A Perilous Journey from Glasgow to Canada

 By Elaine Corbett

This is an extract from a letter written by John Gourlay Kirk McCartney to his son. John was born illegitimately in 1881 at the Haugh in Mauchline. He was adopted by a couple from Cumnock and. according to his letter, had an abusive childhood. He emigrated to Canada in 1905 on the Iconium where he met and married Esther Marrs who was born in Cumnock. Read more about Esther's story here. This is a description of John's perilous journey from Glasgow to Canada. The 'she' he is referring to is his adoptive mother. 'Ma' is his wife, Esther (Marrs) 

'Even when I was a contractor “she” only allowed me 10 shillings ($2.50) out of my fortnightly earnings. I saved up this money and one payday I came home with my full earnings plus eight days lie time (this was an amount always held back by the mines to take care of anything one might owe them if you quit in a hurry) and told “her” I was going to Canada willy nilly.

At that time the cheapest way you could immigrate only cost 25 dollars from Glasgow to St.John, Canada.  Rail from there to Fernie was $50.  So the complete fare was only $75.  The boat I booked was the old Iconium owned by the Allen Line.  It had just delivered a load of cattle from Canada.  So the ship was hosed out and a heavy application of smelly disinfectant was applied all over the ship.  Now they covered the floors with a layer of rough flooring then on this they put the partitions in for rooms.  The men were placed at one end of the boat and women and children at the other end.

The Iconium was very small —I think about 2700 tons.  The deck floor was just rusty iron.  The men were bunked in cabins with six to eight in each.  The one I was in had six of us, and after we all got over our seasickness it was not too bad.  The smell of the disinfectant was strong and acrid and stayed with us the whole reach (to) St. Johns.  Now it takes less than three days in accommodations fit for a first class hotel.  The boat was propelled by steam but there was no electricity in the whole boat.  It had not come into general use at that time.  The cabins were lit by a single oil lamp with a glass globe which had to be extinguished any time there was a rough weather because of fire danger, so we sat in the dark.

I remember one night the ship pitched so much that our cabin trunks would slide like lightening from one side of the room to the other with a loud bang!  Then when the ship pitched the other way they reversed themselves and back and forth they went all night long in the pitch dark.  About 2:00 a.m. a loud knocking came to our door, I unlatched the lock (only a hook and eye latch). I could not see the man but he was an old fellow and was shivering in his nightgown.  He asked me if we had a spare life belt (we slept with our life belts under our pillows). So I reached for mine and gave it to him hoping that he would not have to use it.

Next day the weather was still bad but had improved a little.  I was up on deck holding on and telling the boatswain about the old man pleading for a life jacket.  “Well,” he said, “young fellow you may have thought it a joke but I have been 30 years at sea and I never saw a boat so near on it’s beam end as this tub was last night.”  There were no facilities just long troughs with hot and cold water and you bathed the best way possible whenever you got the opportunity.

We were glad when we got to St.John and got on the train for our final destination if only for a change of food.  On the ship we had cabin biscuits every evening and before we put the liquid on them (to make a kind of cereal) we had to pick the worms out with a pin; some, like myself gave up and just ate them, worms and all.  I could write a book about that journey, the many incidents and fights that took place, some very amusing, some very tragic.  Even the train travel was very crude unless you were traveling first class.  Of course, I traveled colonist and that is next to a cattle train in accommodation and service.  Of course that was years ago. But we arrived in Fernie anyway where as I told you before, I met your ma.' 

Credit: Chericott - Ancestry