Chapter 5

5officer met us or anybody that came off the train as immigrants, unless they had small children with them, we were on our own!


This is The Train station we came out of when we arrived on July22/1951 at 8:30 am. And where I would meet up with Mariana, Roland and Christina in November. It gave me “shivers” thinking of them making the same trip on their own, in winter time. It has since been demolished to make room for “Pan Pacific” Hotel and a conference center. I began to get a guilty conscience already, Mariana with two small children, Wow.
     Well, at the Immigration office they greeted us best they could without any interpreter. One of the officers looked at my papers and found my name in their books verifying that I was who I was and supposed to be there (here). He got on the phone and talked with someone on the other end. He turned to me and said something to the effect that the person they had lined up a job for me with, was on holiday in Mexico, apparently some kind of restaurant and that  I may as well stay in Vancouver and not continue to Victoria, which I otherwise would be doing. They also suggested we might want to check with Salvation Army for housing, but they also suggested Hotel Vancouver (at $8.00 a night including a “continental breakfast”). The Salvation Army had a hotel on Dunsmuir and Richard Street. a really nice one it turned out to be. The officer also gave us a piece of paper with an address where we could go and perhaps find a job of sorts.
Before we headed for the “job-search” my companion wanted to find the Finnish consulate to which he had an address, Hamilton Street, which wasn’t very far away so we headed in that direction and got there before they opened by about 5 minutes the Finnish consul was there and let us in and the two of them struck up a conversation and I looked around me and about two-three feet to my left was a door and a sign that said:  ”Swedish Press-Svenska pressen”.
When the consul and my friend had finished talking about whatever I sort of joined in and we then talked about conditions in Canada and he related a few interesting stories about “newcomers” to Canada and some not so “new”.
He also introduced us to his neighbor, the “Swedish Press” editor-manager-publisher who’s name was either Mr. Månsson or Lindfors (Which one I don’t remember) but I think it was Månsson, as well as his helper, a Swedish-Italian girl, about 17, who’s mother turned out to be Swedish and become one of our closer friends for a long time, Her name was Anna-Lisa Erickson, the girls name I have temporarily forgotten. Anna-Lisa was divorced so we never met her husband, she also had a girl that was a little older than Roly and he and Chris used to play with her, because we ended up living less than a half block from them.
Well we were to go to different addresses to look for work so we headed for the “hotel” first and got a room at five dollars a week. That left me with $22.00, so far so good. I found out that $22.00 was about what a cook earned in one of the local restaurants for a week of work, didn’t sound good! The hotel had small rooms but clean and the beds were pretty good, oh boy, I had been looking forward to this, to sleep in a bed finally. We unloaded our travel suitcases and decided to go and take a look at the “town”. Our first stop was close by on Hamilton Street, The Finnish Consulate office, it was quite small so I think it must have been a vice-consulate. The address for job-interview was on Seymour Street, in an old warehouse building. There was an old creaky stairway up to the second floor, looked very “dingy”, at the top of the stairs a small door that led into a very large room with wood plank floor and no furnishing other than large table serving as a desk and placed right in the middle of the floor. Two elderly “gentlemen” were sitting side by side at it as I walked in. The room had one single light bulb that was lit, no shade, just a bulb dangling on its cord from the ceiling with a “pull-chain” to light it. The room was very dusty, it was the size of a moderate dance hall, and it looked like something out of an old mystery-movie. They beckoned me to a chair in front of them and I handed them the note from the immigrations officers. They introduced themselves and began to ask me questions that didn’t make any sense because I didn’t understand a word of English. I do remember one fellow asking if I had any tools, (what’s “tools”?) And if I had a blanket (t).I said I had a blanket and reached for my briefcase and was wondering why he asked for a blanket, at that time to me a blanket was a “Blanquette”, a peace of paper to write on or read from or like a form to fill in.
Well the outcome of the interview was that they had offered me a job with the “CPR railway” as a cook and handed me a ticket to go to “Revelstoke” on the following Monday morning with the same train I had arrived on that same day, that was quick I thought and somewhat disappointed, I would have liked to scrutinize Vancouver a little, oh well, ce la vie….
My travel companion, who for the life of me I can not remember his name, had also got a job, and that as a coalminer in “Hixon” B.C. near Prince George B.C. I felt lucky, because he got a job as a coalminer because he had no trade and miners were always needed and he had never done that, I felt sorry for him, and he wasn’t happy about it either but what could he do ?, he like me did not have any money and needed a job somewhat desperately.
It wouldn’t take long before I would start feeling sorry for myself also.
   Next on the agenda was lunch because we hadn’t eaten since breakfast on the train. We headed up a street called Granville Street walked a lot around there and looked in store windows; eventually we saw a restaurant that looked “decent”, it was called “Georgia”, part of “Georgia Hotel”
We decided to have lunch there, not knowing it was the second best place in town to eat with prices to match.
I remember settling for a chicken salad, which is what I had had for lunch on the train and thought it was the best. I don’t remember what I paid but I am sure I could have done better as far as the price goes, but it was good.
The rest of the day we just explored the surroundings and “Hudson’s Bay “store as well as “Woodward’s” and “Eaton’s” and a bunch of other smaller stores. We stopped for coffee at some point and had a late meal before we returned to the “hotel” and went to bed early because we wanted to try sleeping in a “real bed” for the first time in a week. I remember us walking past a building with music coming out of it; it was early evening just before we decided to return to the hotel, so it sort of made sense that. we looked a little closer to satisfy our curiosity, and inside the entrance door which was open, it was after all July and quite warm, was a large room, like a “gym” with a small orchestra playing “old style” music and people were dancing, in groups, it turned out to be “square-dancing”, which I had never seen or heard of but it resembled some type of Swedish “allmoge” style” music, like hambo, schottische and polka, all rolled into one. Well we stuck around for about an hour then left because neither one of us knew how to do this kind of dance. It was some sort of club or fraternity, so we didn’t belong. The people were friendly enough and suggested we take part but that was out of the question, we couldn’t even understand them or communicate, yet.
   Next day was a Sunday everything was closed except the churches and the parks. We walked a lot that day. Next day was Monday and we would part company and wish each other well. I wish we could have kept in touch, but how? I had no idea where he was going nor where I was going myself.
   Bright and early Monday morning I headed for the train station a few blocks down the road, I don’t remember having anything to eat that day, the train was to leave about 07:30-08:00 o’clock in the am., so I figured I might find something to eat on the train, which I probably did but don’t remember .
   Here I was riding the train again but in opposite direction and in the daytime so I could see the scenery, which was interesting but boring at the same time. I could not figure out why I had to travel all the way to Revelstoke for a job on the railway when the railway was right there (or here).
   I hadn’t planned on being a cook; I had planned on logging or farming or ranching and maybe a “camp cook” because I was told they make pretty good money, but cooking on a train?  Never.
   Early after noon we arrived at Revelstoke, a small but bustling town with lot of travelers and logging trucks going by. One thing struck me as odd was the fact that when I stood on the side walks watching cars and trucks go by I could not hear any sound, it was as if they all had electric motors instead of engines. Someone explained to me it was the thin air that caused it. (Maybe).
   Anyway I went in to the station and found someone to ask about where I could find the train I was supposed to work on. The fellow I asked looked at my “ticket” with train number on, pointed toward the rail yard and all I could see was a old steam locomotive with a long row of box cars behind it. Well I “sauntered” over to it and started to look for someone to ask more questions from. All I could see was a box car with someone inside and he had some white clothes on, it was a cook. He saw me, jumped down from the boxcar with some effort; he was a man in his late forties or early fifties, skinny, gray hair and no teeth. I showed him my note and the ticket and his face lit up like a kid at Christmas. He showed me his ulcerated legs and blurted out “Hospital, doctor, fix”. It was soon evident that I was to take his place in this old boxcar kitchen and cook for a gang of Italian “gandymaids”, all Italians except two, one Polack and one Finn. The polish fellow was the foreman and the Finn the carpenter and they were to build a loading platform as well as upgrade the station house at this little railway station at a place called “Invermere” in the “Rocky Mountains” about a days travel on a spur line from Revel- stoke. I do think it is no longer there, the rail-line or the station.
  I voiced my displeasure immediately to the foreman and handed him my resignation the same day that I arrived but agreed to stay till the next train going back, which was a week- ten days later. All because the cook who was there had to go to the hospital and have his varicose veins stripped.


It came to be a ten day stay on this excuse for a “job on the railway”. I survived because the Italians were in fact a nice bunch of guys to work with and cook for. Each one had his own story to tell, like me none of them spoke any English
We got along fine because I had worked in an Italian restaurant in Stockholm for a year and picked up a bit of their language. When I lived in Gävle I had been living with and worked with several Finnlanders and managed to learn Finnish quite well, so the Finn was the only one I really had any extensive conversation with, although he had forgotten a lot of his native tongue.  I did pretty well if I may say so I was still extremely worried about my belongings that was in a locker at the CPR-railway station in Vancouver and costing me money. I sort of decided to; if possible, go back to Sweden if “things” didn’t change for the better soon.
   I began to compose a letter to the “ministry of Immigration. I had some help with writing a letter in English from the Finn carpenter and from some kids that came visiting once in a while; they were between 7 and 12, three of them, whose parents were Swedish. They lived a few hundred meters down the track, I never met the parents but we communicated via the children, it worked. Not well, but it worked. I got the letter written and sent. Now all I had to do was to wait for an answer. It never came. Not to me anyway. I had a strange sense that the ministry had been in touch with them because when I re-appeared they seemed more accommodating.
I learned that this high up in the mountain the nights were very cold and the days very hot, the air quite thin, it was July-August and temperatures at night just about freezing and daytime it held around 35-38 degrees.
    Some interesting tidbits  while I was there  would be to learn to cook “Canadian” foods. It had  a very primitive kitchen; a coal and wood fired stove an icebox that got a new block of ice once a week. I had to sleep in the “store-room” with all the groceries on a cot with a thin mattress a small hard pillow and one blanket, (that was the blanket the guy was asking me about if I had one, there in Vancouver. Yea-yea)
   It was cold at night!
One day the foreman asked if I knew how to make “pumpkin pie”. What is pumpkin?. He showed me a can of pumpkin in the store room and gestured and mentioned “pie”, I knew “pie” so I said O.K. I try, the directions on the can did not mean anything and the foreman said: open can, put in pie shell, bake in oven. I did, but no eggs, no milk, no sugar, but the Italians the Pole, the Finn, they all loved it, the Swede, me, I didn’t. Next day I made a “prune pie” It too they loved. I don’t know who or what had fed them before but they loved everything, at least that’s the impression I got. The gang put some fish hooks on a line  and put it in the water right below were the train was parked, they got some “squaw-fish” and suggested I put them on top of the stove and grill them in this fashion, basting once in a while with vinegar, they loved that too. We served CPR “strawberries” everyday for breakfast and desert sometimes with “Pacific Canned Milk”. CPR-strawberries are what we call prunes. One day I walked up to town (Invermere) to buy a bottle of beer or two, It was hot I was working I still had about  $18-$20 left so I could perhaps treat myself.
Well, the liquor store wasn’t going to sell me two beers, only cases of beer were sold in these “government operated stores”. One of the fellows working in the store felt sorry for me, when I in my attempt to speak English made it clear I did not have very much money, he told the other fellow he would by the rest of the case, at first he suggested I go across the street and buy some “ginger-beer” (ginger-ale). I said no, I want beer!
  Well I made it back to the train and put the beer in the water barrel to cool down ‘cause it was very warm.. The water barrel was a big 60-100 gallon wooden barrel that the gang filled up every day with fresh cool spring water
    I was adjusting somewhat to my strange surroundings but felt anxious about our future in Canada, right about now it felt bleak to say the least. The letters home were not very encouraging I am sure. I was at a loss what to do about getting money to get back to Sweden, because I was determined that I would.





This is Invermere but it doesn’t look like it did 56 years ago, like all places in Canada it has grown by 10-fold. At the top of the map near the water is where the train was parked, where it says “public beach”, and there was a small community called “Althamere”, it had a small hotel owned and operated by a Norwegian and the last day I was on that job the “gang” took me there for a beer to ”see me off”. Well that Norwegian offered me a job at the hotel and it included living quarters for me and the family, and I was certainly tempted but because I had all my belongings in Vancouver at the train station and no money to take a train to go there and fix things, I had to turn it down.
  That whole area has been turned in to a provincial park and is part of “James Chabot Provincial Park” (foot note)
   The day had arrived when my replacement came, it was a woman, she said she had been working on these trains for a long time and was very happy to get this one, I couldn’t understand why.
   The next morning I was to be at the train station 07:30 AM and it was 07:00 when the “bull cook”, who was the largest of the Italians as well as friendliest and he happened to be a locomotive engineer in Italy, woke me up and I really had to hustle to get my bags packed and the “bull cook” and one other fellow helped me get out to a “hand-cart” and they set out  at top speed and pumped that handle like you wouldn’t believe to make the “rail-buggy” go faster because the train was already waiting at the station and had blown the whistle for departure. As we got there the train started out with me running after it and the two Italians ran behind with my two suitcases, they hollered “jump”or something to that effect, I jumped on to the  last car  while the train kept moving trying to pick up speed, and they threw my luggage on to the back platform of the train and I was on it, luggage and all.” Phew”, that was close. Next train would be in a week, so I was lucky to be on this one, considering no money, no place to stay etc. etc. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.
    I found a seat on a wooden bench and settled down, oh yea, I had been wise enough, with the help of the new cook and my Italian friends, to pack a lunch of sorts for the trip, now was the time to have some.