wringer."