Robert returns to Rigolet

Robert Munsch will be travelling to Goose Bay and Rigolet, Labrador the week of May 23rd. It's been a while since he was there, but it was during his trip that he made up the story which inspired the forthcoming book Give Me Back My Dad!

Here's a journal entry from his last visit 20 years ago:

We are going out tomorrow with somebody named Roger. He has a kid named Cheryl and a wife named Lorraine, and he lives in a very northern-looking house. Roger and Lorraine are both natives of Rigolet. He is going to take us out overnight. We are going to go ice fishing and hunt seals and maybe see some moose and caribou.

There was much discussion about our clothes. Andrew ended up getting a new snowsuit and mukluk sort of boots and I was given a large total cover snowsuit and a new parka. They suggested I wear new boots and I said mine were okay and I shouldn't have done that because they weren't okay. Every time I went through the snow the seal wasn't very good and I got snow in the top of my boots and eventually my socks got quite wet. Had we had been out a long time, I would have had to stop and dry out my shoes or my feet would have frozen. I should have taken their advice. As usual, remember to take the advice of locals.

It was quite windy and snowy when we started out and it continued to get more and more windy very quickly. Roger's cabin, when we got there, was 12 by 12 with a low wood stove. It had bare insulation on the insides, a bed and a table. Sort of basic housekeeping. They proceeded to put up a Labrador tent - which is a large cotton tent with no bottom.

They cut down two spruce trees, pound one into the snow and then lash the other cut tree across the top to an uncut tree. This makes a pole to hang the tent from. Then they cut spruce branches and make a thick bedding. Then in goes a portable stove which is supported by three pieces of wood - each notched to hold the stove. The stove goes out through a metal attachment in the roof of the tent.

Fishing, the idea is to use the mechanical drill. Unfortunately the ice was 5 or 6 feet thick – too deep for the mechanical drill. Roger then got out his long spike-tipped spruce trunk and proceeded to wap at the bottom of the hole. Unfortunately the hole fills up with ice fragments and becomes harder and harder to wap. Eventually we did break through in one place, but only after we chopped a foot deep hole in the ice and then used the drill. Chopping the ice is a deadly job. Everyone traded off on doing it. Once we had water it was then easy. We would drill down as far as the mechanical drill would go, pour water down the hole, then wap away at the bottom of the hole and the ice fragments would float up to the top of the water. We caught only one very small fish however. The way it worked was to try one place and if the fish didn't bite pretty soon then we knew the fish weren't biting there.

After fishing we drove back up Double Mer to the camp. Once we were back at the cabin, we ate and then went into the tent and ended up telling stories and jokes. Everybody told something. I made up "ICE FISHING" about Cheryl and Roger. Roger told about the ghost sled that helps people lost on the snow. This was all while sitting and lying on spruce branches while the little stove kept the tent positively tropical. It was a wonderful storytelling.

I asked Roger Shiwak, “What do you do when somebody falls through the ice?” Expecting a long description of how you build a fire he said, "First you laugh at them,” and then he gave me the description of how they build the fire.