c/o C. M. & S. Co.
Yellowknife, N. W. T.
Via Goldfields, Sask.
Aug 12th, 1937
Dear Mother:
I suppose by the time this reaches you you will be back from California, having had a perfectly marvellous trip. I wish I could have been along. Thanks for the cigarettes which arrived on the very day I finished my own supply. A boat came in also that day and I bought several more packets.
The office staff has moved into the staff house which is finished as far as possible until the next boat comes in. We are using the would-be lounge as the office until the new one which is to be at the shaft is built. It is a great improvement. We have one proper desk now and five office chairs—the kind that you lean back in. It took five big canoe loads to get all our stuff accross [sic]. We are wondering how all the stuff was crambed [sic] into the tent before.
The camp is beginning to look like quite a city now. A second warehouse is going up, the cookhouse is being doubled in size, and power house, guest house and storage tank are all going up at the same time.
I don’t know what has happened to the roll of films I sent to Edmonton. They should be back by now and yet it is unlikely that they should get lost.
I received the magazine and letter today and also the application form for the insurance. I really wanted duplicates of the tennis pictures also but there is no hurry about them. As to the insurance I don’t see how I could get a medical exam before perhaps next spring but I will do what I can with the rest.
On the last boat there was a giant stock of commissary supplies such as clothing, boots, tobacco, shaving equipment, blankets, bed rolls etc. Eric Caldicott, my pal in the office, and myself spent about six hours yesterday selling the stuff. It was the first day it was on sale and we sold $90 worth of cigarettes alone and must have turned over $1000. And since the boat came in we have sold $900 worth of bed-rolls at $45.00. They are lined with very soft eiderdown and about 10” thick when ther is no weight on them. My purchase was a pillow, a much needed comfort.
Yesterday I had a very long and very hot shower. The water for the shower is heated by the diesel which pumps the air for the oil tank drills. The shower has been there for some time but until I moved into the staff-house I considered it too far to walk. Now I see I was wrong. It will be my first & last shower though as the drilling in the oil tank is completed and the whole apparatus will be moved up to the shaft.
We have a proper radio operator now and a different radio receiver. I think another and quite powerful transmitter is coming in sometime. The radio operator works in the office part of the time taking the place of the man who came in the same time I did. I didn’t like him from the start and was glad when others realised how hopeless he was and put him on as a labourer.
I don’t think there is anything in particular I want right away although I will need my winter underwear and some more thick socks if there are any (I can get them here) sometime. You are right in supposing that mail comes by company plane from Goldfields so it is probably only necessary to figure rates as far as there.
Eric and I were very busy last week. It was the end of the month balancing of the payroll etc and the branch accountant, Tudor Ommanney, had to go to Edmonton for four days so we had to do all the work. And just at that time two planes came in with new men to be signed on—so there was no rest for awhile. However Tudor came back with two bottles of Dewars and, having the siphon already, the camp seems less uncivilized than it first appeared.
Tudor told me that I would be going down to Giant this week but this may not be correct. My postal address will still be the same in any case.
With love
Tony.