17. Tension in the Bush

The Problem of Being Alone Together

 

Division of labour in the wilderness: Kathrene Pinkerton prepares a meal while her husband Robert writes at their desk. Source: Kathrene Pinkerton, A Home in the Wilds (formerly Wilderness Wife). New York: Tanlinger Publishing Co., [1939], 1967.

“The problem, simply, is that of being alone together. ... Isolation is a special pitfall to the couples in the wilderness. Key to the domestic economy, as crucial as loading firewood, are measures the couple take to avoid crowding each other, rubbing up against each other to the point of irritation."  - Randall Roorda [Source: "Wilderness Wives: Domestic Economy and Women's Participation in Nature," in This Elusive Land: Women and the Canadian Environment. Melody Hessing, Rebecca Raglon, and Catriona Sandilands, eds. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005, p. 46.]

Kathrene Pinkerton and her husband Robert, who, like Nan and Richard Morenus, had moved from New York City to live in a one-room cabin in northern Ontario, recognized that they each needed their own space. Pinkerton wrote the following in her 1939 book Wilderness Wife which Nan had read:

Our winter days fell naturally into a schedule. Robert wrote every morning ... while I inspected the trap line. In the afternoon he was busy out-of-doors cutting wood or doing odd jobs and I had the cabin. This arrangement was not the result of a treaty. It had worked out naturally and was an unconscious recognition of the fact that two people cannot always be together. They must escape from each other occasionally if only to be demagnetized. And everyone must have his own domain. Without separate outlets into the world around us, a one-room cabin life would have permitted no individual privacies. The divergence in our interests gave us supper-time conversation.

Rugged Interdependence

The Morenus' first year at their cabin on the island near Sioux Lookout was spent in what Roorda calls a state of "rugged interdependence" - repairing the cabin, clearing windfall and brush, patching mattresses and bedding, fixing up canoes, and generally putting their camp into shape. There was little time for squabbles. “Less important than what wife or husband can do is what the couple does together," Roorda writes.

In addition, Nan and Richard had a shared interest in writing. "After the first year the typewriter was unlimbered, a certain number of hours each day had to be put in on the keyboard," Richard writes in his Maclean's article "From Broadway to Bush" (September 1, 1946). "Long experience of writing in the States had made our radio contacts not too difficult to maintain, and after convincing our markets that our mail service could meet their deadlines we turned our thoughts script-wise once again." 

Nan and Richard Morenus in northern Ontario. Source

 

Friction

“There’s an odd chemicalization that takes place in the wilderness,” Richard wrote in Crazy White Man (1952). He had noticed while acting as a guide for American sportsmen that, “however good friends two men may be, put them together for any period of time beyond the normal processes of society, and their nerves begin to react. It is almost as though the tempo of living in a city for fifty weeks out of the year acted as a drug, the removal of which caused a drastic mental reaction. By the fifth or sixth day they [start] to argue between themselves. About little things. Their laughter, at first so spontaneous, becomes strained and forced at each other’s attempts at humour.” Had this same “chemicalization” occurred between Richard and Nan?

Richard acknowledges in his Maclean's article that there had been some tough times during their five years on the island. "We have suffered discouragement and ofttimes heartbreaking disappointments," he writes. "There will always be these so long as we live in the bush." He also refers to Nan's independent nature. "Nan will get her own deer, and skin it herself," he says. "Her canoe needs a patch before being stored for the winter. This she’ll want to see to herself."

As the years went by, Nan had found many activities to occupy her time while Richard wrote. She learned how to set snares, how to bake bannock and bread, how to drive a dog team, how to fish through the ice, and how to hunt and butcher venison. She also took her turns at the typewriter.

Was there competition between Nan and Richard as they navigated wilderness living? Was Nan's striving toward self-reliance and expertise in the outdoors a source of irritation for Richard? Did he resent Nan's growing proficiency at tasks one would expect a man to perform - tasks like looking after their dog team? As her strength and skills developed, did Nan chafe against her husband's expectations of domesticity and dependency?

Whatever the causes of the Morenus' tension in the wilds of northern Ontario, their marriage did not survive the strain.

 

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