T WO ELEVATOR S TOR I E S Maurice Lemire
THE E L E VATOR would like to tell you a bit about myself. My journey started on the great slopes of the Rocky Mountains. My name is Douglas Fir. I’m standing here high and tall with my friends, the cedars and the larches. It is March, 1924, on a cold and calm morning. All of a sudden the silence is broken. People are coming with all their tools to cut us down. They are now dragging us around and piling us on the riverbank. As spring came around, we were pushed into the water where we drifted downstream to what they called the mill. We lay around for a long time waiting for the next surprise that came when we were pushed through a large saw blade that sliced us into lumber. Then they moved us unto a large room where we did a lot of sweating. I heard one of the men say it was a kiln. Before we knew it we were being loaded onto large, flat cars all hooked together. There was smoke coming from one end. Next morning, everything began moving slowly toward the rising sun. We were travelling through the mountain, valleys, and tunnels. We stopped at a town where people began loading a black rock into cars behind us. Some said it was coal from the collieries. To our surprise, one morning we could see people with darker skin and hair than those who loaded us. We heard someone say the train was travelling through the Blood First Nation in Alberta. Apparently these lands were taken in 1898 and 1903 for the building of the railway. We saw many people, horses and dogs moving about. On the plains, animals could be seen for miles. Buffalo and antelope they are called. The grass is lush and tall, looking very beautiful as we slowly move towards the morning sun. We slept for a few more days in rain and cold. Then suddenly we came to a halt. People began bustling around making all kinds of noise. They picked us up from the long car we were on and put us on the ground in different piles. The next day, and for days after, men were laying us on top of each other in various directions. I heard one man say they were building a crib-style grain
