mo eis Charlottetown. Going down was fun. We held our overcoats wide open to

catch the prevailing west wind, so that we arrived at the city with little effort. Coming home, especially late in the day, was a different matter. Usually the temperature had dropped to near the zero mark; the wind had

lost none of its accustomed bite. To make headway, we had to tack, like ships sailing into the wind. By the time we left the ice at West River Bridge, nipped ears, tingling’fingers, and smarting noses made us glad to doff the skates and seek the comfort of a roaring kitchen fire.

Travel during the winter months was greatly hampered by snow-blocked roads that required much work and time to be made passable. There were no Snowplows; all work had to be done with the shovel, after a horse and sleigh, had gone ahead to break a track of sorts. During this operation it was nothing unusual for the horse to get bogged down and require an hour or more of shoveling before he could be extricated. I do not know what the records may indicate, but I am sure that the average snowfall of those yearu was greatly in excess of that of the present day.

I vividly remember the winter of 1904 when three-day blizzards were the rule. Roaring northwest gales whipped the snow into mountainous drifts. On the level, tall men floundered chest deep. At many points along the Tryon Road it was possible to place a hand atop the telephone line posts, follow- ing a mid-January storm. In places, the roads were canals cut through the Grifts. To reach the cattle in the barns, we dug tunnels to the stable doors through hard-packed drifts that reached above the eaves of the big barn. Much of that snow remained on the ground until the middle of May. Schools were repeatedly closed for two or three days at a time; frequently the mail carrier was unable to get outside the city limits of Charlottetown. This bore striking testimony to the condition of the roads, since the mail lariver at that time was Neil MacNevin -- a man who prided himself on making

the Charlottetown to Hampton run, as he used to express it, "in spite of

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