c/o C. M. & S. Co. Ltd.
Yellowknife, N. W. T.
April 11th, 1938
Dear Mother:
At the moment I forget our exact distance from Goldfields but it is not very much more than 200 miles as the crow flies. You should be able to verify this from the various atlases around the house and the mining supplement I send [sic] last week will show the locations of both places on the map.
We are expecting one more Thursday mail plane and I expect Page will put in two more trips. He has been doing a lot of flying lately and is able to making [sic] the round trip from McMurray to here and back again in a day—besides freighting a bit for the prospectors on moderately near-by lakes. There is nothing I require in the way of clothes which is just as well as there wouldn’t be any chance of their coming in now. Prices are very high over town so I never buy anything. Eric will be leaving for his holidays on the last plane out. He will get about seven weeks off. You are supposed to be allowed 10% of your time for your holidays.
The hospital has been recently equipped with an impressive-looking x-ray which has been flown in bit by bit. We were up to the hospital last week to take some floodlight pictures of the Stautons’ dogs. They have six red cocker puppies—altogether eight dogs in the hospital which they will have to keep till after breakup. Then two will go to Gordon Lake and one to Nova Scotia. The next night I was up there again—playing bridge this time. Eric and I went down very badly but this didn’t matter being of only secondary importance. We had a dozen beer which I appreciated very much having had only one bottle before this time since last July.
I went down the Con shaft on Saturday. The waste bucket has been replaced by a cage something like a department store elevator so there was not the thrill there otherwise would have been. I only went down 200 feet as that was the level on which they were working. There was very little to see as they have only just started to crosscut. The station is about as big as the sitting room though not so high.
I think the influx of prospectors is over for a while—at least as far as Con is concerned. They certainly kept me busy for a while. In fact I just caught up in my work today. It is going to be very difficult to keep accurate costs for these camps as they intermingle to a certain extent. I am afraid there is a very busy time ahead. The construction program will again be large—though not as heavy as last year. There is going to be a recreation hall—probably a couple of warehouses and residences besides the office.
With love from
Tony