Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  Emma Lake and Christopher Lake

  In an effort to find land suitable for soldier settlement, the dominion government sponsored an in-depth land classification survey of Canada in 1918. Dominion land surveyor M.C. McCloskey investigated the north Prince Albert region and reported in 1921. His report continually commented on the state of the roads, the north-south direction of trails, and the lack of cross-trails.35 He and his surveyors were forced to change from wagons to pack horses to complete much of their work. Of particular interest for McCloskey, aside from finding decent soil and potential agricultural lands, were the smaller lakes in the area. He appraised these lakes for their fishing potential and scenic beauty. Emma Lake was singled out as “beautifully situated among rolling hills,” with “all the features desirable for a summer resort. A broad sandy beach with gentle slope extends around the southern part, with excellent facilities for boating. The water is clear and fresh. Whitefish, pike and pickerel are reported plentiful.”36 At the time, the majority of the land around the south, east, and west portions of both lakes was either available homestead quarters (or partial quarters) or leased by trappers.37

  Emma and Christopher Lakes were beginning to attract local tourist interest. In September 1920, the same year that Woods drove his car to Bear Trap, the Northside correspondent to the Prince Albert Daily Herald reported a couple and their baby spending a weekend at “Lake Emma.”38 Local popularity soon exploded. By the mid-1920s, numerous local residents from Henribourg, Northside, Alingly, and Paddockwood jaunted to both Emma and Christopher Lakes. A typical community report would state that “quite a number of parties from this district have been away camping this summer at Christopher Lake.”39 McCloskey’s call for more cross-trails to connect the communities on an east-west access helped Paddockwood residents. A road was built in 1925 on the 14th baseline, connecting Paddockwood with Christopher Lake and bridging the Garden River. Although the road had been cut by surveyors in 1919, it needed grading and extensive improvements, including gravel, corduroy over muskeg, and a bridge over the Garden River, before it could be used by cars. The Paddockwood correspondent to the Daily Herald reported in 1925 that “Riley, Endicott and Gould motored to the lake on Sunday. Mr. Riley’s being amongst the first car to traverse the road direct from Paddockwood to Christopher Lake.”40

  Increased mobility through cars and extensive road construction and improvement by local homesteaders and municipal governments enticed not only locals but also non-locals to Emma and Christopher Lakes. G.A. Crowley of Northside wrote to the Department of the Interior in 1925 urging it to improve the road to Christopher Lake. The lake, he wrote, “has the prospect of being one of the Greatest Summer Resorts in Saskatchewan. I’ve counted as many as 38 cars to this Lake on one Sunday and road not fit for a team on account of hummock and temporary corduroy for about four miles south of lake ... Cars run on low gear and are pulled or pushed through low places.”41 Defining the north Prince Albert region as a tourism destination required a spirit of adventure, putting cars through miles of mud to get to their destination. It also marked the dual places of origin of tourists: some were from close by, some were from far away. The trappers and homesteaders who owned lakeshore property soon converted some of their energy into building camping, boating, and bathing facilities, improving access, and providing services.

  Sturgeon River Forest Reserve and Tourism

  Prior to the First World War, the lumber industry dominated the landscape. The dominion government established the Sturgeon River Forest Reserve in 1914 on land east of the Sturgeon River to the third meridian, south including much of Township 53, and north to Township 57. The forest reserve allowed the dominion to increase surveillance on the lumber interests operating almost wantonly in the region, but it had other repercussions. It stopped agricultural settlement—land could not be taken for homesteading within its boundaries. Forestry reserves, the Department of the Interior insisted, were set aside to promote monitored forest production and reproduction, including a program of silviculture. The idea was to maintain healthy forests that could be continuously and economically exploited for human benefit—a “gospel of efficiency” and “wise use” of forest resources.42 An emphasis on fire suppression and reforestation anchored the dominion’s interests. Other uses included permit-controlled grazing and haying on open glades. After the devastating fires of 1919, which effectively halted large-scale lumbering in the area, the Sturgeon River Forest Reserve remained a legal entity.43 Local residents continued to lease areas within the reserve to operate sawmills, cordwood berths, and railway tie camps, as well as haying and grazing permits, but the large-scale economic benefits for Prince Albert businesses from the lumber industry—supplies, food, clothing, transportation, and entertainment—melted away. These businesses were left with a frustratingly underused forest reserve landscape on their doorstep.

  Enter the Department of the Interior, which operated the forestry reserve system. The forestry branch began to publicize forest reserves as recreational space across the dominion. The new marketing ploy emphasized camping as a domestic experience accessible to all: hiking, taking pictures, tenting, canoeing, cooking, eating ice cream, swimming, boating, and fishing. These experiences could be had just as easily on short weekend trips to forest reserves as on expensive month-long rail adventures to the mountains. The forestry branch encouraged such recreation, despite the increased risk of forest fires: tourism “enables many citizens to see the forests, and thus leads them to appreciate their importance,” thereby heeding calls for fire prevention strategies, officials hoped.44 To increase demand, the forest service began to provide camping and picnicking facilities “at favourable points.”45

  E.H. Finlayson, the director of forestry, wrote of the “eager manner in which the public have grasped the possibilities for holidaying and recreation.” The department invested in road maintenance and signage to encourage this new traffic.46 Northern Saskatchewan benefited. The forestry branch took on an “ambitious programme of improvement work.” It dug canals on the Montreal River, cleared and widened portages, improved campsites, built log cabins for shelter and wood storage, and erected signs at portages and other important trail points along the way.47 The branch knew that “our northern watercourses are extremely bewildering to a traveller not perfectly familiar with them,” so it put up signs and widened trails so that “they could be followed by even a novice.”48

  Promoting tourism in forest reserves tapped a growing commercial market. During the 1920s, tourist recreation rocketed to public consciousness across North America in conjunction with the spread of motor vehicles and improved roads.49 The post–First World War period saw a dynamic change in social expectations, leisure time, and increased affluence. Cars, along with tents and other camping supplies left over from the war effort, and an increasingly improved road network, encouraged the rise of auto tourism on a more modest budget. The 1922 annual report of National Park Commissioner J.B. Harkin noted with pleasure and expectation that “the prosperity that has followed the building of motor highways ha[s] convinced everyone that tourist travel pays, and that it can be developed like any other industry.”50

  Tourism Promotion: Urban, Rural, North, and South

  As Harkin rightly noted, despite being rooted in landscape, tourism is not a natural product. It is “developed, managed, and packaged by people and organizations,” particularly on a large scale.51 When a landscape is unique, it can be marketed and sold. The act of visiting drives the experience. In most cases, Canadian landscape tourism during the twentieth century appealed most strongly to urban residents. By 1921, Canada found half of its population residing in urban centres, working wage or salary positions with set hours and set leisure times.52 Excursions to nearby lakes or resorts—for day trips, weekends, or a few weeks—became affordable holidays that could be taken with little preparation and modest investment. The rise of camping and picnicking in forest reserves was “becoming a regular habit of the p
eople even from long distances, and this traffic is particularly heavy on Sundays and holidays.”53 Historian J.M. Bumsted noted that, during the early twentieth century, “urban Canada revelled in its neighbouring wilderness,” flocking to accessible lakeshores and forested camping areas.54 Brochures, maps, and films promoting tourist destinations were distributed in cities to receptive audiences.55 The Department of the Interior expressed the opinion that tourism was becoming popular because of “alarm at the changes in the face of the country due to the rapid extension of our present industrial civilization, [which] has emphasized the necessity of conserving a few untouched areas.”56 National and provincial parks, forestry reserves, and other “natural” areas would provide charm, peace, and solace, as well as a healthy vacation in the outdoors, away from the urban jungle.

  Saskatchewan, however, bucked the national trend toward urbanization. The rural/urban divide was still evident in 1921, with 70 percent of the Saskatchewan population living in rural areas.57 While other provinces could assume that urban residents were more numerous and create marketing campaigns directed at busy urban lives, appealing to city residents had limited mileage in Saskatchewan. Re-creating the north Prince Albert landscape as a tourist destination—a place that was “different,” “beautiful,” and “worth seeing”— largely depended on a different model. This model exploited Saskatchewan’s north/south divide: open plains versus northern forests became the central marketing tool.

  MLA T.C. Davis, the newly elected representative of the Prince Albert region, rose during one of his first sessions in the legislature in Regina in 1925 to expound on the north/south divide in Saskatchewan. It was as “crippling” as the east/west divide in Canada, he argued, where all the development, investment, and knowledge went to one part and not to the other. The divide within Saskatchewan, Davis claimed, was both physical and economic. The Saskatchewan north presented a non-agricultural landscape that did not fit the prairie development model. The result was “a lop-sided province. For those who don’t wish to farm, there is little to do.” Davis believed that the best way forward was through interaction: “The cleavage between the North and South in this province can be avoided by the people of the South getting acquainted with the people and the conditions of the North and the people of the North getting acquainted with the South.” To support and develop this new acquaintance, Davis proposed tourism: “We are becoming ... a nation on wheels. During the summer time we are away seeking beautiful spots to visit. We go to Banff and Jasper Park and Yellowstone National Park and to the Lake of the Woods and Muskoka, and leave right here in our own province, a country which rivals them all to great advantage in point of natural beauty. We want first of all to get you to know that great country and we best do this by inducing you to go there on a pleasure bent.”58 His speech outlined a program of northern Saskatchewan tourism, appealing to a growing sense of provincial patriotism. It was not necessary to travel far away, Davis argued, when a beauty spot “which rivals them all” could be found closer to home. Prince Albert became the gateway to a northern vacation land, targeting prairie dwellers to discover the boreal forest and spend their money up north.

  Improved roads and recreational facilities, as well as increased promotion, drew people from farther and farther away. “Whereas in former times visitors were mostly persons residing in the neighbourhood,” the forestry branch wrote in 1926, “the records now show use by people living at considerable distances,” including tourists from the United States.59 A 1925 article in the Prince Albert Daily Herald reported that tourism had become Canada’s third most important industry and claimed that in Saskatchewan this industry was worth about $10 million.60 Whether tourism was worth that much or was that important to the national or provincial economy is irrelevant. The message was clear: tourism meant money. Merchants provided food, equipment, and services, from boat rentals to boarding houses to full-scale camps. For Prince Albert businessmen, supplying the new tourist trade offset the losses experienced by the close of the lumber industry. The merchants believed that the north Prince Albert region offered as good a recreational landscape as any. If people were willing to travel and spend money to visit a lake, do some fishing, and hike among the trees, then Prince Albert businessmen were ready to promote the north as the logical recreation destination of choice for prairie residents—and Prince Albert as the point of departure. It was an accessible wilderness. Instead of spending a lot of time driving far away, a car full of tourists could arrive faster and spend more time having fun.

  A “Saskatchewan Banff”: Prince Albert National Park

  The forestry branch created a cottage lot subdivision at the beach at Primeau Landing at Red Deer (Waskesiu) Lake in 1925.61 The new development capitalized on increased tourist interest and looked to model success on similar developments at Clear Lake in the Riding Mountain Forest Reserve in Manitoba.62 Cottage leases, camping fees, permits, and other revenues offset fire control and other operational costs. O.M. Lundlie, a Prince Albert resident who owned a large machinery dealership with a branch in Henribourg, visited Red Deer Lake in early July 1925. He reported with enthusiasm that in Red Deer Lake, Prince Albert had an asset that would more than repay development. The article in the Prince Albert Daily Herald declared that the lake would be an “Ideal Site for a Saskatchewan Banff.”63

  Rebranding the forest reserve as a “Saskatchewan Banff” had nothing to do with mountains and everything to do with economics. Tourist traffic, Lundlie exclaimed, would involve not just recreational tourists but also hunters, trappers, and prospectors. He imagined a cottage community in the forestry reserve that would combine landscape recreation with the supply trade. He believed that the resort community would become a new “jumping off point” for northern exploration and exploitation. Lundlie called on the Prince Albert Board of Trade to take up the cause of resort creation. Calling Red Deer Lake a “Saskatchewan Banff” foreshadowed the move to change the Sturgeon River Forest Reserve into a national park. His enthusiasm put a public face on an idea that was already in the making.

  The national parks branch had already expressed some interest in Saskatchewan. In 1922, in keeping with the recreational aspect of the new car tourism, its annual report announced the creation of “recreational areas.” These were areas “adapted for public use and enjoyment for summer resort and recreational purposes but which do not possess scenery of sufficient importance to justify their creation as national parks.” Land suitable for recreation but not large enough to create a national park usually fronted a lake. As such, it was not good for agriculture and was unalienated Crown land. The first such reservation in Saskatchewan under this scheme was Vidal’s Point, now known as Katepwa Point, on Katepwa Lake, within the Qu’Appelle Valley chain of lakes known as the Calling Lakes. Although not called a national park, the area came under the protection and administration of the national parks branch. The point had been in use for recreation for years. National designation gave Vidal’s Point increased status and publicity.64

  The Sturgeon River Forest Reserve north of Prince Albert was a large, publicly owned, and federally managed landscape, large enough to convert into a national park. Public ownership gave clarity and ease to the transition from one kind of federal ownership to another. The growing economic boom in regional tourism development at Round, Christopher, and Emma Lakes, combined with the enthusiasm of Lundlie and others who wished to turn the forestry reserve into a “Saskatchewan Banff,” provided the idea and the willpower. Prince Albert politicians and businessmen knew that a national park commanded greater dominion involvement than a forest reserve, particularly financially, to build infrastructure and create an advertising campaign. Local merchants and entrepreneurs would ride the tourism wave with less effort on their own part. Political circumstances and manipulation added first possibility and then reality.65

  The critical bargaining factor in creating the new national park was its situation. The Sturgeon River Forest Reserve straddled the e
cotone, offering a transitional landscape of burnt-over areas and old logging berths, alongside open meadows and bursting poplar groves. National park officials were unconvinced that such a mixed landscape was sufficiently beautiful. In a letter to parks commissioner J.B. Harkin in April 1926, the deputy minister of the interior spelled out what a national park should be: “it is desired to have scenic wonders and beauties in sufficient abundance.” The forest reserve had trees but few picturesque rocky outcrops and no waterfalls. It was not “north” enough because it was not the Canadian Shield. An internal memorandum suggested instead that the Lac La Ronge region, in the Canadian Shield, would be better suited: “Before a successful national park can be created, you must have a natural park. The territory lying north of and within easy reach of Prince Albert is not naturally a park country, so it requires a critical selection to choose any area which might form a satisfactory national park. ... The territory in the Lac La Ronge district and north is much more attractive as a natural park area.”66

  Prince Albert advocates were appalled. Such a park would be beyond Prince Albert’s reach. In fact, it would be beyond anyone’s reach, for there were no roads farther than the south end of Montreal Lake—and that was only the winter freight trail bumped over by McKay and Henry in 1919. The road past Waskesiu was unfit for summer motor vehicle traffic. The only tourists able to access a park at La Ronge would be occasional canoe adventurers such as Henry or those able to pay for an airplane flight, not the far more lucrative weekend car excursionists or cottage leaseholders. This fact gave the Prince Albert group leverage in their fight to create a park closer to the city. Not only did a national park need to have “scenic wonders and beauties in sufficient abundance,” as the national park official stated, but local promoters pushed the official’s own argument. In that same 1926 letter, the deputy minister admitted that scenic wonders were not enough. A national park also had to be “sufficiently accessible to attract that type of tourist who… travel(s) in the open.”67 By 1926, accessibility referred to roads for cars.