Winter 1916

The new year came without celebration. There were church bells, yes, and the usual greetings exchanged in the street, but the joy that once marked January had thinned into habit. People said Happy New Year because they always had, not because they believed it would be.

The snow came early and stayed deep. Sleigh tracks crisscrossed the frozen roads between Shawville, Bryson, and Campbell’s Bay, carrying milk cans, mail, and men to and from the train stations. The trains were louder now, it seemed — the whistle echoing longer in the cold. Each time one passed, someone was either leaving or coming home changed.

Letters from the front arrived more slowly that winter. Some came months late, written before the sender had been listed among the wounded or the missing. Families learned to read carefully, searching each line for signs of hope or hints of hardship. The newspapers still printed patriotic headlines, but the words below them carried less conviction. The talk of “glory” was gone. What remained was duty, plain and stubborn.

In homes across the Pontiac, life turned inward. Fuel was scarce, coal expensive, and many families burned whatever they could — fence posts, old furniture, anything dry enough to last the night. Food was managed carefully. Butter and sugar were stretched, and the Homemakers’ Clubs circulated recipes for “war bread” made with oats and barley. The tone of the columns had changed too: fewer cheerful tips, more advice on doing without.

Even the young seemed older that winter. The skating rink in Shawville stayed open, but the laughter there carried differently now. Too many of the boys who had once raced across the ice were somewhere in France. The ones who remained skated in silence, their breath turning white in the dark.

In The Equity, editorials began to question—not the cause, but the cost. There were polite criticisms of Ottawa’s supply shortages, and sharper ones aimed at pension policies that left returning soldiers struggling. “We must take care,” one piece warned, “that those who fight for us do not return to indifference.” It was a quiet rebuke, but an unmistakable one.

There were still moments of warmth. Neighbours shared coal when they had extra. Churches held socials to raise money for wounded soldiers and for Belgian relief. In Chapeau, a charity drive collected blankets and children’s clothing “for little ones left without fathers.” The donations filled the post office, spilling into the hallway.

The winter stretched long and hard, and though no one said it outright, people began to wonder how much longer the world could keep this up. The war was supposed to be ending by now; instead, new offensives were already being planned. The paper hinted that conscription might be coming — a word that made some nervous and others defiant.

And yet, despite the fatigue, life did not stop. The fields lay under snow, waiting. Babies were born. Engagements were announced. Farmers met to plan spring seeding, as if by sheer will they could call the thaw sooner. The war was far away, but its weight was felt in every plan, every prayer, every silence.

By February’s end, the days had started to lengthen again. The light came a little earlier, lingered a little longer on the snowdrifts outside town. No one called it hope exactly — but it was something close.