[Note: The date is January 18th, 1916 – Dean continued to write the previous years date of “15” throughout most of January 1916.]

Tuesday Jan 18/15

Dear Mother.

I don’t know what heading to put on here but I expect it will be mailed at Fort William. We are all well on this trip. We reached Calgary and took on 35 boys in another car. We got to Medicine Hat Sunday night woke up Monday morning nearly at Regina. We got to Winnipeg last night about nine oclock. They made up a troop train there and switched us into the yards and left us till this morning 6 oclock. We have 8 or 9 cars of soldiers in Mechanical Transports and mounted Rifles.

We had to march at Wpeg for about ten blocks. That was far enough for 25 to 30 below zero. The wind.

There are some small kids in the tourist. They get out at the stations and run up and down and we put them on the train when they pull out. There are six of them They came from new Zealand, two different families.

All you can see on the trip today is mountains covered with ice and snow all the rivers are frozen. I will write a letter decently sometime when we stop but the jar of the train makes it impossible when running around these curves. Tell all the kids etc this is a general letter Give my love to all so

Bye Bye for now
Harold.