I, Pearl Bernice Tingley, was born in Sackville, New Brunswick to Mable (nee Crossman) and Edmund Tingley on an early Saturday morning, November 9, 1912.
I met Ray in 1966 through a girlfriend, Myrtle Mitton. This friend always wanted me to come out west because she had three sons, two in High River and Ed was in Canmore. Ed and Mary Anne were great friends of Ray’s. So we went to High River first and then we came out to Canmore. I guess there was a sort of conspiracy to put Ray and me together as I enjoyed the same kind of life that he did. We were thrown together at every opportunity, becoming great friends. That was in June and I was invited back out for Christmas and I came. Ray sort of popped the question then and of course I accepted. We were married in Sackville in the Presbyterian Church because Ray came down home.
We came back to Canmore on the train, having a marvelous trip. Eva and Alvin Guinn, at Rafter Six Ranch near Seebe, gave us a wedding shower and dance. We had a great time. I met so many people and it was just great. I became very friendly with Don and Rose Ashton, Di (David) and Jean Lewis from Exshaw, Mary and Clarence Chapin, and Maurice and Eleanor Verhaege. I loved the ranch life but Ray was sort of a hard man. He said, “I’ll tell you once and I’ll show you once” – that was about the horses.
We got along very well, though. The only thing was he was constantly at the bar in the hotel. I had never been in a bar before; it was sort of a little fly in the ointment, I suppose you’d call it. However, things were good. We belonged to the Bow Valley Riding Club. Seemingly, every outing always met and left from the ranch (McBride’s Riding Stable – the C.L. Ranch) and we made a very colourful procession.
As Ray and I were riding fence one day, we came between mother bear and her cubs. The horses were not scared of them. The little black bear was not so damn little really. The cubs probably weighed about forty pounds each. They went up a tree so darn fast you could scarcely follow them. The mother made no attempt to attack us. We sat there, Ray waving his hat and yelling at them. The mother bear just walked back and forth and sort of talked, you know. We sat there about three or four minutes and then we left. When we looked back, the cubs had come down and the three of them were leaving rather quickly in the opposite direction.
One day, we were going to Calgary to the Lippizaner White Stallion Show. Before we left, and hadn’t turned the horses out yet, we heard a commotion in the stable. When we looked out, there was a bear standing in the stable door. Ray picked up his gun. We went outside. Immediately the bear came at us. Ray yelled and we threw sticks and stones at him but he kept on coming. Ray said, “Run into the house and get some more bullets, I’ve only got one”, but he only needed one as he was a good shot. When he shot the bear, I’m sure he was no more than five feet from him. I always said the bear was used to being fed by the tourists. Maurice said he was two-year-old boar. We skinned the bear and Mary Meyer and I tanned his hide. He had the most beautiful yellow nose you ever saw.
One night, after we left the bar, Ray wanted to eat so we went to a restaurant on the strip. The door was hard to find, even when you were sober, as it was all windows there. Ray was climbing up the windows, trying to get in, and there, sitting inside, were four mounties. They were enjoying it all very much but they never said anything to him when we finally did get in.
We packed for Lizzie Rummel at Sunburst Lake in Mount Assinboine and took in her guests. One time we stayed all night, keeping only one horse, Shadow, who was Ray’s horse, or a jingle horse. When we got up in the morning, it was cold there in the mountains. The sun was just coming up over the mountains and we were going to bring the horses in. Shadow objected very strongly to double riders but Ray was a good rider. We finally managed to mount. We were riding on the top of the mountain and the horses were down in the valley. The sun hadn’t reached the valley yet and the green grass and the bells (the horses had bells on them) and every horse’s breath was just steaming out. It was the most beautiful sight, so we stopped and just drank in the beauty – a sight I’ll never forget.
One time, Clarence Chapin was working for us. We had Dorothy Hansen’s horse, Lady, for the summer. She wanted us to use it. This horse wasn’t used to working in the mountains at all. Clarence was going out after the horses and he rode Lady and she wasn’t a mountain horse at all. She wasn’t very bright, I guess. She stepped in a bog and fell down, and of course, poor Clarence got soaked and he came back to camp minus the horses. He was slightly annoyed at poor old Lady. Anyway, he had to completely change his clothes. Ray went out for the horses and took Lady. He got back all right.
One night, we were in camp and the last thing Ray ever took off was his hat. We were in the tent that night and there were a lot of porcupines around. They used to get around the saddles and blankets, after the sweat. Anyway, I was wakened in the night by a crunching noise. I asked Ray about it, and as he put his arm out, a porcupine ran out of the tent. Ray always kept a hatchet by his pillow. He grabbed the hatchet, put on his hat, and ran after the porky and of course he never caught it. I marvelled that he didn’t get quills, but it looked kind of funny seeing him run after it in the night.
It was nothing to ride into camp and see a bear running off with our bacon and cheese, cans, or something or other. We had a good life; it was fun. My saddle horse was Traveller, our stud, and we bonded at once. I just loved him and he loved me. I was out riding fence one day and stayed a bit late. Traveller loved to gallop and I loved to let him. We were fairly cutting the wind and I knew there was a slippery place a little further on and thought I had better pull him up. I was a bit late and he slipped on some wet mud. As we never shod him, because we just kept him around home, he went down on one knee and I went flying over his head. Of course this knocked me out. I don’t know for how long but I could feel something pushing on my shoulder. It was a long ways away but it was getting closer and closer. When I finally came to,we met eyeball to eyeball. It was Traveller, nudging my shoulder. I moved my legs and arms and everything was moving so I managed to get up on him and we just tippy-toed all the way home! He looked back every few moments as if to say “are you all right?” He never left me. It was shortly after this that Ray sold him and it broke my heart. Our marriage had become a little shaky and then it deteriorated very quickly. I regretfully left to return to my home in Sackville but I will always thank Ray for giving me a wonderful few years, I sure enjoyed it all.
I thought I’d tell you about a little trip we had. Ray and I took out a hunting party from Montreal. They wanted to go on an elk hunt and they were also going skiing on Grouse. So, they were at the Athabasca Hotel in Hinton and they kept their rooms there while they were out with us for three weeks. The bathing facilities weren’t too magnificent out there in the woods so after three weeks, they got their elk and we headed back home. We had thirty-three horses out that time. We broke camp in a snow storm and that was the end of October. Anyway, we had a wrangler and I had a bull cook. We all started out. The corrals were about twelve to fifteen miles out and we were going to leave the horses with the wranglers. So we got out to the corrals and unloaded the horses and got straightened around. Ray had his truck there, of course, so Ray and I, the bull cook, and the others, all started out for Hinton. Well, like I said, it was storming, and you know how it is, a half-ton truck is not much good in the snow and we had an awful time and got stuck at times. Anyway, we managed to get to the Athabasca Hotel about 10:00 o’clock at night. You can imagine what we would look like after a day like that! So we went into the hotel and we were going to eat at the counter. This was closed so Bill said we’ll go into the dining room. There must have been a party or something going on there. The ladies were all elegant in their long robes and the men had their tuxedos on and what not, so we started for the dining room. One of the waiters came up to us and said we couldn’t go in. Bill said, “I don’t know why.” “Well,” he said, “you’re not coming in.” Bill said, “We ARE coming in, “and the waiter said, “You’re not! I’ll call the manager,” so Bill said, “Go ahead.” So when the manager came, (Bill had kept the room for the three weeks) he said, of course you can come in, and he took us to a table in the corner, a little removed, and he called this girl saying she would take care of this table and not do anything else. We had good service, let me tell you. When the ladies went by, they sort of turned up their noses but we had a good meal. So I say, it’s not what you know but who you know! I guess they went skiing and we went back to the corrals where the horses were. That was a wonderful trip. We had a lot of those.
p.s.We were about half-way out to the corrals when a lady had to go. Well, like I said, it was storming and the wind was blowing. Anyway, Liane and I stopped with her and held the horses, which was quite a hard job as they wanted to go on. Marion, for some reason or other, took off her hat and nobody knows why. She put it down beside her and when she squatted, the wind was blowing a gale. Well, when she got up, ready to get dressed again, there was her hat-full! She emptied it out, and shook it out and wiped it with her handkerchief and put it back on her head. It was some comical. That’s just one of the little things that happened on the trails.
Mabel (Mum), Austin (brother), Michael (grandson) and Pearl McBride
l. to r. Donna Evans, Pearl McBride, Elizabeth Hrdlicka, Terry Randle
In Canmore Seniors at the Summit, ed. Canmore Seniors Association, 2000, p.189-192.
