THE COMFORTS OF MODERN TRAVEL

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 301, 20 December 1937, Page 12

THE COMFORTS OF MODERN TRAVEL

Comparison with Voyage Made in 1880.

Fifty -seven years afro a small school child left her home at Fort Simpson, Canada. to make her first sea voyage. This trip to England to attend school took the small girl well over a year and the ways in which she travelled across country were strange and exciting. To-day Mrs. .J. \Y. Mills, of Alberta, has just completed her second sea voyage. She is visiting her sister in New Zealand and her descriptions of the contrasts between the two voyages are very interesting. '1 he comforts of travel oil the Niagara, as compared with, those of the s.s. Sardinia in ISBO, were remarkable. Leaving Fort Simpson as a tinv child. Mrs. Mills travelled first by canoe, river .boat, steamer and then none too comfortable rail. Throughout the journey, which she took unaccompanied, she was relayed from one friend to another, and at one stage, owing to the unexpected death of one of her travel guardians, she was left alone. Despite these difficulties the small child managed to arrive safely in England, and in her mind travelling to-day is a simple affair. Mrs. Mills also recounted some of the pionering experiences in Northern Canada. "It amuses me to hear people speak of the hardships in the North." she said. "Of mv mother's five children only one was born in civilisation. There were no other white women for miles around and the nearest doctor was over a thousand miles away. Despite this our family managed to survive and live very happily. "Since the pioneering days the romance has gone out of the North." she continued. "People have spoiled it. The lovely work that the Tndian women used to do when I lived there as a child is fast becoming a lost art. Bead and quill work is rarely seen now and when done is not of the same artistic quality." Mrs. Mills still spends a portion of her time in the North. Every year she goes for two, months to the lopr cabin at Athabaska that her husband built shortly before his death. "It is the one place where T can find a little bit of the old North left." she explained. Mrs. Mills is at present the jruest of Mr. and Mrs. George Mills, of Birkenhead and she will leave shortly to visit her sister. Mrs. Leslie Jackson, of Ross. South Island.