The Last Plane (c) 1985

Two years you lived with us,

love boots I made you -

Dark stroud and bright red beads,

tassels and thongs;

Through the long wintertime

proudly, you wore them;

Will you remember me,

when you are gone…

My father served in the Royal Canadian Navy, and while I was growing up, we had the opportunity to live in some wonderful, remote places that most folks never get to see, or see only as visitors or tourists.

One of my favorites was Aklavik, a tiny hamlet situated on the Peel Channel of the mighty McKenzie River.

We spent two tours in Aklavik. A normal posting would last two years, but we liked the arctic and the people so much that Dad requested extensions both times we were there.

It was almost unheard of for a family to request an extension of a ‘hardship’ posting, so the powers that be were only too pleased to grant his request.

Call us all crazy, but we didn’t consider living in Aklavik a hardship. To be sure, there were some extreme differences in living there than living “outside” and one of the biggest was shopping.

When I lived in Aklavik, everything was either brought in by barge, or flown in by plane.

The barges chugged up and down the McKenzie all summer long, from break-up until freeze-up, when the myriad waterways became passable only by dog sled or ski-plane.

Now, there is an ice road, regularly traveled by truckers – then, we had planes, barges, or dogs.

I remember the sheer, heady excitement of the last barge of the season.

Large cartons would be delivered to our house, the contents carefully inspected by my parents - tinned oranges, to be saved and savored at Christmas; brightly wrapped parcels, to be squirreled away until that same event; new clothes for school in the Fall; lovely tinned delicacies, to be instantly turned into an occasion to share them in a meal with our neighbors; new pencils and cases; pencil crayons; scissors and glue and other, assorted school supplies to be pored over and carried proudly to class the first day of school…all manner of treats unavailable at our local stores.

The Hudson’s Bay factor, the man who ran the Hudson’s Bay post, was in charge of receiving furs for the Bay, and selling or trading goods in that territory.

He kept a good stock of canned and dried staples, as did the main stores at the base commissary, but shopping from the factor was beyond our means.

The commissary was limited to mostly dehydrated vegetables and fruits as well as some canned goods – but canned goods were very heavy in comparison, and therefore more expensive.

One of the Fathers at the Catholic mission was an avid gardener, however, and learned to capitalize on the long daylight hours of the too-brief Arctic summer.

On one of our walks, he presented my father and mother with one of his giant cabbages.

Bigger than my sister's head and weighing at least 5 lbs., that cabbage provided a fresh feast of coleslaw that served our little family of five for several meals.

I don't think any cabbage has ever tasted better since.

My mother made her own bread and biscuits, and quickly learned to prepare tasty meals using dried foods, and we quickly learned to appreciate them – they were a fact of life up there.

The only dried food we truly balked at was powdered skimmed milk. Unless prepared ahead of time and left to chill for several hours, it has a scum of un-dissolved particles.

We would use it on our porridge, but woe to our poor mother if the milk hadn’t sat in the fridge overnight.

The love boots referred to in this stanza of the song (see my hub Fireweed and Northern Lights for the first verse), are the exquisitely beaded and embroidered handiwork of some of the best seamstresses in Canada.

A lady by the name of Suzy Husky embroidered a jacket for my Dad which we still cherish, the careful, colorful stitching as bright and fresh as the day he first wore it curling.

The love boots had a darker side, though.

Some of the single hands adopted the custom of sailors everywhere it seems, and would keep company with a local woman for the time they were posted in the Aklavik.

The young lady in question would usually make mukluks or moccasins for her young man, and they came to be known as love boots.

Though frowned upon, it still happened when we were in the arctic, and I remember hearing my father say, on more than one occasion, in a voice heavy with disapproval that ‘So-and-so’ had shown up at work with his love boots on.

I remember feeling very sad about the young women when we were told, upon asking did the men ever marry their young ladies, that, “No, they don’t have permission from the Navy to marry, and anyway, they won’t take them down south…”

Often, though, the married men would commission mukluks and moccasin-style house slippers, as well as mitts, for their wives and children to help the young women earn some money after their sailors left.

I know we had new mukluks and mitts every year while we lived there.

As well, we were each given a set of dollies - hand-made, cloth-stuffed figures dressed in the local garb - as a remembrance of our time in Aklavik.

I look at my own souvenirs of those talented women’s handiwork with mixed feelings now – remembering both the joyful times of growing up there, slightly tinged with sorrow for some of the harsher realities.