Canada - Rebellion, revolution, invasion, war, it was all part of the 1800s for Canada even before Confederation in 1867.
 
Even before it had formed as the modern country of Canada, and slowly found its feet, it was confronted with unrest.
 
The American Revolution wrapped up before the 19th century started, but just barely.
 
Next there was the War of 1812.
 
Then the country made its way past a minor rebellion in the 1830s and blundered through the Fenian raids (a comedy of errors that sometimes turned bloody) in the 1860s.
 
But Canada's first real military test came less than 20 years after Confederation, and for some troops, that first test was simply making it to the battlefront.
 
On 27 Mar 1885, the federal government ordered the mobilization of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters from across Simcoe County, as part of the militia mobilization across the province to fight the military resistance led by Louis Riel.
 
The Globe of 20 Mar 1885, published this small item:  "Prince Albert Saskatchewan, 19 Mar 1885. Louis Riel, the hero of the "Red River Rebellion", recently exiled from Manitoba, has created dissension among the half-breeds and an outbreak is imminent. The situation is considered critical."
 
And so Barrie and Oro Township's Lieutenant-Colonel W.E. O'Brien of the 35th Simcoe Foresters, took command of the York-Simcoe Battalion, which was formed from four companies of the 35th Simcoe Foresters and four companies of the 12th York Rangers to counter the Riel Rebellion in western Canada.
 
In recognition of this contribution 35th Simcoe Foresters received its first battle honour "North West Canada 1885".
 
There were no telephones or radios but there were lots of backroads and spread-out farms from the hills around Collingwood to the flats stretching from Stayner to Minesing.
 
From Midland and Penetanguishene in the north, to Orillia and down the north side of Lake Simcoe to Barrie, and the population-rich Innisfil Township, the men were scattered far and wide.
 
But rounding them up, while a bit of a trick, was nothing.
 
The real test was getting the troops to Manitoba and then on to Saskatchewan.
 
No one knows whether this figured in Riel's strategy.
 
But certainly one of the challenges facing the men heading west that early spring was how they would actually get to the battle.
 
They couldn't march out.
 
There was still snow in Simcoe County in early spring, in the north, the winter would last even longer.
 
They might have taken ships through the Great Lakes to the end of Lake Superior, if the water was open, then headed by train through the United States to St. Paul, Minnesota.
 
From there they could march to Fort Garry, now part of Winnipeg.
 
But according to Brian A. Brown in his book "Foresters:  The Canadian Quest for Peace", a trip through the U.S. would have meant a certain amount of humiliation, and a potential for lost luggage.
 
"The trouble with travelling through the United States was that the militia would have to be disarmed and travel in civilian clothing as private citizens with their munitions, rifles, and artillery boxed for shipment in the baggage cars. Public transportation was no more reliable than it is now with respect to guaranteed delivery of baggage."
 
The Canadian railway was not yet complete.
 
It did span the West, but Ontario is as rugged as the mountains with rocky outcrops, rivers, lakes, swamps, and forests.
 
Northern Ontario had slowed the progress of the rail ribbon that would eventually tie the country together.
 
Nonetheless, William Cornelius Van Horne, the president of Canadian Pacific, wanted to prove the value of his railway by having the troops move west on it.
 
Despite the railway being incomplete, Horne promised to have the first troops in Fort Garry within ten days.
 
The entire force of more than 3,300 men would be west in two weeks.
 
And they were, once they actually left.
 
The order for mobilization came on a Friday.
 
Then it took a day for the officers to get word out to the area farms and through the sawmill villages and towns.
 
At ten o'clock on Saturday morning, the troops were mustered.
 
In Barrie, 200 men (some, according to Brown, carrying supplies) were ready to leave.
 
Instead, they were updated on the situation, drilled, and sent home with orders to muster again on Monday.
 
Spirits were high among the men on the train that pulled out of Barrie on the day after April Fool's Day.
 
In order to go west they had to travel east to Smith's Falls, near Ottawa, then northwest to North Bay, Sudbury, and onward.
 
Oh, so easy.
 
It was shortly after midnight when they reached the first break in the rail line, at Dog Lake.
 
The temperature, according to records, was around freezing, but according to Brown, the reception was warm, with lots of food.
 
After dinner, the troops were organized into formation and mounted a long line of horse-drawn sleighs that would carry them to the next rail link before the morning sun turned the frozen snow into impassable mush.
 
"The sleighs were intended for eight men, but there were frequently 10 or 12 jammed in.
 
There were frequent sections where the roadbed was not yet constructed or where the bridges remained to be built, in which case, the sleighs would have to follow the tote road, often for many miles through forests, over stumps and rocks, on and on, for hour after hour," said Brown.
 
As the troops bumped over the rough track in the frozen darkness, at times being dumped into the snow or freezing sloughs of slush, the high spirits began to wane.
 
War wasn't so glamorous.
 
They arrived at Magpie a few hours before dawn.
 
This small camp, and the promise of rest, must have seemed like heaven.
 
But as the exhausted, frostbitten men made their way to the bunkhouses, the bugle blew for breakfast.
 
The doors of the bunkhouses opened, showing makeshift kitchens where beds should have been.
 
Pork and beans were served, and farm boys and shop clerks sat down in the snow to eat.
 
It was twenty below freezing when they arrived.
 
By the time they finished their breakfast, it had warmed enough to snow.
 
Once they'd finished eating, the order was given to remount the sleighs to finish this leg of the journey, another four hours.
 
In all, the trip was forty miles.
 
For the last few hours, the temperature continued to rise, turning the snow into sleet, which coated the men, sleighs, horses, and equipment.
 
They arrived at the next camp, cheerily called Desolation, at 08:30 on 4 Apr 1885 wet, cold, and miserable.
 
Some of the men had collapsed with exhaustion on the sleighs.
 
Most of the men ignored the cook tent and crammed themselves into the few beds available.
 
At 11:00 they were awakened to board the train.
 
The train was a collection of utility cars, not a passenger or dining car among them.
 
Some were open gravel cars and others had a roof but only slats for sides.
 
The train's top speed was five miles per hour.
 
And on the way to the next stop, twice it left the tracks, falling over into the snow.
 
Three hours later, the train pulled into Bandeville.
 
The men were fed sandwiches and hot drinks.
 
After a brief rest, they piled back onto the train and headed onwards to Port Munro.
 
At 23:00 some twelve hours after leaving Desolation, they arrived at the port, where there was a bed for every man.
 
Many men slept past breakfast, lunch, and dinner, waking only to clamber back on the sleighs in the night.
 
The trip would be across the frozen waters of Lake Superior, to cross during the day would mean dealing with slush and with snow blindness.
 
As the small army set out, the wind kicked up, blowing freshly fallen snow into whiteouts.
 
The whiteouts gave way to broken landscapes of hard ice and then glare ice.
 
The miracle was that no one fell by the wayside or was frozen to death.
 
At 02:00 they trooped into McKellar's Harbour, their limbs frozen stiff in their pants and jackets.
 
A train waited for them, with more open cars.
 
The men, beyond caring, piled on.
 
They travelled another 15 miles to Jackfish Bay and breakfast and bunks.
 
The next day, they assembled in formation and split into two groups, both heading off on sleighs.
 
The sleighs for the second group forced the laden sleighs of the first group off the trail, where many men were thrown out of overturned sleighs, again.
 
It took six hours for the first group to reach Winston's Dock.
 
The second group arrived at midnight, and they all loaded onto another train and headed to Nipigon, at that time a small Ontario village.
 
They were promised it was only a 10 mile march to the final section of track that would take them to Fort Garry in a single day.
 
But it was 10 miles through a trail that had once been covered in four feet of snow and was now slush.
 
Part of the journey was over lake ice, which was also now slush.
 
The temperature had warmed considerably but that didn't help, it was now thundering and raining.
 
They arrived in Red Rock at 03:00 on 9 Apr 1885 and once again boarded trains.
 
But this time, the exhausted men dropped into plush seats in the best cars of the entire journey.
 
Not one life was lost during the trip.
 
But already, the men had experienced more misery than they had their entire lives.
 
And the first shot had yet to be fired.
 
Tom Villemaire.