Baloney and a Mattress: Surviving Muskeg Lake

Last Friday, June 19, I drove to St. Paul, Alberta to do a gig with my cousin, a Metis fiddler. The gig was a rodeo dance at the Saddle Lake reserve. Unlike other rodeo dances I have played, this one was low-key and, generally, a calm affair. But, I was anticipating the usual drunken revelry that accompanies these type of events. This was not to be, however, as I was told Saddle Lake was a dry reserve. A far cry from other reserve events I have played.

One of the most memorable, or infamous, was with Trail's End in the early 1980s. We were contracted at the Muskeg Lake reserve, northeast of North Battleford, Saskatchewan. We were told accommodations and food would be supplied. We arrived at the gig around 6 p.m. and were met by one of the tribe officials. Things started going south right off the bat. Our accommodations consisted of clearing out a classroom in the school, then we could either put sleeping bags on the floor (which we didn't have) or wait until they brought us a mattress (the operative word here being "a"). "One is on the way," we were told, and sure enough, down the road a tractor pulling a haywagon with a ratty mattress was putt-putting toward the school. The "food" was baloney sandwiches on white bread, nothing else. We declined the offer of accommodations and choked down the baloney. There was nothing to drink so we had to use the water fountains in the school. The gig was slowly turning into a disaster.

"We'll clear out the quonset for you guys," said the chief's assistant. They backed their grader out of the quonset hut; set up two 45 gallon oil drums that had been cut in half, each half filled with ice and either beer or cheap wine; ran a couple of extension cords outside to the power pole; laid some astro-turf looking mats on the concrete floor for us to stand on, and we were in business.

The gig was relatively uneventful, except for the usual drunken foolishness. We tried to keep to ourselves all night and thankfully the gig seemed to pass quickly. In fact, that gig held the record for striking the gear and loading the vehicles. After our final "Thank you, see you later" we were down and loaded in half an hour. Usually this would have taken an hour or more. Despite the expediency of the load-out, it took another hour for us to get paid. The chief wrote us a personal cheque, which immediately set off alarm bells, but being glad the gig was over, we took the cheque and drove, so to speak.

We were booked in Saskatoon two days later, and after making a late-night phone call to a friend there, we ended up staying with her and then headed downtown the next day to cash our cheque. Rather than fight with the bank, we went to our agent's office and I convinced her to pay us cash and then she could recoup the money from the Muskeg Lake tribe. I found out two days later the cheque bounced when our agent deposited it. She did eventually get the money.

As gigs go, Muskeg Lake was not the worst. There were plenty worse than that; however it was a test of our musicianship and ability to hold it together under adverse conditions. Our greatest concern was getting the gig over with and getting out of there. Saskatoon never looked so good.