Dress-up, Make-believe, and Time-travel

Miss Sissy Barnes walks through the door of the City Bakery in her blue and white “Sunday best.” She is followed by Miss Ethel Frizzle, her schoolmate, wearing a pink and white dress that her mother ordered from the Eaton’s catalogue. They both wear high boots with thick stockings so that not a speck of their skin shows except on their faces. Even their hands are covered with little white gloves. My work clothes are not nearly as fancy: a simple white blouse, a long black skirt, and black boots. Under my skirt is a pair of bloomers; over everything, I wear a plain white apron.1

“Good morning!” Miss Sissy says in her polite, high pitched little girl voice as she places her parasol on the counter. “Hmm...what should I have today?” Then, something catches her eye. “Oh! What are those?” She asks as she points to the wooden racks behind me.2

“Currant scones, Miss Sissy. Would you like one?”3

“I don’t know…Miss Frizzle, would you like to share a scone with me?”4

Miss Frizzle walks over, carrying a tray with two teacups and two teapots. She takes a look at the rack for herself. “I think I would much rather a delectable cinnamon bun.”5

The door slams as a family walks in. They must be foreign because they don’t dress the way we do. They seem to have left their house before putting on their final layer of clothing. The men have forgotten their overcoats, and the women their skirts. They are walking around in their undergarments, showing their ankles. The children are wearing atrocious, bright coloured shoes with holes in them.6

“Have you been walking a lot?” Miss Sissy asks the little boy. “Your shoes are full of holes!” The boy says they’re supposed to be like that. Miss Sissy and I exchange a glance. Why on earth would a shoemaker purposely make shoes with holes in them?7

As the family looks around and eventually leaves, I allow myself to wonder what someone in the 1890s really would have thought of a pair of crocs.8

“Oh, I need to give you the information about the Trailer Trash Bash,” Miss Sissy says, stepping out of character. Now she is Lisa Aasebo, a twenty-something actress playing a 12-year-old girl. She grabs a napkin and a pen. I read random snippets as she writes them down.9

The actors’ trailers. 18+. BYOB.10

“Why is it 18 and over?” I ask.11

“We don’t want the junior cast to see us drinking.” She hands me the napkin and begins to walk to the door. She raises the pitch of her voice, lowering her age to that of Miss Sissy again. “Good day, Miss Hart!” The door slams behind her.12

Even though it’s not part of my job description, I find myself thinking in character whenever the actors come in. Sometimes, even when there are no customers, they stay in character too. I like to think of it as acting by osmosis.13

~14

Fort Steele, located in the Kootenay region of British Columbia, used to be called Galbraith’s Ferry when it was established during the 1864 gold rush. Its name was changed to Fort Steele in 1888 in honour of Superintendent Samuel Steele of the local RCMP in honour of his ability to settle tensions between the native Ktunaxa people and the incoming European settlers.15

At its peak, between 1897 and 1898, Fort Steele was home to approximately 4,000 inhabitants. It became a ghost town early in the 1900s when Canadian Pacific Railway decided to bypass Fort Steele in favour of Cranbrook, which would later become my hometown. By 1902, only 150 people remained.16

In 1961, Fort Steele became a heritage town, allowing people from all over the world to experience a form of time-travel. It is currently owned by the provincial government, which gives the Friends of Fort Steele Society approximately 275,000 dollars per year to manage the site. Tourists can stop in all year round to view the authentic and reconstructed buildings and buy souvenirs from the gift shop, such as hand crafted leather journals and belts, metal candlesticks welded in the fire of the blacksmith shop, or spiral-shaped Christmas tree ornaments made in the local tinsmith shop. These items are typically made before the fall season begins, as none of the actual businesses are open during the fall and winter.17

However, Fort Steele really comes alive in the summer, when everything re-opens for business. Historical inhabitants come back to life with the help of visiting actors spending the season in trailers across the highway. They recreate Fort Steele’s history by taking on the roles of real people who lived there, dressing in authentic Victorian-style clothing and performing little slice-of-life skits throughout the town. In between these skits, they wander around town improvising with the other 75 staff members, like me, in 11 other establishments on site. In the afternoon, they perform an hour-long musical in the town theatre.18

As far back as I can remember, my summers were never complete without making the 15-minute drive out to Fort Steele with my mom to see the theatre show. When I was really young, I would even dress up in plain-coloured dresses that could pass as authentically Victorian. While we were there, I made sure that we stopped by Mrs. Sprague’s Sweet Shop for a bottle of Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer. We would stop in Kershaw and Son’s General store in the hopes of finally finding a bonnet to go with my dress. Finally, we couldn’t leave the Fort without making one final stop at the City Bakery to buy a giant ginger snap cookie or cinnamon bun to take home, or eat on the big gazebo in the centre of town.19

These moments were the highlights of my summers, and I remember loving Fort Steele so much that I wrote a letter to the director of the play when I was eleven or so, asking if there was any possibility I could be part of the production. Unfortunately, at that time they only allowed properly registered actors to perform, but the director thanked me for my interest. 20

I have since developed stage-fright about singing and acting on stage, but I have never fully lost that desire to play a different role. Although I am only employed as a bakery server and not an actress, working in any area of Fort Steele allows me a little taste of what I craved back when I wrote that letter. 21

~22

Mrs. Wallinger walks through the door with her impeccable posture and proper English accent. Though she is only wearing her day-to-day clothes, she has an air of sophistication about her that is complimented perfectly by the simple, yet elegant design of her hat. It is straw, with a thick band of black material running around it. A small, single white feather sticks out from the side. 23

I resist the urge to say “The usual?” even though I know what she is going to order. It would be too modern, too familiar. “What can I get for you today Mrs. Wallinger?” I ask instead.24

“I would absolutely love one of your sugarless cookies, please.”25

I serve it to her, and she asks me to put it on her tab. Just then, a middle-aged couple walks in. As if it isn’t bad enough that they are dressed in their undergarments, the man does not remove his hat upon entering the room.26

“How incredibly rude,” Mrs. Wallinger says to him before turning her head in disapproval. “A man should always remove his hat in the presence of a lady.”27

The man promptly takes off his hat, looking embarrassed.28

“Thank you,” Mrs. Wallinger says. As she leaves, she adds a polite, “Have a nice day, ladies.” 29

While the middle-aged couple looks around, I write the cookie on a tab marked “Erica Ross.”30

I wonder what she would have said to the man who came in without a shirt last week. Erica Ross, a devout Christian who has always been mature for her age even since we met in elementary school, may have left it alone, with little outward reaction despite obvious inward disapproval. Mrs. Wallinger, on the other hand, would have probably reported the man to the RCMP for indecent exposure. Either that or she’d have a heart attack.31

~32

The bakery is one of the newest buildings on site. In fact, in a historic site representing a one-hundred-year-old settlement, I am working in a building younger than my own 21 years. Built in 1992 as a reconstruction, it sits right next door to the remains of one of the original bakeries of the time. The original was destroyed mostly by fire, and partially by years of inevitable weather damage. The current bakery is almost double the size of its dilapidated neighbour, making it obvious that it was not an exact reconstruction of the original building. It was simply modeled after the typical bakery layout of the time, made bigger to accommodate the vast number of hungry tourists wanting to stay and enjoy their baked goods over a cup of coffee.33

Though the building is new, we do not have the advantage of using a modern electric oven. The brick oven in the back half of the bakery is the size of a room itself, and is used exactly as it would have been more than a hundred years ago. It stands from floor to ceiling and has the capacity for 350 loaves of bread. Unlike a modern oven, it needs to be loaded with firewood every day for two weeks before the bricks are hot enough to use for baking. To make things more complicated, the first week of pre-heating must be done with small fires. If the fires are too big and heat the bricks too fast, they may crack. In fact, there is already a large crack, running almost the entire height of the oven, from this very error. From the second week on, we light big fires in the morning and allow the temperature to die down from 800 degrees to a more reasonable 350 degrees.34

Even on days when our baker is not using the oven, it must be lit in order to keep the bricks from cooling off. This means that the building has one of the hottest indoor temperatures on site. My boss, Shauna, estimates that it must be more than 40 degrees in here on some days. We even had one lady quit on her first day because she couldn’t handle the heat.35

I have never been told why we don’t have the luxury of air-conditioning, but I assume it is because it would cool the oven off too fast. We do have several electric fans, but their feeble attempts at cool air are no match for the giant brick oven in the back. My co-worker, April, constantly complains about hot flashes, and we sometimes take turns retreating to the air-conditioned restaurant next door and standing over the vent on the floor to fill our skirts with cool air.36

I often wonder how the employees of the original bakery handled this heat. On the surface, I may be dressed in authentic Victorian clothing, but my modern bra does not run the full length of my torso, my skirt and bloomers are only two thin layers, and my cotton blouse breathes much more than the heavy materials used at the turn of the century. 37

As far as I know, a bakery worker in the 1890s would have made less than eight dollars per week. I make ten dollars per hour, eight hours each day.38

I know I’ve got it easy.39

~40

Even without looking at the clock, I would be able to tell it is near the end of the day as soon as Mrs. Mather, Constable Henry Barnes, and Mrs. Clark walk through the door. They have just finished a skit at the Opera House, and often stop in to get a glass of water, a bottle of juice, or some sort of baked good before rushing off to their final skit of the day.41

“Miss Hart, you will never guess what just happened!” Mrs. Mather exclaims loud enough that I’m sure they could hear her all the way in Cranbrook if there wasn’t such thing as modern traffic.42

“What happened, Mrs. Mather?”43

“Constable Barnes and I were just talking on the boardwalk, and one of the boards just broke! It collapsed under his sheer force and manliness.” She stops to indulge in a little laugh. “I know it’s not very ladylike of me, but I did reach out to try to catch him so he wouldn’t fall.”44

“Well I’m sure it’s fine, Mrs. Mather,” I answer.45

Mrs. Clark has made her way over to the display case, carefully inspecting the array of baked goods. Thanks to the use of modern technology such as fridges and freezers, our baker bakes in bulk, and therefore we almost always have more product to replenish the display throughout the day.46

“I object to the use of the word ‘brownie’ to describe something white,” she exclaims as she reads the label for our butterscotch brownies. “It should be called a… ‘beige-y’.”47

I giggle to myself.48

“I think I will have one of these…chocolate brownies.”49

I bring it over to Mrs. Clark who is waiting at the cash register.50

“Now, dear, I need you to place this on a tab, but it is not under my own name, you see. It is an alias. If Mr. Clark knew of the tab I was accumulating at your establishment, I don’t even know what would happen. So, dear, it’s under the name of a Miss Lindsay Vallance.”51

When all three of them have gone to the patio, I grab a broom and begin sweeping. A few minutes later, the clock on the wall chimes, and it’s finally time to close the doors.52

April yells from the back that she’s going to change. “It’s too darn hot in here!”53

The sweat pouring down my face agrees with her. I pause a moment to unbutton the top button of my blouse, just to let a little air blow around my neck. It’s not the long skirt and bloomers, but the high collar and long sleeves that make the heat unbearable for me. But I do not rush to the back to get changed as soon as the closed sign is turned. Even in the heat, I like playing dress-up. I revel in the pictures the tourists take of me, to show their families when they return back home. I love knowing that even just by experiencing a fraction of a Victorian lifestyle, I have helped to make the experience that much more authentic for those visiting.54

Even though the bakery is closed, the park is still open for another hour. I turn around to see a lady peering in the window. I give a quick wave, and return to sweeping the floor.