POSTING #79

A Surprise in Sheffield

When I was young, there was a large wooden box of old books in the attic of our Arthur home, novels, histories and biographies mainly published before World War I.

The box was uncovered and the books with their faded blue, green and red cloth bindings had been attacked by mice.

When I asked about the books, I was told that they had belonged to an uncle, John Harris, who had been a Hudson Bay Company factor on James Bay, and had gone back to his birthplace, Sheffield, England, before I was born.   

That was just enough information to whet my appetite and I wanted more.

Here is what I found out.

John Harris had been born in Sheffield in 1876, and had come to Canada as a young man to work as a factor for the Hudson Bay Company. He had been assigned to Moose Factory on James Bay and he did what factors did: buy furs from the First Nation people  in the area and sell them a broad range of food, clothing, hunting gear and so on.

While in Toronto on one of his annual breaks from the North, he had met my father's sister, Rose, whom he later married.

My understanding is that when they first married, Rose lived with him in Moose Factory but when children came (Olwyn, John (Jack) and Elizabeth (Betty)), she remained in Toronto with the children.

On his annual visit to Toronto he would visit used book stores and collect dozens of books of all sorts to keep him company through the long, northern winters.

Rose died of heart trouble, in 1925, and the three children were looked after by Rose's mother (my Grandmother Hunter) and Rose's  two sisters (my Aunts Lily and Adelaide). John Harris continued to work as a HBC factor and sent money for the care of the children.

At some point in the early 1930s, John Harris received an urgent message from his in-laws asking him to return to Toronto from Moose Factory immediately.

Assuming that there was a crisis concerning the children, he left the post, without getting permission.

When he arrived in Toronto, he found that there was no real crisis---that the children were fine. Apparently his in-laws, with whom he had never got along very well, had decided more or less on a whim that they needed to consult him.

The Hudson Bay Company fired him for deserting his post.

All of this left John in a pretty tough spot: in his 50s, without a job, without a reference, in the middle of the depression, and bitter about how his in-laws had made him leave his post for what he was convinced were frivolous reasons.

He decided to return to England, leaving the children in Canada.

The two eldest children, Olwyn and Jack, were old enough to strike out on their own, but the youngest, Betty, was just in her early teens and needed a family. Ultimately, she came to live with my parents---bringing with her a box of her father's books, which ended up in our attic.

Some in the family were angry that Uncle John had 'abandoned' his family but I was prepared to cut him a little more slack because of the tough breaks life had dealt him and I suppose because I had been fascinated as a child with the Hudson Bay Company and with the factors.

After Pat and I settled in our posting in Yorkshire in the early 1960s, I decided that I would like to meet Uncle John, who was then in his late 80s. I wrote to him suggesting that Pat and I take him out for lunch. He responded quickly with a note inviting us to have lunch with him.

He met us at the door of his small, but pleasant semi-detached council-owned house where he lived on his own---see the photos of Pat and me with Uncle John taken during our visit.  He moved  somewhat slowly and he grumbled a bit about his eyesight but he was very sharp mentally.

He said that he took the bus once a week into downtown Sheffield to visit the library (he was still a great reader). The neighbours next door---a kindly couple in their 60s whom we met---obviously liked and looked after him.

It could have been a strained lunch but he was a good host. He served us a simple but tasty lunch with cold cuts, bread and salad.

As we ate, he talked about the German bombing of Sheffield, about what his children and grandchildren in Canada were doing and about my work in England. We didn't talk about why he had left Canada.

As he took our first course plates away, he said that dessert would be some CPR strawberries. That was  a new expression for me and seeing my puzzled look, he told me to wait and see. He  smiled as he came back with bowls of stewed prunes.

"That's what we called them up north", he said.

 After lunch, we chatted for a while and then when we were getting ready to say our good-byes, he said he had something he wanted to show us.

He brought out a sheaf of papers, which he spread on the table. He explained that when he was canoeing in the area around Moose Factory visiting First Nation families he had noticed some strange deposits of blue clay in the hard rock of the Canadian Shield.

No one he talked to seemed to know what the deposits were, so he just stored the questions away in his head.

He told us that a year or so before  our visit he had read in a book about South Africa that diamonds are sometimes found in what are called Kimberlite pipes that were formed by volcanic activity in the distant past. The pipes are sometimes filled with deposits of blue clay.

Using the library he did some more research and became convinced that the deposits of blue clay he had seen around James Bay were the same as those in which diamonds are found.

He showed us a copy of a letter he had written to a South African diamond mining company, offering to share the location of the blue deposits with the company in return for some suitable compensation.

The thought of diamonds in Canada stunned me. I had spent the summer of 1957 in a mining camp while going to Queen's and had often talked with  geologists and prospectors about mineral deposits in Canada's north. I had never heard anything about diamonds in Canada---gold, silver, base metals, uranium, but not diamonds.

As I tried to get my head around the possibility of diamonds in Canada, Uncle John showed us the reply from the South African company. It was polite but the thrust was clear---the company was not interested.

Uncle John was disappointed but he wasn't giving up, he was going to try to find another company that might be interested.

It would be nice to end this posting by saying that things came together for this man who had been dealt some pretty nasty blows by life.---that some company followed up with him and made him an offer.

But that didn't happen.

Uncle John died without being able to interest any firm in the possibility of diamonds around James Bay.

And then in 1991, a prospector named Chuck Fipke discovered the Lac de Gras Kimberlite pipes in the Northwest Territories.

And today Canada is one of the world's major sources of diamonds.

Now, although the existing mines are a good distance away from James Bay, is it possible that there are more diamonds hidden alongside those rivers that Uncle John used to travel in his canoe? Diamonds that could have been discovered years ago if only someone had listened to him.

Or perhaps geologists have already found those areas on their own and decided that they didn't have enough potential to develop?

I don't know, but in my mind's eye I can see Uncle John up there somewhere, watching intently what is happening with Canadian diamonds--- as he enjoys a bowl of CPR strawberries.  

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See you on August 1st for Posting #80 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.