At Home In The Mountains
Excerpts from letters written by Catharine in
Banff to Her Mother, Edith Robb, in Concord, Massachusetts
February 28, 1931
Banff: We arrived yesterday and our first day was pretty busy.
Pete is fixing shoes and skis for us to go up to the ski camp for a little
practice. As we came up from Calgary there were only a few patches of snow
and the river was open most of the way. Pete cannot remember anything like
it happening before and no one can. In Banff the worst weather was in
October, and only once since then has it been below zero, and that in
November. Everybody talks of the extraordinary winter, and it really seems
as if it were just for our house. About the house: we are tickled to
pieces with it, and think it looks darn well. It's small in a way, but
made of tremendous logs all beautifully put together. When the roof is on
it will be almost finished. We went down there only four times yesterday,
the last a moonlight trip.
April 15, 1931
It's such fun watching them build the house that we seem to
spend all our time down there. Mr. Walton made a fine front door step out
of large slabs of the same rock he built the chimneys of, three large
rocks for the lower step and one large one the width of the door for the
upper step. It really looks fine.
May 29, 1931
Maybe you think a garden attracts callers, but I find it
doesn't compare with a house. This morning wasn't bad. The Italian
carpenter arrived as we were getting breakfast, but he was working on the
cupboards under and around the sink. Pete has leveled twenty truck loads
of loam and dirt and I was raking it over. Casper McCullough, the head man
at the golf course, is getting us some seed they use on the fairways. A
man came about buying some logs we had left over to make a fence. The boy
who drives the store truck brought a roller, and goodness knows how many
other callers, including Charlie Beil (Charlie Russell's protege who lives
here), Pete's grandfather and the man who says he's a snake charmer and
cleared the rubbish. About tea time the real callers began. Two drivers
for Brewsters came in. We gave them tea and one showed the other the
house. Then Dr. Robinson arrived to see about the fenceposts and he joined
us for a cup of coffee. Then Steve Hope came with the hinges for the doors
and Sammy Ward to work on the cupboards, and the carpenter back to finish
a drawer. Mr. White came, and I had hardly washed the dishes when Mrs.
White and two of Lila's kids came down and then three people who work at
the Hotel came in this evening and they had to see the house. It's like
living in the Alcott House and having to keep your bedroom very neat.
May 5, 1959
Last night a big black bear came by the house sniffing this and
that, then stood up and looked in the window, and rubbed his nose on the
glass - he should have used a hankie - was just about to reach up for a
coconut filled with peanut butter for the birds that hangs from the eave,
when Pete knocked on the window and shook his finger at him. He turned
away as if he had understood he was being reprimanded and off he went to
the next house.
December 30, 1960
A bang on the door and little Cliffy about seven and Tinker
Macleod the same age with her little brother of four who live next door,
came to see us. They were cold and wet and wanted to get warm. They were
really very good and well behaved and it was fun to see the things they
noticed. I got them gingerale and cookies so they felt it was a real
party. They spotted the bear rugs and the pictures and Pete overheard
little Cliffy telling the other two that the tiny sketches framed
together, "are done by a real artist".
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