Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 29/01) - As the small plane circles for a landing on a frozen lake in northwestern Saskatchewan, 21-year-old Graeme Dargo has only one thought on his mind -- where the hell is his ride into town?

Graeme Dargo

The pilot is not waiting around for the Hudson's Bay Company manager who was to be there to pick up his new manager-trainee.

"He said, we have a little shack at the end of the runway. It's got a little wood stove. You can wait in there," recalled Dargo two decades later.

"I walk in there and there was this lady there. She was unilingual Chipewyan lady, and she was clearly under the influence of alcohol. She started talking to me in Chipewyan."

The startled former butcher's apprentice replied in his heavy Scottish brogue, "I'm sorry, I did'na ken what yar talkin' t' me abowt."

Moments later, the manager and a store worker showed up to collect Dargo and his suitcase. The assistant berated the woman in Chipewyan.

"He told me, 'You're lucky. That woman, she wanted to take you to bed.'"

Taking the plunge

The incident in 1981 marked the start of Dargo's 10-year on-the-job apprenticeship to Northern life, courtesy of the venerable enterprise that had broken in so many before him: the Hudson's Bay Company.

The exclusive and dwindling breed of Northerners known as Bay Boys includes present clerk of the legislative assembly David Hamilton, Yellowknifer John Seagrave and former Finance Minister John Todd.

At the time Dargo signed on, the Bay was nearing the end of a decade-long expansion. It had built large new department stores in southern centres and diversified into real estate development and the oil business.

The flashy downtown stores bore no resemblance to those in the traditional Bay territory Dargo viewed on the ride from the shack to the Hudson's Bay Company store at La Loche, a town of 2,500 people in northern Saskatchewan.

A little help

Six months after arriving in La Loche, he met a pretty young Metis woman named Pam La Prise.

The two became boyfriend and girlfriend, an arrangement that sometimes conflicted with the Bay's long-standing policy against consorting with women in general and local women in particular.

"They frowned on it, let me put it that way," Dargo said."

"I don't know how they expected a whole bunch of young guys not to mix with the opposite sex," he said. "I mean, forget it."

In stark contrast to the company's policy, the La Prise family welcomed Dargo into their lives. Other manager trainees at the store also played a pivotal role helping.

"John Seagrave, who lives a block and a half away from me, he was there," Dargo recalled. "He was one of the guys, and he really took me under his wing."

Seagrave is currently compiling a collection of stories about his time with the Bay into book form. Some of the stories will form the basis of a play -- Bay Boys -- being produced by Stuck in a Snowbank Theatre.

Six months after his arrival in La Loche, Dargo was moved to Patunac, Sask. He stayed there for a few months, and was then was reassigned to another Northern Saskatchewan Metis community, Isle La Crosse.

Dargo wrote to the Bay's Winnipeg headquarters asking for permission to have Pam move in with him, a living arrangement that has lasted to this day. He got it, to the chagrin of the Isle La Crosse store manager.

A Bay Boy since the from the age of 14, Roy Simpson was a seasoned veteran of the North by the time Dargo arrived at his store. He was not keen on the Bay's modern approach.

"He expected his trainees to be there at 7:30. And you didn't get paid for that. If you came in at 8:30, he wouldn't say anything to you, but you'd get really grunt jobs to do that day. Sweeping floors or mopping floors all day.

"So you learned pretty quick -- he wants you there early, so you go there early. That's where I really started to learn about hard work."

Though he didn't appreciate Simpson's mostly silent disapproval of his living arrangement, Dargo did not let it prevent him from drawing on the Bay veteran's experience.

It was from Simpson that Dargo learned how to properly grade and buy furs, lessons he valued for the rest of his years with the company. Simpson also passed along a reverence for Bay tradition and history that also stuck.

On the move

Backing up a bit, Dargo's decision to embark on his extended Northern adventure was not an easy one.

He was born and raised in St. Andrews, Scotland, and had to say goodbye to his family and the friends he grew up with.

But Scotland was a hard place for most young men in the early '80s. Thatcherism was just taking hold, labour unrest was developing and jobs were few and far between.

Dargo was part of that last wave of Scotsmen the Bay brought to Canada. On the Canadian Pacific flight over, the newest Bay Boys were treated to their last taste of luxury.

"It was first class all the way, man. Free booze. Of course, you've got 24 young Scotsmen -- what a time!

It was only later that Dargo discovered the company had kept careful track of all the expenses each prospect had incurred on their way over and when being outfitted for life in the North in Winnipeg.

The balance was deducted in installments from the first year's salary, only to be refunded, with interest, if the candidate stayed on for at least two years.

Moving was a way of life for the next decade. He and Pam and the two sons they bore moved nine times in nine years. The moves were not difficult.

"The nice thing about it was when you moved, it was your wife, your kids, your suitcases and you were gone," said Dargo. "All you brought was your immediate personal effects. They supplied everything else, from the tea towels, to the TVs, to the teaspoons, to the pillowcases. And all the food."

There was a string of incidents along the way that reminded Dargo how small the world can be.

At one of his posts, Rankin Inlet, a local suggested he attend a weekly gathering hosted by a local businessman.

The businessman was Todd. Todd was a former Bay Boy who hailed from Dargo's home town of St. Andrews.

"Obviously there was an immediate bond. We found out that I knew a lot of his family, we knew the same street names, we had relatively the same accent. I mean that was just wonderful for me to go into Canada and, after a few years, in the middle of nowhere, Rankin, and here's a guy from my home town holding down the fort."

Though moving wasn't the hassle it is for most, the demands of making each new posting a home and raising a family fell almost exclusively to the wives of Bay store managers.

Bay store managers were responsible for all aspects of the store's operation. It was a job that left little time for anything else.

"The Hudson's Bay wives played a really big part in the success of any store," Dargo said. "They had to tolerate their husbands working inordinate hours.

"I'm sure some of them have really fond memories of her (Pam). They probably couldn't stand me, but they had fond memories about her."

In hindsight, Dargo said he feels his devotion to the stores he worked at robbed him of valuable time he should have spent helping to raise his sons, Shaun and Keith.

End of an era

By the time the 1980s were winding down, the Hudson's Bay Company was in tight financial difficulty. Under the guidance of a CEO the company had poached from Canadian Tire, almost all merchandising control was taken away from store managers.

The new approach was one Dargo, by then overseeing what he considers his best posting, Fort Simpson, had a lot of trouble stomaching.

The change that irritated Dargo most was the company's decision to get out of the fur buying business.

"I thought, this is the end of an era," Dargo said. Simpson was one of the biggest fur buying stores in the chain.

Another posting in Northern Saskatchewan did not last long. Responsible for three stores, Dargo spent more hours than ever at work.

It was with the long and storied history of the Bay resting on his shoulders that he made the decision to part ways with the company.

He did not realize how the weight of the loyalty that had grown to it until it came time to leave.

"It broke my heart, it really did. I remember to this day, with some emotion, the last time I put the lock on the door."