BATTLING THE WILDERNESS 
a heavy coffee-colored flood which belies its 
name, came to its union with the Ottawa. 
Here we were on the southeastern verge of 
“The Great Clay Belt’? which stretches 
away to the north and west across the 
districts of Nipissing, Algoma and Thunder 
Bay almost to the Manitoban boundary. 
For thirty miles we worked our way up- 
stream between the green walls of spruce 
which line the narrow Blanche, then 
rounding a bend the little steamer ran her 
nose into the clay bank, saluted with 
discordant whistle a group of nondescript 
buildings, and we were at Tomstown, head 
of navigation and the outpost of civilization. 
Picture a-half dozen rude dwellings in 
frontier disorder, a saloon masquerading as 
a hotel, a general store and a saw-mill 
perched upon the summit of a huge clay 
bluff, and you have Tomstown on _ the 
Blanche. 
The thrill of anticipation harbored so 
naturally on my arrival received a decided 
check when I found that my destination, 
the settler’s cabin of Tom Gregory, was at 
Long Lake, thirty miles away, and not an 
Indian nor a white man was available to 
take the hard trip up-river by canoe. In 
this extremity I appealed to the trader and 
keeper of the general store of ‘Tomstown 
and in an hour we were pulling out over the 
government road in a springless wagon 
drawn by two sturdy horses and driven by 
Colin Fraser. 
We ended the overland journey (sixteen 
miles in eighteen hours, and Colin spared 
neither the horses nor our own wearied 
bodies in its achievement) at Hewey’s 
settlement, whose five log houses o¢cupied a 
small clearing carved from the forest on the 
bank of thesouthwest branch of the Blanche. 
Here I chanced upon a young Englishman 
setting forth on the return journey to his 
claim up-river and bargained for a chance 
to work my passage to my destination. 
It was early dusk when we reached a 
lonely little log house in a clearing by the 
river and I was left by my pilot at the end 
of my journey. A trio of bare-headed 
children scuttled for cover like rabbits at 
my approach. Tom Gregory and his wife, 
a dark-haired, sweet-faced woman of thirty, 
bade me welcome and I was soon at leisure 
:0 look about me and see for myself the 

105 
terms upon which life is offered to these 
hardy soldiers of the army of immigration. 
There were but two rooms in this primi- 
tive dwelling, the one in which we were 
gathered having served as bedroom and 
parlor, dining-room and kitchen for the 
entire family till time and means had been 
found for an addition of equal size. It was 
low studded, roofed with bark, and the 
log walls were tightly chinked with clay; 
the floor of poles roughly squared by the 
adze was cleanliness itself and a cooking- 
stove gave out the welcome heat of a wood 
fire. Through two small windows one 
caught the gleam of the waters of the 
Blanche and the silhouette of the forest 
beyond. A few home-made chairs, a bench 
and a table of plain boards, a pile of furs in 
a corner, a gun or two and traps upon the 
walls—and this was all. 
TOM GREGORY, PIONEER 
