UNDERGROUND TUNNELS AND WOLF CAVES: PART ONE – Elizabeth Clements #PrairieRosePubs

UNDERGROUND TUNNELS AND WOLF CAVES: PART ONE – Elizabeth Clements

The first week of September 2000 remains a memorable one for me even now, almost nineteen years later. It was the long-anticipated millennium year—thus, I wanted Doug and I to do something memorable to celebrate. A couple of years earlier I had started writing a new western romance—Beneath A Horse-Thief Moon, and I wanted to explore the site of the wolf caves that cattle rustlers had used to camp in while hiding from the law. I’ve been fortunate to have always explored the settings for my books. Hence, the research trip.

We had never been to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, nor had we ever stayed in a bed-and-breakfast. By the time we arrived, settled in and went out for supper, there was little else to do except decide which underground tour to take: The Al Capone Tour or The Passage to Fortune Tour as there wasn’t time to take in both. The Tunnels of Moose Jaw (website HERE) had just opened that summer. We registered for the Chinese tour, explored the displays and waited with two other couples. Soon, we were led down a flight of stairs to a small theater room to watch a short documentary.  

The film no sooner finished when suddenly a door flew open and a man charged in, yelling and calling us vile names. He ordered us to come with him. Startled and puzzled, we anxiously followed him into a dirt-walled hallway that led into a maze of corridors. We peeked into the area where a huge laundry operation used to be, then rooms used for sleeping and dismal opium dens where it cost a worker two days’ wages for a brief, drug-induced oblivion from this underground hell.

At times our tour guide was in character and other times he explained the function of each area. Then we arrived at the final destination. I remember it being a big, rectangular room with a long eating table, mismatched chairs and directly behind, three stalls with doors and buckets on the ground. By this time my heart ached, imagining the day-to-day misery of these poor, mistreated Chinese eating here and having stinking latrines behind them.

Giving us a moment, our guide said, “Now imagine what this was really like a century ago” and pressed a button. The room erupted into a cacophony of sounds: clanging pipes, hissing steam, rumbling machinery, the buzz of voices…. I went into sensory overload, imagining the steamy heat, the stench of the latrines, and the suffocating, very real, nostril-clogging smell of earth from the walls around us.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Gulping in fresh air outside, glad to be free and feeling guilty because the same couldn’t be said for those poor souls who had toiled for months, even years, under such intolerable conditions, I couldn’t get that horror out of my mind and it haunts me to this day.

In the late 1870’s, Ottawa undertook the building of a railroad to span the country. In the West, many Chinese workers were employed because they were cheap labor and were skilled in the use of dynamite to blast the railroad through the Rocky Mountains. After the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, the Chinese remained, even began bringing their families from China.

Trouble broke out in 1908 at the CPR depot in Moose Jaw. Chinese workers were beaten because it was felt they were taking jobs away from Canadian men. The Ottawa government was forced to step in and quickly created a (despised) head tax to (hopefully) curb the tide of immigration from China. Thus, the persecuted Chinese feared for their lives and unable to pay the head tax for every family member, even babies, they hid in the underground tunnels of buildings owned by legal Chinese immigrants. They worked secretly underground, providing laundry service for the hotels in exchange for food, supplies and lodging.

Prohibition in the United States (and Canada) in the 1920’s brought further corruption to Moose Jaw because of its proximity to Chicago via the railroads and because of its ideal remote location. The corrupt police chief and reportedly all of his force aided and abetted Al Capone’s mob in gambling, prostitution and storing booze in the underground tunnels.

Illegal whiskey was smuggled in via rail cars and was unloaded or loaded through a shed in the rail yard that had direct access to a tunnel, which ran under the train station. The police chief (1905-1922) was so powerful that for twenty years not even the mayor could put a stop to his iron-fisted control. Apparently, the Chinese businessmen and the bootleggers were in cahoots, sharing the tunnels for their nefarious operations.

For 75 years the City officials denied the existence of these tunnels, which connected many downtown hotels and buildings underground in the previous century. Then one day a bus fell through Main Street, revealing a maze of tunnels, and the ugly truth was revealed about one of the “wildest frontier towns in the Canadian West”.

Picture-taking was not allowed on the tour, so sadly, I have no photos to share of the tunnels. The tunnels are open year-round. Perhaps this will entice you to visit Moose Jaw, which has a lot to offer visitors beside the tunnels. There is also an aviation museum on the outskirts of the city.

According to my research, these passages would have been built in the late 1890s to early 1900s. “Most of the tunnel structure would have been in place as basement rooms and access corridors for the steam engineers long before the major influx of Chinese to Moose Jaw. Some may have worked and lived in these spaces to avoid prosecution for illegal status or persecution because of race. The earliest use was as utility tunnels between buildings. The steam engineers who maintained the boilers constructed these access passageways so they would not have to exit one building to get to the next.” It saved time, but also was welcome in winter when temperatures dipped well below zero.

It’s never been confirmed if Al Capone actually visited Moose Jaw, but some of his mob hired young boys as messengers, paying them and even teaching them to play poker.

Moose Jaw was founded in 1882 due to it being chosen as a site for the Canadian Pacific Railway and by 1885 was a thriving town. Settlements along the CPR line quickly developed into permanent communities. The name Moose Jaw comes from a Cree name for the place, moscâstani-sîpiy, meaning “a warm place by the river.” The first two syllables, moscâ-, sound remarkably like “moose jaw”. Also, three creeks in the area, when sketched on paper, loosely resemble the jaw of a moose.

A popular attraction in Moose Jaw is the fiberglass moose statue. His name is Mac.

Creative Commons image - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Jaw#/media/File:Mac_(86395457).jpg

On the ride home, I began writing a poem to help myself come to grips with what I’d seen and the misery it conjured in my mind. This is a terrible black mark in our history—yet another example of man’s inhumanity to man. Alas, I’ll have to save the wolf caves for my April blog.

TUNNELS OF TIME

                - Elizabeth Clements

"Be Off! Go Away!
Your kind aren't wanted here."

We died like black flies in autumn
Building your mighty railroad;
Treated worse than the deaf and dumb,
We staggered beneath our load.

Where will I go? What will I do?
I'm a stranger in your land.

Cold, heavy snow clings to my back,
The wind cuts through my clothes;
I seek a cave or empty shack
And a fire to warm my toes.

"Hey, you! Have you paid your head tax?
I thought not. Come with me."

Strong, brutal fingers clamp my arm
And shake me like a dog,
My heart thunders with alarm,
Despair creeps over me, gray as fog.

Why do you hate us so?
Beneath our skin we're all the same.

Struggling, I'm dragged against my will
Down a flight of wooden stairs,
An earthy stench near makes me ill;
I fall hard, but no one cares.

Why do you attack us and call us names?
An animal is kinder to its own.

Dim rooms swarm with shadows and I cry
For my people stooped with shame;
For years we’ve toiled, not seen the sky--
Can prejudice be to blame?

 Oh, no, what's to become of us?
I weep for the misery in our eyes.

Days blur into years without sunshine
In tunnels of endless nights;
"Coolies" can't complain or whine
Nor get pity from the "whites".

The stench of the latrines make us ill;
Pigs have cleaner sties than us.

Leaky water pipes hiss and steam,
Soiled laundry's piled sky-high;
Leaving this nightmare is our dream
So we can live before we die.

The opium lures me into oblivion--
Two days' wages is the price.

Deep despair mingles with my sweat,
My body's wracked with pain;
Three more years to pay off the head tax
Before I'll hold my wife again.

Amidst this madness, I caress your picture;
Your dear image keeps me sane.

Five years I've spent in this hell on earth
I've scrimped and saved my pay,
Made friends and shared moments of mirth,
Which sometimes saved my day.

An understanding touch or smile
Gives me strength to struggle on.

Despite the deep wounds carved by hate

My faith helped my soul survive;

While in my heart, the love of my mate

Got me through this hell alive.

Oh, pure sweet air and bright blue sky!
Freedom, I embrace you.

www.elizabethclements.com 

Here is an interesting article about the tunnels <click

Beneath A Horse-Thief Moon

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Available on Amazon.ca