It is probably more logical than amazing, how experiences of the past will trigger our thoughts in the present. This happened to me on my very first visit to Fort Walsh. To do my job well at Fort Battleford I needed to know the history of the North West Mounted Police, and that required knowing the story of other NWMP posts. So it was that I chose to take an early opportunity to visit Fort Walsh. At that time, about 1953, it was still the “remount station”, the ranch where horses were raised for the RCMP’s equestrian use. The fort had been rebuilt with the buildings enclosed within a high wall stockade.

As I walked through the gate, I passed a little blond girl playing in the dirt with a toy. She looked just like Jane from the old readers soI stopped and said to the top of her blond head, “Is your name Jane?” To my surprise without looking up she shyly answered, “Yes”. Turned out she was the daughter of the wrangler and his wife who lived on site in one of the rebuilt houses – and her name was really Jane.

My former experience in teaching starters at school, and my own children at home had well acquainted me with Jane in this reader.