Here is more from the envelope of letters from Nelson that Pat Rafuse recently discovered. I hope you will enjoy reading what was on Nelson’s mind on some of those long dark winter nights:
Were i a wee birdy
With feathers bright blue,
i’d perch on a flower
And sing to you.
i’d sing of the mercies
Of God above,
And i’d sing of the
Mysteries of life and love.
i have written a letter asking for the name of the author who wrote “One Ship Sails East Another Sails West.” No one in Banfield knew the author. i did a master-sheet of the poem for Mary so she could zirk off as many as she wants to give away. Without asking Mary’s permission, some _______ put it in the Bamfield Blat and gave the name of the squibbler as Duncan Nelson (whoever that might be).
Sunday 8th Day of September 1985 – From Sunrise Cove – Copper Island - Strange it is, but i never realized until yesterday that numbers were cannibals. i knew that figures in crooked hands could be made to lie but never did i think they were so debased as to eat one another. But using the old proverb, “Figures never lie,” they prove their own evil: Seven Ate Nine.
No matter how close we come to God, we do not crowd others away. This thought came to me at reading time this morning.
[The following is a poem referred to in Nelson's biography. Enter in if you dare - it is a bit of a wild ride! If you have difficulty with the following page-turning image, you can view and/or download the poem as a PDF here.]
The Watermill and Toy Factory
The new road to Pebble Beach is under construction. And also work has started towards the little factory for making wooden toys for poor children.
Sunday, Sunrise Cove - The sighting level i ordered (or rather, Mary ordered over the telephone from Simpson Sears) finally arrived and Mary shows a keen interest in it. We are to survey the waterfall possibilities for waterpower and a shop to make wooden toys for the Gospel work. i can neither preach or sing or play upon a harp of ten strings, but by God’s grace i do believe i can design and manufacture toys of wood. Please pray for me as i am so very useless unless the Lord will have pity on my uselessness.
Thursday morning. Just back from the waterfall, pushing through the salal, and the prospects for waterpower and the toy factory look very good (God willing). Did i tell you that that seems to be my ministry? Making toys for children (not a toy a year done with all hand tools, but hundreds of toys a month done with the good water power, as yet just running into the sea).
The Big Dugout Canoe
i am keeping busy: went back to working on the canoe again and got the keel on and find that it will lengthen out to 45 feet 6 inches, not 50 feet as i thought—anyway, it will afford comfortable living space for one (or two) not given to extravagant living.
Well, the sun is up today, bright and cheery, so i hope to get more work done on the canoe… So evening now—the sun didn’t stay around to see what was going on but considerable more is accomplished on the canoe.
Night time now and i am thankful for what i could accomplish today—i can just see myself, Snuggles and Hawkshaw rounding Cape Horn in this canoe. Just in case the Lady Rose should be stopping here tomorrow, i shall get this letter ready to post.
i find i do considerable dreaming about the big canoe and wonder if that is a sin. i think it would be fun sailing the stormy sea if i had but a mate. Or going up to the head of some inlet and anchor and tie to a tree and just read, write, listen to music and eat and sleep and rest.
Friday: Still precipitating (raining). Not they who are going to do, but they who do, do. This thought just came to me: how much information i would have if everyone sent me what they say they will. Wouldn’t Do Do be a keen name for the big canoe?
Friday and hot, and the cove is boiling with little fish. Back from cutting brush at the waterfall. Now to fly at work on the big canoe. Be nice to sometimes take my guests out for a cruise. Also, there are 2 eagles and 1 osprey putting on a show on my TV [that is, his front window].
Thanking the Lord for work to do and the strength given to do it. Cut into a big fir log and found it not suitable for stern of canoe but excellent cooking wood. Got cleared around a big cedar tree which has been laying anyway a hundred years so as to cut into it to see if it will do for the canoe stern.
Views on the World
Well, the sun is up today, bright and cheery, so i hope to get more work done on the canoe… So evening now—the sun didn’t stay around to see what was going on but considerable more is accomplished on the canoe.
Night time now and i am thankful for what i could accomplish today—i can just see myself, Snuggles and Hawkshaw rounding Cape Horn in this canoe. Just in case the Lady Rose should be stopping here tomorrow, i shall get this letter ready to post.
i find i do considerable dreaming about the big canoe and wonder if that is a sin. i think it would be fun sailing the stormy sea if i had but a mate. Or going up to the head of some inlet and anchor and tie to a tree and just read, write, listen to music and eat and sleep and rest.
Friday: Still precipitating (raining). Not they who are going to do, but they who do, do. This thought just came to me: how much information i would have if everyone sent me what they say they will. Wouldn’t Do Do be a keen name for the big canoe?
Friday and hot, and the cove is boiling with little fish. Back from cutting brush at the waterfall. Now to fly at work on the big canoe. Be nice to sometimes take my guests out for a cruise. Also, there are 2 eagles and 1 osprey putting on a show on my TV [that is, his front window].
Thanking the Lord for work to do and the strength given to do it. Cut into a big fir log and found it not suitable for stern of canoe but excellent cooking wood. Got cleared around a big cedar tree which has been laying anyway a hundred years so as to cut into it to see if it will do for the canoe stern.
Views on the World
Oh there is reason to be sad when all about us, near and far away to the four corners of the earth, we see and hear evil report of this sin-sick society in which we live. Yesterday, [Jack] Hobbes brought me an armful of Time magazines. The more i see of this world of sin and greed, the less i want of it. i cannot see but that God must soon say, “That is enough,” and bring in the righteous rule of Christ.
Was just talking to a gillnetter from Whonnock who ties to the float. He says that if the sockeye don’t show up in this two-day opening, there will be no more openings. The fish outlook is very dark. The Lord put fish in the sea for food but man has made a crime of the gift by waste, destruction and gambling with fish for money, money and more money. So let them eat their money.
All the world is embroiled in such a seething mess of contradictions and uncertainties that surely the Rapture must be nigh. Come soon, Lord Jesus.
Discouragement and Encouragement
At one time i was feeling very low and weak but it was all in my head i know. It must be a sin to God to feel discouraged and lonely.
There is a beautiful big long rainbow setting on the water at Turn Island. It arches up and over, and the other end is at Clifton Point. Of all the rainbows i have seen, this one is special—it is fading now but it must have stayed strong and bright for all of half an hour. So the world will not be flooded. Praise the Lord.
“Red sky (Wednesday) morning, sailors take warning.” But it looks like there will be sunshine all the day long so i should be about my canoe-wright work. Each day i pray for enough strength to carry on. It seems like a long time i have been trying to operate this place by myself. You likely have heard how near i came to turning it over to a large outfit, but the Holy Spirit spoke to me otherwise. So i still struggle on here, trying to do the best i know how to the glory of God.
Quite too often i feel inferior and that i am not doing for Jesus so much as i should. And again i feel that i must be sinning against God to feel so all alone when God has given me so very much. Betimes, in the stillness of the night, i awaken and think on all the numerous ideas i have and experiments i would like to carry out, and i am confounded to realize that i have but two hands striving to keep pace with my brain. But in truth i can see that if i will but trust to Jesus, great things will take place. For example, i have been giving shelter to a man and his son who come out from town fishing, very nice people, always helpful and grateful to have a cabin to stay in. Angelo is a welder at one of the mills and he made a very good stove for the Honeymoon Cottage. The old stove was too far gone to have fire in it anymore.
Memories
Tuesday night: Some things are funny. This evening i found myself remembering my stay in Vancouver after the war. Try as i might, i could not get a job, and little i knew at the time why. Today, i can look back and truly thank the Lord that i never got a job (that is, until i got the job from Nootka-Banfield Fish Company and was shipped out to Port Albion on a seiner). Dreadful thought to think what things would have been like had i stayed in the sinful city in some 6x6 human hutch.
Saturday Night 3rd of November and Mary never came today as a SE wind blew. This is an unusual night for me as it was this night seven years ago that Mina was taken up from this world, leaving this one to wander an outcast for these seven sad years, and wonder what God can use me for.
This is not some new-fangled brain wave i have for it has been with me all my life. i can remember even in the lean days of the Great Depression, i was looking at streams of water and dreaming, dreaming. Even in Scotland during the war i very foolishly started to build a woodturning lathe. i was shipped back to Canada and my machine was left with a farmer. Oh how foolish i have been.
Snuggles, Hawkshaw and Other Critters
Poor little Snuggles is right here beside me and all ashiver: there is a bit of thunder and she doesn’t like it at all. i tell her not to be afraid—i was stunned by lightning when a pup, and now i’m an old dog and i’m still here.
Sunday November 4th: Clearing up with the sun shining after the heavy rain.
i suppose if i kept this letter laying here, i could write chapters; in fact, i could write a book. Snuggles and Hawkshaw—what a pair they are. Hawkshaw is quite a big cat now; in fact, they both wear the same size of Stanfields. It is a pleasure to see how kind they are towards each other; would that humans would learn from them. Oh that i had their picture: a few days ago, they both sat real cuddly-close together, looking at me.
i don’t think old Spindle-shanks [Great Blue Heron] has too much intelligence: Yesterday, he caught quite a large perch and spent an hour trying to swallow it when he couldn’t even get his bill around it. Probably he would still be trying had i not gone down and scared him away.
Oft you have heard of a Pussycat, but Hawkshaw has grown to be a Pushycat. When i feed him, i have to watch that he doesn’t claw the dish right out of my hand. He just now clawed Snuggles, and if he does more of that, Snuggles and i will be looking for a Pussycat.
Tuesday Morning: After we went to bed last night, Snuggles told me all about her troubles.
You should see: Though the human species may avoid me, the ducks are holding a convention here today—hundreds of ducks. [Later]: i have just “called the roll” and every duck is back.
Poor Hawkshaw isn’t feeling well and i just don’t know what ails him. Wondering if it was something he ate. Yesterday, he threw up some brown nasty-looking stuff, and this morning he didn’t eat his breakfast. With all the sickness and pain in the world, i wonder if it is a sin to pray for a cat—he is a very good cat.
A fine state of affairs this is: We keep a high-priced cat to keep the mice away, and just the other day i find two mouse calling cards in the cat’s dish. Just now, Snuggles went after a mouse behind the stove. By helping her by moving things, she got the mouse in a hurry, and a large one it was.
That cat Hawkshaw—i just don’t know what to do about him—yesterday morning, he didn’t eat his breakfast, went out and stayed out all day and all night (he quite often stays out at night). Now this morning, when i call him and tell him to come to breakfast, he does not respond. i see him sitting among the bullrushes so i sent Snuggles after him and still no response.
Evening. Still don’t know what ails Hawkshaw. i went to pet him and he just turned his head to see what was coming—he seems to be in a daze. i took some milk to him but he wouldn’t drink. He is still outside but i don’t see him.
Tuesday morning. That cat Hawkshaw—can’t figure him out. This morning, i heard a tingle tingle and opened the door and there was Hawkshaw his happy old self again. Any i’m thankful as now i needn’t build a nice little cedar coffin.
Wednesday. A brilliant sun as only God can make. Out in the front yard is Mamma Duck and her six ducklings. They were all setting on a log and now they are swimming about as ducks are traditionally supposed to do. Mary likes my ducks. Now Momma Duck and ducklings are sunning on the outmost float log.
Evening now, and Snuggles and i are just back from the waterfall where we did the first start on clearing the brush—that is, i did most of the work—and Snuggles claimed she had to protect me from wild animals: mice, mink and squirrels.
Was just talking to a gillnetter from Whonnock who ties to the float. He says that if the sockeye don’t show up in this two-day opening, there will be no more openings. The fish outlook is very dark. The Lord put fish in the sea for food but man has made a crime of the gift by waste, destruction and gambling with fish for money, money and more money. So let them eat their money.
All the world is embroiled in such a seething mess of contradictions and uncertainties that surely the Rapture must be nigh. Come soon, Lord Jesus.
Discouragement and Encouragement
At one time i was feeling very low and weak but it was all in my head i know. It must be a sin to God to feel discouraged and lonely.
There is a beautiful big long rainbow setting on the water at Turn Island. It arches up and over, and the other end is at Clifton Point. Of all the rainbows i have seen, this one is special—it is fading now but it must have stayed strong and bright for all of half an hour. So the world will not be flooded. Praise the Lord.
“Red sky (Wednesday) morning, sailors take warning.” But it looks like there will be sunshine all the day long so i should be about my canoe-wright work. Each day i pray for enough strength to carry on. It seems like a long time i have been trying to operate this place by myself. You likely have heard how near i came to turning it over to a large outfit, but the Holy Spirit spoke to me otherwise. So i still struggle on here, trying to do the best i know how to the glory of God.
Quite too often i feel inferior and that i am not doing for Jesus so much as i should. And again i feel that i must be sinning against God to feel so all alone when God has given me so very much. Betimes, in the stillness of the night, i awaken and think on all the numerous ideas i have and experiments i would like to carry out, and i am confounded to realize that i have but two hands striving to keep pace with my brain. But in truth i can see that if i will but trust to Jesus, great things will take place. For example, i have been giving shelter to a man and his son who come out from town fishing, very nice people, always helpful and grateful to have a cabin to stay in. Angelo is a welder at one of the mills and he made a very good stove for the Honeymoon Cottage. The old stove was too far gone to have fire in it anymore.
Memories
Tuesday night: Some things are funny. This evening i found myself remembering my stay in Vancouver after the war. Try as i might, i could not get a job, and little i knew at the time why. Today, i can look back and truly thank the Lord that i never got a job (that is, until i got the job from Nootka-Banfield Fish Company and was shipped out to Port Albion on a seiner). Dreadful thought to think what things would have been like had i stayed in the sinful city in some 6x6 human hutch.
Saturday Night 3rd of November and Mary never came today as a SE wind blew. This is an unusual night for me as it was this night seven years ago that Mina was taken up from this world, leaving this one to wander an outcast for these seven sad years, and wonder what God can use me for.
This is not some new-fangled brain wave i have for it has been with me all my life. i can remember even in the lean days of the Great Depression, i was looking at streams of water and dreaming, dreaming. Even in Scotland during the war i very foolishly started to build a woodturning lathe. i was shipped back to Canada and my machine was left with a farmer. Oh how foolish i have been.
Snuggles, Hawkshaw and Other Critters
Poor little Snuggles is right here beside me and all ashiver: there is a bit of thunder and she doesn’t like it at all. i tell her not to be afraid—i was stunned by lightning when a pup, and now i’m an old dog and i’m still here.
Sunday November 4th: Clearing up with the sun shining after the heavy rain.
i suppose if i kept this letter laying here, i could write chapters; in fact, i could write a book. Snuggles and Hawkshaw—what a pair they are. Hawkshaw is quite a big cat now; in fact, they both wear the same size of Stanfields. It is a pleasure to see how kind they are towards each other; would that humans would learn from them. Oh that i had their picture: a few days ago, they both sat real cuddly-close together, looking at me.
i don’t think old Spindle-shanks [Great Blue Heron] has too much intelligence: Yesterday, he caught quite a large perch and spent an hour trying to swallow it when he couldn’t even get his bill around it. Probably he would still be trying had i not gone down and scared him away.
Oft you have heard of a Pussycat, but Hawkshaw has grown to be a Pushycat. When i feed him, i have to watch that he doesn’t claw the dish right out of my hand. He just now clawed Snuggles, and if he does more of that, Snuggles and i will be looking for a Pussycat.
Tuesday Morning: After we went to bed last night, Snuggles told me all about her troubles.
You should see: Though the human species may avoid me, the ducks are holding a convention here today—hundreds of ducks. [Later]: i have just “called the roll” and every duck is back.
Poor Hawkshaw isn’t feeling well and i just don’t know what ails him. Wondering if it was something he ate. Yesterday, he threw up some brown nasty-looking stuff, and this morning he didn’t eat his breakfast. With all the sickness and pain in the world, i wonder if it is a sin to pray for a cat—he is a very good cat.
A fine state of affairs this is: We keep a high-priced cat to keep the mice away, and just the other day i find two mouse calling cards in the cat’s dish. Just now, Snuggles went after a mouse behind the stove. By helping her by moving things, she got the mouse in a hurry, and a large one it was.
That cat Hawkshaw—i just don’t know what to do about him—yesterday morning, he didn’t eat his breakfast, went out and stayed out all day and all night (he quite often stays out at night). Now this morning, when i call him and tell him to come to breakfast, he does not respond. i see him sitting among the bullrushes so i sent Snuggles after him and still no response.
Evening. Still don’t know what ails Hawkshaw. i went to pet him and he just turned his head to see what was coming—he seems to be in a daze. i took some milk to him but he wouldn’t drink. He is still outside but i don’t see him.
Tuesday morning. That cat Hawkshaw—can’t figure him out. This morning, i heard a tingle tingle and opened the door and there was Hawkshaw his happy old self again. Any i’m thankful as now i needn’t build a nice little cedar coffin.
Wednesday. A brilliant sun as only God can make. Out in the front yard is Mamma Duck and her six ducklings. They were all setting on a log and now they are swimming about as ducks are traditionally supposed to do. Mary likes my ducks. Now Momma Duck and ducklings are sunning on the outmost float log.
Evening now, and Snuggles and i are just back from the waterfall where we did the first start on clearing the brush—that is, i did most of the work—and Snuggles claimed she had to protect me from wild animals: mice, mink and squirrels.
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