Ruffles on My Longjohns

by Isabel Edwards

Book Overview

Autobiographical account of a young couple's adventures homesteading in the Canadian wilderness. Isabel Edwards was in her early twenties when she and her husband Earle began homesteading in British Columbia's remote Bella Coola Valley. What was to be one winter spent in the Northern coastal mountains has become almost fifty years. Witty, whimsical, this is a firsthand account of homesteading in the remote Bella Coola Valley. For a woman in a world...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0888390696
• ISBN13: 9780888390691
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Hancock House
• Length: 297 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A woman, many men dream of...

`Ruffles on my Longjohns' sits quietly in a library admits the biographies from the Pacific Northwest. Recommended by a friend from the Pacific Northwest, I began reading the journey of Isabel Edwards' life, her partnership with her husband, with whom, she thoroughly shared life in all aspects, much to the disappointment of the rigid and frigid colonial lifestyle most European women are subjected to. The book is written in the tongue of her time, a firsthand biography of a woman who stands by her man, walking the roads of the Pacific Northwest 80 years ago, when the ancient ways of life had been tampered with by colonial values. No Fleece to keep you warm, no switch to turn on the heat..., no Tampax to make life easy, no Pampers to keep your baby dry, no washing machine, no many items society, today, takes for granted and with which it pollutes the Earth..........the Longjohns of once upon time, made of hardly a warm material, -wool itches your skin- handwoven, made by hand, were the daily wardrobe of the Women from Europe in the Wilderness of the Pacific North West. While the "White Man" traveled to and from the Americas since the Bronze Age and before, interacted with the locals, enhancing survival for all; the by Christian ideology modified European, totally ignorant how to survive in the wilderness, and corrupted by the Christian-Victorian cultural values that diminish women as second class entities, highlights the fundamental differences with the Native Cultures. The indigenous lifestyle embraces partnerships between men and women as a natural way of life.It is quite evident, the newcomers from Europe,holding on to their Christian-Victorian values, would not have survived without the assistance of the Native American. Ruffles on my Longjohns is walking back in time along an awesome natural wilderness at Lonesome Lake. . . .Bella Coola area, a story of pure gold of a Woman, reaching out for her Natural Place in the Scheme of Things" The book is a 'must read' for people who are truly curious about history, anthropology, Social Science, multicultural values, how survival is an inherent code of the fittest, that holds a whole host of building blocks, each, playing an important role for the continued existence of the whole. Enjoyed thoroughly reading this book.

Great Story

Ruffles on my Longjohns is the best read I've had for a long time. I heartily recommend it. Isobel Edwards has a great story to tell about her life in the rugged northwest and she has the talent to write about it in a way you feel you're there with her. It's a shame she has apparently written only this one book. Buy it and enjoy it! Gordon Padwick

No whining here

RUFFLES ON MY LONGJOHNS begins in 1932 as Isabel Edwards leaves Portland, Oregon with her husband Earle to homestead the valley of the Atnarko River flowing through the coastal mountains of west central British Columbia. Used to city life, young Isabel must adapt to a world without electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, regular mail service, roads, female companionship, immediate medical care, and contemporary conveniences of any sort. She and her husband build cabins, barns, fences, boats, spinning wheels, stoves, heaters, saddles, wells, and animal pens. Food not grown or hunted locally must be brought in by packhorse over many miles of rough terrain. One endures mosquitoes, floods, bears, wolves, snow and freezing cold. And no, one just can't jump into the SUV and drive down to the local Wal-Mart.Recently, PBS television aired a series entitled "Frontier House" in which three American families volunteer to re-create life as homesteaders in Montana of the 1880s. For several months, they sampled exactly what the Edwards lived for real for years, but did it with much more whining. What's remarkable about Isabel's narrative is the matter-of-fact good humor in which she tells it. Perhaps it's because it was written many years after the fact (1980), and time mellowed memories of what must have been an incredibly exacting experience. One can only admire the stamina and fortitude it must have taken to build a life under such conditions. (Hey, I start complaining when the Sunday paper isn't delivered on time!)RUFFLES ON MY LONGJOHNS seems much longer than its 297 paperbacked pages. Perhaps it's the typeset. In any case, it's a darn good yarn. And if anybody still believes such a life is glamorous, consider the following passage in which the author describes rescuing a pig during a flood."Racing back to the house, I found Earle sloshing around in the flooded pen, trying to catch her. Between us, we cornered her, and carrying her upside down by the legs, she wriggled and twisted and screamed as though she were being murdered. Halfway across the disintegrating bridge she had a spurting, fluid bowel movement all down the front of my dress."Try that next time you take the kids to the petting zoo.

I found it very informative on the way life used to be.

It was an interesting story of how the simple ideas in life can so easily become the reality of your life. The idea of any one nowadays picking up everything and moving to a place where there is no real outside contact, and that contact that there is, is very reliant on the weather and if the single party phone line is working, just seems absurd to today, where if the power goes off we all feel helpless to do any thing