​​LILY OF THE PEACE RIVER

© Elma Schemenauer and Borealis Press

 

Englishman Edward Armson and his Blackfoot wife

spent the summer of 1871 at Fort St. John near what is

now the British Columbia-Alberta border. The Armsons

and other prospectors were panning for gold at this

northern mining camp.

 

One evening Mrs. Armson was chopping wood for her

fire. As she felled a small dry tree, her hatchet slipped. It

struck her left foot, cutting a deep gash in her second toe.

 

The wound was painful but healed quickly. Mrs.

Armson suffered no permanent damage except for a red

ridge-like scar running the length of her toe. Little did

she know how important this scar was to be in solving one

of the Peace River country’s most intriguing mysteries.

 

The cold winds of autumn soon swept down on the

Armsons and the other miners at Fort St. John. The days

became shorter and skins of ice formed on the inlets and

ponds. There didn’t seem to be much gold left in the

creeks and rivers of that area, so most of the prospectors

decided to leave. The Armsons were among the first to

load up their gear.

 

“We’re going to spend the winter trapping south of

the Peace,” Edward Armson told the other miners.

“Come spring, we’ll head to the gold diggings along the

North Saskatchewan River. We’ll probably see you

there.” He and his wife stepped into their dugout canoe

and pushed off from the bank. Soon they were lost to

view among the trees.

 

Edward Armson and his wife were never seen alive

again. Nobody met or heard from them during the winter

of 1871-72. They didn’t bring furs out along the Peace

River in the spring as their friends and relatives had

expected. And they didn’t join the other prospectors

along the North Saskatchewan River as they had said

they would.

 

On the heels of the Armsons’ disappearance came

another mysterious event. In the spring of 1872, Mrs.

Armson’s cousin, a Blackfoot trapper named Jean, was

paddling up the Peace River near the area where the

Armsons were thought to have spent the winter. Jean had

two goals in mind. He was hunting beaver. He also

hoped to find some trace of his missing cousin and her

husband.

 

One day he pulled into shore about noon to boil a

wild duck for his midday meal. He gathered driftwood

and soon had a fire blazing. He was putting on a kettle

of water when he happened to glance upriver. There,

floating downstream toward him, was what looked like a

tiny raft with a red flag fluttering from a pole at the front

of it.

 

Hardly believing his eyes, Jean walked down to the

water’s edge to take another look. What was such a frail

craft doing in the middle of the swift-flowing river? He

was surprised the raft hadn’t upset or been smashed to

bits. But it was bobbing along quite bravely. As it came

closer, he noticed a small bundle on board.

 

He stepped into his dugout canoe and paddled out

to catch the raft as it passed. Much to his surprise, he discovered that the bundle was a birch-bark cradle. Inside

the cradle was a baby. Jean unfastened the cradle and

baby from the raft and transferred them to his canoe. He

set them on a blanket and paddled toward shore. The

infant in the cradle seemed very young. He estimated its

age at two months at the most. The child was so thin that

its arms were no thicker than a man’s finger. It lay

deathly still and Jean wasn’t sure if it was alive or not.

 

Once on shore by his fire, he examined his passenger

more closely. He was relieved to find that the baby

was breathing and that its heart was beating. It was a little

girl with dark eyes, dark hair, and a light complexion.

Jean’s eyes moistened with tears as he compared its

scrawny body to that of his plump healthy daughter back

home.

 

Quickly he boiled the duck and made a clear soup

from it. He started feeding this to the starving infant, a

drop or two at a time. After she had swallowed about two

teaspoonfuls of the warm liquid, she began to whimper.

She twisted her lips as if asking for more.

 

Jean fed her a few more drops of soup and ate some

of the boiled duck himself. Then he doused his fire,

loaded everything into the canoe, and paddled downstream.

 

He had met two families of Beaver Aboriginal

people camped along the shore the day before. “I just

hope they haven’t left,” he murmured, his eyes resting

anxiously on the infant, who had fallen asleep in her

birch-bark cradle.

 

Much to his relief, Jean soon saw the bluish-grey

smoke of the Beavers’ fires drifting from a clearing

among some willows. When he landed in the Beaver

camp with his tiny passenger, everyone was excited, even

the dogs. One of the women, who had a baby of her own,

took the starving infant from Jean and began to nurse it.

 

The Beaver family had no more idea than Jean of

where the baby could have come from. She didn’t seem

ill, but she must have been suffering from lack of food for

a while. The only unusual aspect of the child’s appearance

was the ridge-like red line running the length of the

second toe on her left foot. “That’s not a scar,” one of the

older women said. “It’s a birthmark. That mark is older

than the child itself.”

 

The Beaver families were willing to care for the

baby, so Jean left her with them and continued his jour-

ney up the river. Later he made some attempts to discover

who she was and where she belonged. But he

couldn’t find any clue to the child’s identity. After a while

he lost track of her.

 

The Beaver families left the Peace River area and

travelled west across the mountains, taking the raft baby

with them.

 

Eight years passed. In 1880 Jean was working as a

guide to Reverend Alfred Garrioch, an Anglican missionary.

Jean was guiding Reverend Garrioch and his party

on an expedition northwest from Edmonton through the

wilderness to Dunvegan, Alberta in the Peace River

country.

 

As they travelled Jean told Reverend Garrioch and

his companions stories of his experiences as a trapper

and guide. The missionary was particularly interested in

two of Jean’s stories: the one about the unexplained disappearance of the Armsons and the story about the raft

baby on the Peace River. The missionary suspected

there might be some connection between these two

accounts.

 

In fact, Reverend Garrioch had another piece to add

to the puzzle. He had recently met a Mr. and Mrs. Vining,

who had a beautiful little girl named Lily. The Vinings

told the missionary that Lillian was not their natural

daughter. They had adopted her. As a baby, she had been

found floating on a raft down the Peace River.

 

Reverend Garrioch considered what he had heard,

both from Jean and from the Vinings. Could Lily Vining

be the raft baby the Blackfoot trapper had found? If so,

where had she come from? Could she be a daughter of

the missing Armsons? The missionary decided to investigate the matter.

 

But he was busy with his work and clues were slow

in coming. The following year he again met the Vinings

in Edmonton. At that time he discovered that Lily Vining,

who was now about nine years old, had on her left

foot a birthmark that exactly matched the one Jean had

described.

 

This was enough to convince Reverend Garrioch

that Lily Vining was the raft baby of the Peace River. But

he still had no proof that she was the daughter of the

missing Armsons.

 

Shortly after his visit with the Vinings, the missionary

met a Métis trapper named Louis Sizerman. Sizerman

was familiar with the country where the Armsons

were supposed to have spent the winter of 1871-72. He

often trapped there himself.

 

Reverend Garrioch told him the story and asked

him to watch for signs of the Armsons’ camp. Louis Sizerman, like the missionary, was fascinated with the mystery of the missing Armsons. Over the next ten years, he spent many hours searching for clues to their fate.

 

In the meantime Lily Vining....

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YOU CAN READ MORE OF THIS STORY IN YesterCanada: Historical Tales of Mystery and Adventure.