Somewhere in Canada

April 3rd 1918

Dear Mother & Father -

Its an awful hard job writing on a moving train but I'll do my best as I know you are anxious to know the news. I have certainly seen some country since I left you. The first part in the Rockies was very mountainous and heavily wooded, with lots of streams and lakes, and snow pretty deep. On some parts of the land we had to pass through tunnels made in the snow where there had been snow slides across the train track. I saw more snow in a day and a half than I've seen the rest of my life. Some of the [?] in the Rockies were great [?] lines of snow covered peaks, with all the rest of the country covered with snow, and great [?] mountains nearly twice as high as Mt [?]. We passed through about a dozen tunnels, one of them it look us just 15 minutes to pass through. They say it is miles long and took 5 years to build it. We passed through some of the prettiest places that is around Banff, at [?] [?] we missed it.

We got out at Winnipeg and went for a march through [?] and sure en-joyed it. We didn't have very much time there but from what we did see it seems to be some real up to date city. As I said on the [?] they don't allow us off the train at all but I expected that, for if the boys got [?] town they would have a hard time to get them back in time for the train. The people came down to the train at the different towns, but usually not very many show up as they don't know we are coming. At Moose Jaw the girls brought us down cigarettes and at Winnipeg they had a whole cart load of magazines, we have a man on board sent out by the [?] and he sure does good work. He keeps us supplied in paper, postcards, magazines, the daily papers, all free of charge and sells us stamps also collects all out letters and mails them at the stations. Last night he supplied the whole train with apples. Today we took up a collection among out fellows and [?] to why for a barrel of apples and 2 boxes of oranges, it only cost us 10 [?] each.

We have a good time on the [?] playing 500 dominoes I [?]. [?] [?] [?] in our car who plays the mouth organ well. He plays all the popular tunes and we all sing to it. He is hard at it now as I am writing. Believe me we have something to amuse us the whole time, [?] the trip is not in the least monotonous as I expected it would be, but then [?] always something [?] [?] a [?] where you all know each other.

I am feeling fine and eat like a [?] always ready for the next meal. They feed us pretty well too.

Hope you are not worrying about me for I am having a great old holiday [?] [?] with [?] [?] for me I'm off to another 500 game. Hope you can read this writing. Love from your wandering son Walter