Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  The lobstick tree, as a marker of home, foreshadowed the formalization and entrenchment of reserve communities for northern bands within the north Prince Albert region—reserve lands chosen to provide bases in more than one ecological zone. The Indian Department considered environmental and agricultural capability of the landscape; it did not consider the long-held Aboriginal practice of using spaces across the ecotone. Nonetheless, the Indian Department supported the boreal bands’ requests for a portion of treaty land entitlement to be ceded in the Saskatchewan River basin on land that could be used for agriculture. The adhesion and the farming reserve also reflected a longer history of life at the boreal forest edge, one that included not only the resources of the forest (game, fish, berries, plants, and wood) but also agriculture. With the demise of the bison and the continued call for a treaty, the seasonal routine and cultural interest shifted to include both an intensified microclimate agriculture and larger-scale farm practices tied to place, both stock raising and grain farming, to supplement the returns of the boreal forest. Only fifteen miles from the lobstick tree, Little Red River Reserve was not a new idea or a radical experiment but a continuation of long-held practices at the forest edge.

  Ironically, the lobstick tree represented not only the symbolic home of the Cree but also the most enticing feature of the northern boreal landscape in the eyes of incoming resource extractors: white spruce, the new economic backbone of the north Prince Albert region.

  Chapter Three

  Wood Is Scarce

  Government explorer, botanist, and dominion field naturalist John Macoun published Manitoba and the Great North-West: The Field for Investment; the Home of the Emigrant in 1882. His intention—and his job—were to entice people to immigrate to the Canadian western interior. He was fighting an uphill battle. The western interior, many thought, was either a wasteland of endless prairie desert or a wilderness full of wild game and Indians. Western settlement had been disappointing. Macoun’s publication set out to correct false assumptions. The most damning description of a cold-winter prairie country was the lack of timber for fuel and building supplies. On the contrary, Macoun countered, timber could be found across the west, though he admitted that “wood is scarce in the southern part of the prairie section.” Settlers who chose to settle in northern districts, though, “will never experience a scarcity.” Investors, too, were encouraged to migrate west. “North of Prince Albert,” Macoun trumpeted, “are fine forests which are easy of access” and valuable to timber barons. Prophesying profits, Macoun urged reaping the boreal forest to serve the needs of prairie settlers.1 His words signalled a significant acceleration of resource exploitation in the north Prince Albert region.

  Resource exploitation on a commercial scale by non-Native newcomers was built on the belief that the treeless open plains could be filled with immigrants because there were significant timber resources in the forested regions, which curved over the prairie in an arc from Calgary, north through Edmonton, east through Prince Albert, and down to Winnipeg. Industrialization reinforced the binary conception of what would become Saskatchewan, contrasting the treeless south with the boreal north. Prince Albert was not alone; commercial exploitation along the forest edge was common as soon as the railways penetrated the west, and particularly following completion of the Great Northern Railway in 1906, which ran close to accessible timber.2 The Saskatchewan lumber industry, the majority of which centred on Prince Albert and Big River, soon outstripped its prairie rivals. By 1908, Saskatchewan produced as much lumber as Alberta and Manitoba; in 1912–13, its production was double that of the other two provinces.3 On the doorstep of an accessible and enormous commercial wood basket but at the edge of the prairie, Prince Albert leveraged its fortunes to become the pivot point between the resource north and the prairie south.

  Despite its regional importance, the thriving timber industry did not penetrate the “prairie” stereotype of Saskatchewan. In 1910, Allan Kennedy, an Ontario lumberjack, came west on a harvest excursion. Threshing over, he and his brother looked for something else to do: “Then we heard that there was logging going on at Prince Albert which was a surprise to us because we did not know there was any logging in Saskatchewan.”4 The lumber industry, in fact, has been a major factor in provincial development. But wood could only be found, and commercially exploited, in certain places. The origin of the lumber industry in the north Prince Albert region provides a little-known and important counterpoint to the perception of Saskatchewan as prairie.

  Early Lumber Industry

  In 1874, while on a hunting expedition in the western interior of Canada—the wilderness full of wild game—Captain William Moore saw a business opportunity. Snowbound, Moore headed for the Prince Albert settlement to secure flour and other supplies. Farmers in the area had successful crops, and grain was available. Flour, though, was scarce and prohibitively expensive. The wind-powered grist mill, dependent on the vagaries of nature, had not been in operation for some time. Moore immediately saw the potential for a steam-powered flour mill. The wealth of timber across the river led him to purchase a dual-purpose mill, both to grind wheat into flour and to cut logs into lumber. In 1875, Moore brought eight wagons and fifteen carts overland from Winnipeg to Prince Albert. Loaded with millstones, a steam boiler, saws, equipment, tools, and men skilled in their operation, the wagons and carts brought the commercial dream of mechanized milling to Prince Albert. Capable of both grinding grain and sawing logs into lumber, Moore’s mill ushered in what writer and archivist Brock Silversides suggested has been the most enduring and identifiable business in the Prince Albert region—the commercial lumber industry.5

  During the mill’s first full year of operation in 1879, Moore took 9,000 logs out of the area where the Little Red River meets the North Saskatchewan River. By the time dominion field naturalist John Macoun cajoled investors to develop the resources north of Prince Albert in 1882, there was a growing movement to exploit the trees. Moore’s lumber and grist mill was the opening gambit in what became several ambitious and expansive commercial enterprises that led early development of the north Prince Albert region.

  Long known as “the Good Wintering Place,” Prince Albert drew intensive and permanent immigration in the mid-nineteenth century. On the south bank of the river, fields of grain and potatoes could be found, planted by “les autres Métis” or English-Scotch half-breed farmers.6 These English-speaking Presbyterian and Anglican settlers were drawn by ties of kinship and chain migration to build on the agricultural success of James Isbister, the first farmer in the Prince Albert region. Prince Albert historian Gary Abrams callously dismissed Isbister as merely a “half-breed trapper and former interpreter for the Hudson’s Bay Company,” who, with his Indian wife, “lived on” the land that later became River Lot 62.7 Such a dismissal was unwarranted. Historian Paget Code’s investigation of the English and Scotch Métis of the Prince Albert settlement revealed a more complex and interesting background. Isbister’s settlement was not only deliberate but also anchored a nucleus of migration out of the Red River area following the transfer of Rupert’s Land to Canada in 1870.8 Within a few years, the population exceeded 300 English-speaking settlers “whose houses extended 14 miles along the south bank of the North Saskatchewan,” Abrams admitted, in classic river-lot formation.9 Moore embedded himself in this fledgling farming community and ground the local grain. Soon his commercial interest turned to exploiting the white spruce and jack pine forest on the north bank of the river.

  Until Captain Moore brought in the steam-powered boiler and sawmill, the majority of timber in the Prince Albert region was cut for domestic use (fuelwood or building logs) or to power the steamboats travelling up and down the Saskatchewan River. The Hudson’s Bay Company completely overhauled its transportation operations in 1871. Steamboats operating on the Saskatchewan represented “capital-intensive transportation technologies” intent on replacing the labour-intensive (and expensive) boat and cart brigad
es.10 Historian Jim Mochoruk noted that increased local opportunities such as day labour, farming, and work in fishing, cordwood, and lumber camps were drawing Aboriginal and mixed-blood labourers away from traditional fur-trade employment opportunities. In response, the Hudson’s Bay Company completely reinvented its inland water transportation system, constructing a railway portage at Grand Rapids (at the north end of Lake Winnipeg) and purchasing or building large-capacity steamboats to haul goods into the Saskatchewan interior.

  When the Hudson’s Bay Company sold its interests to the dominion in 1870, it retained one-twentieth of the arable land in the western interior. Without settlers, that land capital was useless. The new transportation policy reflected a shift in purpose for the company from primarily a fur-trading monopoly to a retail sales and land development company. Passengers, travellers, and settlers bound for the western interior would not only purchase passage on the steamboats but also possibly buy land for settlement from the company and provide a new market for HBC goods after they settled.11

  Figure 3. Steamboat on the Saskatchewan River.

  Source: SAB, R-A2116.

  The steamboats required massive loads of fuel. Demand for cordwood escalated. A “cord” is a measure of wood four feet square by eight feet long. At a time when all cooking and heating were done with either coal or wood, cordwood was an important commodity, particularly on the open plains, where homesteads and farms could not provide their own sources of fuel. Wood could also power steam engines, such as those on steamboats or trains, if necessary. Wood to power engines did not have to be merchantable timber. Any scrub wood, from jack pine to poplar, would do. Men with little capital could operate successful cordwood berths (cheaper to lease than timber berths) on or near the Saskatchewan River to fill this niche market. Or they could simply sell for profit the wood that had to be cut from their homesteads to make land.12 Extra loads of wood could easily be marketed as household fuel for the growing commercial centre at Prince Albert.

  Although steamboats created a burgeoning market for cordwood, the commercial timber industry in the Prince Albert region after Captain Moore arrived remained tied to local requirements. The Prince Albert settlement was growing: there were 831 people recorded in the district by 1878, and three years later there were four times that number.13 From the start, Moore’s mill was busy. The phenomenal local growth at Prince Albert showcased the transition from one way of life to another: as the editor of the Saskatchewan Herald noted in 1878, “the buffalo hunter is rapidly giving way to the farmer, and the Indian trader to the merchant.”14 Historian G.F.G. Stanley explained that, until the rail line was finished across the southern plains in 1885, “there were [virtually] no settlements south of the North Saskatchewan valley. Not only were the northern settlements deemed more suitable for agriculture, but they were also more accessible,” due to water transport.15 Saskatoon did not exist, and Regina was Pile o’ Bones; Prince Albert was the place to be. Agricultural settlers and industrial entrepreneurs from Manitoba, Ontario, and Britain began to join the mixed-blood community at Prince Albert in larger numbers.

  This growing commercial centre experienced a land and real estate boom throughout the early 1880s. The Land Office opened in 1881, welcoming settlers travelling overland on the Carlton Trail or disembarking from steamboats. The railway boom, however, was taking hold. Residents of Prince Albert believed that it would soon be joined to all points east and south through this important technological advance. The original proposed route of the Canadian Pacific Railway went through the North Saskatchewan River valley, and Prince Albert was assured a bright future.16 When the railway went west across the open plains, residents of Prince Albert were not worried at first. A major branch line had been proposed, and several railway charters had been issued to criss-cross through the region.17

  For many, the Saskatchewan River valley was the logical hub of the western interior. In 1882, the North-West Territories were divided into the provisional districts of Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Athabasca.18 Prince Albert became the centre of a provisional district that stretched from the north shore of Lake Winnipeg in the east to the Districts of Alberta and Athabasca in the west, south to the District of Assiniboia, and north to latitude 55°.19 Anchored by the Saskatchewan River and tied to Winnipeg by steamboat, much of the traffic into and out of the west passed through the district. Newspaper articles and pamphlets from local boosters presented the Saskatchewan identity in sharp contrast to the District of Assiniboia to the south, painting a scene comparing rich agricultural lands and the wealth of forest resources with flat, dry, treeless prairie. Encouraged to immigrate to Prince Albert, entrepreneurs engaged in commercial investments, such as the burgeoning timber industry. By 1883, though, the boom was over. Prince Albert faced the dual prospect of no railway in the near future combined with a national economic depression that pushed booster and boom activity to the wayside.20

  Grievances in the District of Saskatchewan from First Nations, Métis, and white settlers grew throughout 1883 and 1884 until they reached a conflagration in the spring of 1885.21 The 1885 rebellion took place primarily within Saskatchewan and further cemented a particular “Saskatchewan” identity.22 Although no battles were fought in the vicinity, Prince Albert settlers and businessmen were caught up in the rebellion. Opposing sentiments ran high. In the aftermath, the town stagnated. Buffeted by a severe agricultural depression and struggling to deal with land grievances in the wake of the rebellion, the population dropped dramatically. To revive the fledgling community and jumpstart its economic potential for resource development (particularly timber), commercial interests pushed for a railway. The Qu’Appelle, Long Lake, and Saskatchewan Railway line, linking Prince Albert to the CPR at the fledgling community of Regina, was finished in late 1890.23

  The Dominion Lands Act and the Lumber Industry

  Following completion of the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake, and Saskatchewan rail link and its first season of operation in the winter of 1890–91, the settlement became the centre of a massive lumber industry that dominated the region and its economy for thirty years. Lumber interests expanded exponentially throughout the 1890s as prairie settlement surged. Dividing land into reserves for First Nations and quarter sections for farmers to be purchased or homesteaded and therefore “owned” was a sedentary transition. Tents were appropriate for First Nations groups accustomed to travelling through the landscape, using a broad definition of “home” that included many camping areas that provided seasonal and yearly needs. Reserve life dictated a move to permanent dwellings.24 Euro-Canadian settlers, as soon as they could afford it, chose to build wood houses instead of the tents or sod dwellings hastily constructed on their homestead quarters. These houses—whether crude log cabins or clapboard shacks—represented a significant change in land use. Homestead rules required habitable, permanent dwellings before homesteaders could get their patent. As homesteads became farms, owners were expected (at least in a social and cultural sense) to upgrade or build new dwellings with commercial-grade sawn lumber.

  Large-scale agricultural transition and redevelopment of the prairie sparked a massive demand for lumber to build houses, barns, fences, schools, churches, hospitals, and towns.25 Between 1901 and 1911, Saskatchewan’s population exploded, from just over 90,000 people in 1901 to nearly half a million in 1911.26 To satisfy demand, the lumber industry grew dramatically. It was cheaper for new residents to purchase lumber from mills at Prince Albert than to have it shipped to the prairie from British Columbia, Ontario, or the Maritimes. The commercial lumber industry at Prince Albert marketed and sold its wood directly to growing prairie towns. Prior to the north-south railway link, Captain Moore and his partner had agents at Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, and Battleford selling their lumber. This lumber was shipped along the North Saskatchewan River. The Qu’Appelle, Long Lake, and Saskatchewan Railway did not commence full commercial operations until the winter of 1890–91. Despite exorbitantly high f
reight rates, rail led to the development of regional lumberyards in southern prairie towns. For instance, the Sanderson mill at Prince Albert operated lumberyards at Hague, Rosthern, and Vonda by the mid-1890s. As well, lumber continued to be shipped using the river. According to Prince Albert historian and archivist Bill Smiley, “each spring, Indian crews would arrive at the Sanderson Mill and construct scows twenty to thirty feet long, load them with lumber and move them. … They would be further loaded with flour and other freight. The scows were floated down the river to their various destinations where they would be unloaded, dismantled and the timber used.” There was a connection between commercial sawmills, regional markets, and transportation links, both the older waterways and the new rail lines: the water network of the Saskatchewan River reinforced the identity of the District of Saskatchewan, while the rail networks created a market with the Districts of Assiniboia, Manitoba, and Alberta. As railways continued to be built, water transportation stopped, and the industry found itself increasingly relying on the railways.27

  Economic development of timber was regulated through the Dominion Lands Act.28 The source of information on township surveys and homestead regulations, the Dominion Lands Policy was without a doubt primarily about homesteading, which affected thousands of people in the western interior over a sixty-year period of intense immigration, until the land was ceded to the three western provincial governments in 1930. For the Prince Albert region, however, timber policies were perhaps equally important.The Dominion Lands Act set out the rules and regulations surrounding timber limits and permits, swamp lands, grazing, mining, and water rights.