Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  Supplying handicrafts was a delicate issue. In the Depression, under pressure from trapping and hunting restrictions, crafters found it difficult to afford supplies. To help out, the Indian agent from the Carlton Agency in charge of the area requested and received a fund to offset and underwrite these costs. This provided a non-refundable loan in the amount of $300. The proceeds of craft sales were to be put back into the fund to purchase more supplies. The agency also purchased a stamp that read “Guaranteed Indian Handicraft, Carlton Agency, Leask, SK,” which promoted the agency and its involvement in the crafts rather than the First Nations women who did the work. Nonetheless, traditional crafts sold well.87 In addition to crafts, First Nations and Métis women took babysitting, cleaning, and cooking jobs around the lakes during the summer tourist season.88 In some ways, summer work within the burgeoning summer tourist economy offset winter losses caused by the end of the large-scale lumber industry and reduced hunting and trapping returns.

  Up North on Vacation

  Despite deep concerns registered by local First Nations communities, the new national park initiated a bold new tourism campaign. It developed from two sources: the businessmen of Prince Albert anxious to cash in on their nearby accessible wilderness, and the Department of the Interior, national parks branch, desperate to find a way to promote the best features of the new park. Promotion centred on enticing Saskatchewan residents first, marketing the prairie south as a workplace and the boreal north as a playground. Provincial Secretary S.J. Latta, at the park’s opening in 1928, suggested that the new slogan should be “See Saskatchewan First!” He declared that “nothing will serve more to create that love of country upon which national patriotism is founded, or have greater influence upon the ultimate solidarity of our people, than an intimate knowledge of the Province which is our home.”89 Although stirring, such rhetoric tried to hide the fact that Saskatchewan politicians and merchants were eager to see potential tourist dollars spent at home. The new vacationland sold its landscape of trees and lakes to promote a happily domestic holiday of camping, fishing, boating, and swimming.

  The tourism campaign also focussed on the astonishing idea that Saskatchewan had its own beauty spots. Advertisements targeting national and international audiences zeroed in on the romance of the fur-trade voyageurs and placed the park firmly as the gateway to a northern canoeing wilderness. In the annual report following creation of the park, Commissioner Harkin blended the prairie/boreal divide with the northern wilderness ethos:

  North of the great fertile belt devoted to agriculture there lies in this province a region of rocks, woods and water which seems almost to have been formed by nature as a special playground for man. Here are found thousands of crystal lakes, from tiny rock basins ... to great bodies of fresh water. Between, tying one to another into an intricate network of waterways, run innumerable little rivers and streams offering to canoeists and lovers of the wilderness water routes extending for hundreds of miles ... Irresistible to the adventurous, [these] lakes and streams form a natural gateway to the ... hinterland of Canada.90

  The message of northern beauty and vacations was familiar in Canadian public life. In Ontario, for example, the northern wilderness ideal powered much of the northern cottage movement and the development of Algonquin and other rugged northern parks.91 The Canadian public consciousness, however, did not have a vision of northern wilderness in Saskatchewan. The province bore a “mental map” of flat, treeless prairie.92 As the comments of T.C. Davis in the Saskatchewan legislature in 1925 revealed, even few Saskatchewan residents had ever been north of the treeline. Acknowledging the prairie mentality, the Department of the Interior wrote in a natural resources publication in 1925 that, “though it may seem like a paradox to refer to the forests of the Prairie Provinces, the wooded sections ... are nevertheless very extensive.”93 During the opening of Prince Albert National Park, one visitor wrote that “to many people the word ‘Saskatchewan’ calls up a mind picture of great stretches of open prairie, unrelieved by lake or forest. To them a description of the beauties of the new Prince Albert National Park will come as a surprise.”94

  The Department of the Interior recognized the importance of image. Its tourist campaign consistently worked to overcome regional stereotypes.95 The national parks branch invested in a wide variety of promotional materials, from pamphlets and maps to enlarged and framed photographs, lectures, articles, sheet music, magic lantern slides, and moving pictures. The silent film Modern Voyageurs was distributed in 1931; other films, such as Prairie Land to Fairy Land (1933) and Summer Days at Waskesiu (1936) also advertised the accessible wilderness of Saskatchewan’s north.96 Shown to audiences across Canada and the United States, as well as around the world, the movies were a bold move to overcome assumptions and stereotypes regarding Saskatchewan.

  In addition, several moving pictures were filmed at Ajawaan Lake, showcasing the celebrated public speaker and author Grey Owl and his beaver friends.97 Grey Owl, or Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, was an intriguing figure in the early promotion of Prince Albert National Park. Despite the now-common attitude that he was an imposter who stole First Nations ancestry, Grey Owl was the rock star of environmentalism in his time. He spoke to sold-out audiences in eastern Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. His books were bestsellers. And he lived at Beaver Lodge, the cabin that he built during the Great Depression at Ajawaan Lake, a full day of travel for an experienced canoeist, north of Waskesiu. Grey Owl was accessible wilderness. He was a popular and prolific author and speaker whose message was about the protection of wilderness. His cabin at Ajawaan Lake remains a pilgrimage site, hosting thousands of visitors every summer who recreate his wilderness travels and agree with him that “this is a different place.”98

  Despite Grey Owl’s national and international appeal, most visitors to the park were provincial residents. J.A. Wood, newly appointed park superintendent, “embarked on a one-man campaign” through Saskatchewan to promote the new park.99 Using slides and moving pictures, he gave fourteen lectures across the province.100 There is no record of Wood going to any northern communities such as La Ronge or Stanley Mission to advertise the new park. Clientele would be drawn first and foremost from prairie residents with cars.

  Car tourism forced both national and provincial authorities to give immediate attention to the state of roads to and through Prince Albert National Park. In fact, historian Bill Waiser suggested that Prince Albert merchants pushed for national park status in large part because the dominion, not the municipality or the province, would be responsible for major road improvements.101 The park’s first order of business was to build a road from its south entrance to the budding resort at Waskesiu. The freight road existed, but it was never built with scenery in mind. Its main use as a winter freight road required it to follow flat land as much as possible, and in summer portions of it were all but impassable through muskeg and swamp. Harkin noted in the annual report for 1928–29 that over 5,000 people visited the park the first year, “a large number, considering the fact that its reputation was as yet largely local and that parties traveling had to bring with them tents and camping equipment.” Moreover, “road conditions were not good” that first year.102 A better road, more scenic and crossing higher ground, built for car traffic, was necessary. Soon a graded road was in the works.

  While the park built its road, engineered with “as many curves as possible,”103 the provincial government agreed to improve the road leading to the park entrance. Disregarding the oldest route past Sturgeon Lake and through Little Red River Reserve, the government chose to improve the road straight north from Prince Albert, giving better access to the agricultural communities at Buckland, Alingly, Spruce Home, Henribourg, and Northside. It swung west at the 14th baseline, passing just south of Christopher and Emma Lakes. Resort owners at Christopher and Emma lobbied strongly for this route since it would bring national park tourist traffic right past their doorsteps. The original park road is
now Highway 263, advertised as the “scenic route” to Prince Albert National Park.104 The road hooks up with the park highway at its southern terminus. A provincial-grade road led to an explosion in tourism traffic and economic expansion for both the burgeoning Lakeland region and Prince Albert National Park.

  Following the official opening of the park in 1928, the number of visitors to the north Prince Albert region skyrocketed. Over 5,000 people visited the park in 1928; in 1929, that number doubled. In 1930, it almost doubled again, with over 17,000 people visiting it, but that number was dwarfed in 1931, when a staggering 29,537 tourists registered at the park.105 “That the people of Saskatchewan, and tourists generally, appreciate Prince Albert National Park is clearly indicated by statistics,” exclaimed the park report for 1931.106 Prince Albert businessmen eagerly championed the new tourist industry. They outfitted tourists, selling everything from bathing suits and tents to fishing supplies and canoes. Business boomed for the R.D. Brooks Company, which specialized in freight hauling into the north and began hauling camping outfits and gear from Prince Albert to Waskesiu, with stops in the Lakeland area.107 The Saskatchewan Motor Club turned its attention to providing information and signage along the way to direct tourists both through Prince Albert and up to the Lakeland and park region.

  The Lakeland region, on the road to the national park, grew as tourist traffic expanded. A road was built from the provincial highway heading north past Oscar Lake to the excellent fishing to be found at Anglin Lake, linking the three resort areas (Oscar Lake was never developed—it is essentially a big slough with few fish). Thus, Anglin Lake’s development kept pace with that of Christopher and Emma Lakes. A small portion of Anglin Lake falls within national park boundaries, so its history has always been intimately tied with park issues.

  Developments outside park boundaries were unfettered by strict national park protocols. Resort and cottage development outside the park, as well as fishing regulations, were monitored by provincial and municipal authorities. A group of citizens formed the Emma Lake Outing Club sometime in the late 1920s and purchased land around the south end of Emma Lake.108 Development at Sunnyside beach, Macintosh Point, Neis Beach, and Sunset Bay at Emma Lake was mirrored by resort work at Christopher Lake, particularly at Johnson’s (now known as Bell’s) Beach. Daily correspondence throughout July and August from both Emma Lake and Waskesiu, reported in the Prince Albert Daily Herald under the heading “Vacationland,” gave information on fishing, weather, cabin building, dances, news, and events throughout the 1930s. That decade, researchers and local residents reported, was a boom period of recreational development. “Lake water levels were considerably higher” (in the 1930s), offering easy access from one lake to another. Close to 100 cottages and seven-day-use resort areas had been built. In addition, several institutional camps had been built, such as several church-owned summer camps. “In less than ten years the land had totally changed its character from wilderness trapping to recreation.”109

  The phenomenal growth of tourism in vacationland carried on despite the severe economic effects of the Great Depression. It was “striking evidence of the fact that the people realize the necessity for recreation in a period of economic stress even more, perhaps, than at other times,” Commissioner Harkin believed.110 And, compared with lengthy car trips or railway excursions west, east, or south into the United States, a visit to Lakeland and Prince Albert National Park was an inexpensive holiday for both local and prairie residents. The majority of visitors recorded at the park gates registered from Prince Albert and surrounding towns; the next largest group came from cities, towns, and farms on the prairie. The Daily Herald, eager to promote the park to a broader audience, consistently sought out travellers from other provinces or the United States, soliciting their comments on the park. Invariably, the paper recorded enthusiastic reviews that declared the park among the best recreational facilities and beauty spots anywhere.111 Reviews catered to local and provincial audiences, offering a message of reassurance: Prince Albert National Park and Lakeland are as nice as any vacation spot anywhere.

  Tourism and Permanent Settlement

  As early as 1922, the national parks branch proclaimed that tourist travel should be valued not only for tourism development but also for its role “as a forerunner of permanent settlement and financial investment. ... Tourist travel, in fact, is one of the best immigration agencies, one of the best methods of attracting ... capital.”112 People travelling to or through a region for tourism purposes would be more inclined to return and settle permanently or invest in development schemes. Certainly, the Department of the Interior (of which national parks was a branch) promoted permanent settlement.

  The relationship between permanent settlement and scenic park areas was highlighted by the Paddockwood Board of Trade in 1933.113 This group, made up of local businessmen, created a booster-style immigration pamphlet to advertise Paddockwood as a destination of choice for dried-out prairie farmers heading north.114 During the 1930s, an estimated 45,000 people moved from the open plains north to the forest fringe, fleeing the dual prongs of agricultural depression and drought. Paddockwood merchants saw this movement as an opportunity to grow their businesses, and they set out to draw settlement.

  Figure 26. Saskatchewan unrolls northward.

  Source: Prince Albert Daily Herald, 5 July 1931.

  To entice prairie refugees, the pamphlet promoted Paddockwood’s situation adjacent to the Lakeland region, just off the “National Park all weather highway.”115 The burgeoning resort at Candle Lake featured centrally in the pamphlet, emphasizing that the new road to Candle Lake passed through Paddockwood and “miles of virgin forest, untouched by the ravages of fire and unblemished by the axe of man, ... without equal for scenery.” The road, built to allow car traffic, “will attract tourists to Candle Lake, one of the finest lakes in the Province for size, beaches, and fishing.”116 Clearly, Paddockwood merchants believed that people would be more likely to immigrate to places that were not only economically viable but also beautiful. Situating Paddockwood close to Lakeland and the national park pushed an aesthetic agenda intimately tied to economic development. The resorts offered nearby beauty and recreation and markets for farm products from local homesteaders.

  Figure 27. Paddockwood, mixed-farming paradise.

  Source: Paddockwood Museum.

  Of course, Paddockwood promoted, first and foremost, agricultural settlement. Farmers would hew the trees to “make land” for cereal crops. The pamphlet therefore mixed extractive and essentially destructive development with beauty unblemished by human intervention. Yet the Paddockwood Board of Trade had no qualm about the obvious conflict. The dominion government quarter section surveys of 1920 identified the best use for land in the local setting. When the federal government transferred the natural resources of Saskatchewan to provincial control in 1930, the province initiated the Royal Commission on Immigration and Settlement to determine the best use of the land. The commission believed in scientific settlement. Studying the general malaise in agriculture and the deficiencies of the homestead system (in which farmers sometimes took poor land without knowing its crop-growing potential), the commission determined that part of the solution was to examine the land more closely. Advocates promoted increased land surveys and investigations, such as those completed for soldier settlement. Questioning the reeve of the RM of Buckland during proceedings in Prince Albert, the commission representative asked, “don’t you think [settlement] should be directed a little more scientifically to stop this waste of effort? ... That the character of the land should be determined by experts, so that people would know what kind of land they are going on to?”117 The reeve agreed. Soil testing and extensive land studies were needed to determine land capability and best-use practices across the province.

  The commissioner’s question revealed not only a heightened interest in securing successful settlement using scientific assessments of land but also a
n underlying belief that land could and probably should be used for purposes other than agriculture. Some land was not suited for farming but might support recreation, grazing, timber, cordwood, hunting, or berry picking, the commissioner suggested.118 Site-specific understanding of best practices allowed for a nuanced and sometimes conflicting representation of the landscape as both recreational and agricultural. Sometimes both types of use could occur on the same quarter of land. For instance, farmers whose land straddled the Garden River or contained large bodies of water could provide diving platforms, docks, and even boats for neighbours and children to use for recreation. The same river could provide water for stock diversification. In winter, the Paddockwood hockey team, the Muskeg Elks, practised on that frozen river. How land could and should be used varied not only by place but also by season.119

  Localized landscape use promoting recreation might not necessarily affect the economic capital of the individual farmer, but it did have an impact on community development.120 During the Depression, recreation, fun, and a thriving social community drew people to the forest fringe. The overall message, as presented by the Paddockwood Board of Trade, was that farmland in the north Prince Albert region offered settlers beauty, water, greenery, and trees—an enticing contrast to the open plains. The board attempted to draw people north using a combination of agriculture and recreation, mixing agricultural hope with relaxation and leisure, both ultimately contrasts to the stress and pain of prairie life during the Depression.