Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  Forest Resources

  Although northern settlement initiatives sponsored by the various levels of government focussed primarily on agriculture and its successes and failures, trekkers and established settlers relied on—and expected—non-farm income to supplement mixed farming, relief, and re-establishment measures. Although drought and depression on the open plains sent many trekkers looking for water, green grass, and trees, they were also drawn to the economic and cultural prospects offered at the forest edge.

  Of all the non-agricultural resources and opportunities found at the forest edge, the most important was the forest itself. The 1933 Paddockwood Board of Trade pamphlet declared that “all through the brief history of Paddockwood there can be little doubt that the great beckoning force has been the trees—the timber.” The primary farm product, more important than grain or stock, came from the trees: “Thousands of cords of wood and millions of feet of lumber, ties and fence posts are sold annually to nearby points.”92 Clearly, in the north Prince Albert region, wood was a crop to be harvested and sold for profit. The concept of mixed farming at the forest edge took on a new meaning: not only was the mixed forest suited to stock raising and cereal grain growing, but also the forest itself could be turned into cash.

  Local men Pat O’Hea and Herb Endicott wrote a history of Paddockwood for the Royal Commission on Agriculture and Rural Life in 1953. Cordwood was the bedrock of the Paddockwood economy during the Depression, they insisted:

  Came the lean and hungry 30s: Up to this time the forest growth, made up principally of white poplar, was a barrier to a settler being granted title deed to his homestead. There being no mechanized method of clearing the land, it was a monotonous, ding-dong battle of chopping, clearing, and grubbing. One did well to have five acres ready for breaking in a year. Then our enemy, the poplar, became our ally when turned into cord wood, and was a big factor in our weathering or surviving the thirties. … We beat the 30s, also the bush, thereby winning two battles, but “’twas a tough fight.”93

  As the Depression deepened, the cordwood industry symbolized both the ecological and the economic struggle. Trees were the enemies of progress for homestead development but became the allies when converted into fuel for sale. Cordwood became the Paddockwood equivalent of the “made beaver” currency of the old fur trade; all else was measured against it.

  During the Depression, the cash economy virtually disappeared, particularly in southern Saskatchewan. Communities were paralyzed. Without some form of flowing economy outside relief payments, families were unable to go to dances or the lake, pay a teacher’s salary, or buy a new teapot. Bill Grohn pointed to this paralyzing effect when he claimed that the east Weyburn district was broken by the Depression. Community life, in almost all of its forms, stopped, and the community died. In contrast, the cordwood economy and healthy system of cash and barter that existed along the forest edge meant that communities could thrive, even boom. Cutting and hauling cordwood were hard and dangerous work, with sometimes pitiful cash returns, but most residents agreed that it was better than nothing, and it kept some of them off, or at least reduced, relief. If a farmer did not have adequate trees on his own farm, he could work in a cordwood or railway tie camp, leased from the provincial government. Several operated along the Montreal Lake Trail and the Mosher Trail to Candle Lake, just south and east of the original boundary of Prince Albert National Park.

  The cordwood economy allowed community members to organize and build schools, invest in social and recreational clubs, take short holidays to lakes or even build cabins, support sports days and hockey clubs, and allow musicians to play for pocket change at dances held in homes, schools, and halls. The importance of the cordwood economy resonated through the years, leading the Paddockwood History Book Committee to call their local history Cordwood and Courage when it was published in 1982. Geographer Denis Patrick Fitzgerald commented that “the psychological role of forest resources might well have been of more significance than the material. Many pioneers ... felt that the forest lands themselves were a type of insurance policy; they acted as a safe refuge or shelter.” The trees, as well as other forest resources, acted to sustain the morale of northern homesteaders, even when life was particularly grim.94

  The forest edge environment provided household resources, particularly food through berry picking, wild game, and fish. Indeed, the Paddockwood pamphlet expressly advertised products of the landscape as a way to supplement household diet cheaply. Local history books proudly displayed photographs of these resources, including several canners full of blueberries from 1931, wild game piled on the railway station platform, and strings of fish from successful expeditions to local lakes. Numerous family histories recount excursions to hunt, fish, and pick berries as a way of adding to and varying diet. Some, however, admitted defeat in this regard. Muriel McGowan noted that “although living in this area where fish and game are plentiful neither Sargent nor I became enthusiastic hunters or fishermen.” When Sargent accompanied a neighbour on a highly successful fishing expedition, Muriel was perplexed by the sheer amount of fish. Some were eaten fresh, some canned, and the rest salted “and later buried in the bush.” A hunting expedition also went awry when Sargent became hopelessly lost. He “vowed never to go again, that he would pick his own meat, on the hoof, in his own farmyard, which he did.”95 Although hunting regulations were in place throughout the Depression, game wardens were encouraged to look the other way when it came to families clearly harvesting elk, moose, and deer as food resources—unless, of course, those animals were shot within the boundaries of the national park.

  In addition to mixed farming, forest-based food resources, and the cordwood economy, the forest edge landscape supported labour opportunities from freighting, fishing, lumber and railway tie camps, mining camps, tourism, and trapping. These opportunities allowed occupational pluralism that combined on-farm with off-farm income. Such pluralism was characteristic of the northern boom, particularly for those who homesteaded within the wooded grey soil zone. These farms, the majority of which were homesteaded during the 1930s, rarely exceeded a quarter section, and most had only a few acres cleared, grubbed, and broken for cultivation.96 Off-farm cash income supplemented mixed-farming returns and relief vouchers and contributed to the general northern boom.

  Ernest Wiberg took his homestead at Paddockwood in 1931. He was a prairie boy from the east Weyburn district whose brothers either farmed with their parents or rode the rails across the country. Not yet married, Wiberg worked for fifteen years in the commercial fishing industry on the large lakes in northeastern Saskatchewan.97 Typically, fish camps operated from freeze-up in late fall to spring thaw. Wiberg recalled walking into the camps in early winter over frozen rivers or poling scows loaded with HBC freight up the rivers in late fall.98

  Other forest edge farmers made cash during the winter by freighting. Throughout the 1930s, freighting went through a transitional phase. Some freighters used sleighs pulled by teams of horses, but increasingly companies began diversifying into mechanized caterpillar tractors. Cat tractors were efficient—they could run day and night and did not require rest, as did horses. They could also pull far more freight. A small cat tractor could pull thirty tons of frozen fish or goods and push a plow to open a road. Another cat immediately behind on a clear road could haul even more.99 The extra power provided by caterpillar tractors meant that northern posts, fishing camps, towns, schools, and the new mining camps could order heavier items. Indeed, much of the equipment in the Rottenstone mineral region near La Ronge, the Anglo-Rouyn mine, and Goldfields on Lake Athabasca was freighted in with cat swings. Northern commercial fishing and mining resource industries boomed during the 1930s and propelled the move to caterpillar tractors. Cats could haul equipment and supplies too heavy for water barges or horses. In the absence of rail lines in northern Saskatchewan, cat swings filled a specific need for power, speed, and heavy transport.

  As technology adv
anced and caterpillar tractors became the motive force of the freight swings, there was a shift in the social and economic dynamics of freighting. Although some farmers continued to work as freighters in the winter to supplement their income, freighting as an industry decoupled from farming—horses, hay, and oats were no longer needed, and the skills required were not horse skills but machinery skills. The change to cat tractor technology escalated northern development. Cats used to haul freight in winter were hired to make extensive road improvements or agricultural brush cutting in summer. These changes transformed both the freighting industry and forest edge communities. Agriculture expanded rapidly in the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s as farms expanded and consolidated. Better roads opened the way for intensive development in the once-remote far north following the Second World War.

  Figure 33. Cat train near Prince Albert, c. 1929.

  Source: Glenbow Archives, PD-356-1132.

  Homestead families in the Alingly, Spruce Home, Albertville, Paddockwood, Forest Gate, and Christopher Lake districts also engaged in the burgeoning tourism industry. Men with extensive bush experience became park wardens; others worked on park roads, cooked for the hotels (or relief camps), or opened tourist facilities such as cabin or boat rentals, bus services, or grocery and supply stores. Others loaded up their wagons with meat, eggs, milk, butter, and fresh garden produce and sold them to the camps and hotels or door to door at the cabins and on the beaches at the lakes. Earl Daley, for example, sold his milk for ten cents a quart and had enough cows to offer fifty to sixty quarts a day to picnickers and beachgoers.100 Mrs. Oscar Anderson of the Elk Range School District (between Northside and Paddockwood) took butter and eggs to Neis beach on Emma Lake in 1931. But George Neis, who homesteaded the land and owned the resort, had his own butter and eggs to supply the campers. When he physically removed her from his property so that she could not sell her wares, Anderson charged him with assault. Neis hired John Diefenbaker as his lawyer and succeeded in having the case dismissed since Anderson had clearly been trespassing.101

  The Jacobsen family, who initiated much of the tourist development at Anglin Lake, moved from Frontier, Saskatchewan, in 1930. “As soon as the car stopped [after the three-day trek north] one little brother grabbed a hatchet and claimed territory by cutting down a small tree. As I look back I realize that no one minded leaving the prairie, we loved the forest and lakes.”102 For the Jacobsens and many others, the move away from the open plains reflected what geographer Robert Rees called “the Cult of the Tree.” For many immigrants to western Canada, the strangeness of the prairie landscape—treeless, flat, dry, hot, and immense—caused an intensely negative reaction.103 For prairie-born children, that landscape was home but became disfigured and alien by drought. The love of trees and a connection between forest and beauty pervaded Anglo-Canadian culture.104 The trek north was a move, in part, from poverty to subsistence, brown to green, despair to hope, ugly to beautiful.

  Trapping fur-bearing animals was another important activity along the forest edge. A number of north Prince Albert region residents earned extra cash in the winter and spring by operating traplines on their homesteads or on nearby Crown land. They sought primarily squirrel, weasel, skunk, rabbit, muskrat, wolf, coyote, fox, and lynx. Pelts could be bartered at local merchants or turned to ready cash. With squirrels worth ten cents a pelt and muskrats sixty-five cents a pelt, a kid with a trapline could easily earn considerable cash. Bryce Dunn of Paddockwood, whose father, David Dunn, claimed both homestead and soldier settlement land, remembered taking his spring pelts to Prince Albert in 1933 and receiving a tremendous $21.45. Dunn splurged on new leather boots, went to the movies, and loaded up a gunnysack with groceries and treats at the store. Jam, for example, could be bought for twenty-five cents for a four-pound pail. He took home six pails.105 Paul Hayes of Candle Lake claimed unconditionally that “trapping was the key to survival in the hungry thirties.” He claimed that a winter’s take of the more lucrative fox, lynx, otter, marten, and wolf pelts “could gross $3500.00,” an immense amount of money during the Depression.106

  The Depression placed significant stress on the fur industry. The sheer number of homesteaders moving into the forest fringe placed increasing pressure on fur resources. As well, prices dropped. Muskrat pelts worth a dollar and a half in 1928 dropped to sixty-five cents, mink from thirteen to less than four dollars. In addition, beaver were scarce, and trapping them was officially prohibited in 1938.107 Despite the drastic slip in prices, the number of trappers overall increased. The files of the Saskatchewan Department of Natural Resources show that the money earned by trapping in northern Saskatchewan grew from half a million dollars in 1930 to over a million dollars by 1933–34, then declined slightly to 1937, when there was a severe drop. A spike in overall returns in 1939, just prior to the onset of war, reflected the return of good prices.108 The number of trappers was highest in 1934 and 1936, but overall returns were not higher.109 Even so, despite low returns, trapping offered an opportunity to increase cash flow or barter power for some northern homesteaders. And, though fur prices dropped, the prices of goods also dropped, narrowing the difference.

  Figure 34. Trapping White Gull Creek, Walter Haydukewich, 1933.

  Source: Fur, Fish, and Game: A Candle Lake Legacy, 27.

  Since the publication of A.L. Karras’s beautiful North to Cree Lake and Face the North Wind, there has been considerable interest in the history of white (non-Native) trapping in northern Saskatchewan. Karras was perhaps the most well known of men who, as a result of the Depression, went into the northern boreal forest to operate traplines.110 Depictions of these men have spanned a narrative range. Archibald Belaney, or Grey Owl, wrote during the 1930s that “we ... are seeing the last of the free trappers; a race of men who ... will turn the last page in the story of true adventure on this continent, closing forever the book of romance in Canadian History. The forest cannot much longer stand before the conquering march of modernity, and soon we shall witness the vanishing of a mighty wilderness.”111 Despite his opposition to trapping, Grey Owl believed that trappers (of all races) and other northern sojourners understood the “Last Frontier” best and thus would be in a position to defend it and act as champions of the wild.

  Those “Last Frontiersmen,” or at least the non-Native trappers who inspired the fulsome praise of Grey Owl, have been harshly condemned in recent historical work. Historian David Quiring criticized white trappers for lacking a “long-term commitment” to the north, harvesting furs in winter and drifting south after spring breakup. Their lack of foresight and commitment led to overtrapping and a severe depletion of fur stocks in northern Saskatchewan prior to 1945, he suggested.112 Overtrapping had a deeper impact on the First Nations population than on the itinerant trappers because it affected the whole region over a longer period of time. White trappers could take other jobs in other industries; First Nations people often could not. In this sense, the Depression story of trapping as a northern opportunity has evolved to emphasize First Nations hardship.113 Increased trapping pressure from white southern trappers spread the resources thinly for everyone, particularly First Nations on whose traditional trapping areas the newcomers encroached.

  The prolonged drought of the 1930s had a severe environmental impact on northern trapping. Drought, contrary to popular perceptions driven by images of dust storms, was not confined to the south. The northern boreal forest was also touched. Although the north was comparatively wetter than the devastated plains, the northern forests, streams, and lakes did experience an overall drier era, particularly after 1935 and during 1937, when even the parkland and much of the forest fringe agricultural region experienced drought. Dry conditions set off massive forest fires, which affected the game and fur-bearing populations drastically.114 Heavy smoke from the forest fires, it was claimed, cut off the sunshine, which led to low oxygen levels in the lakes. Thousands of dead fish were found floating on the lakes, and beaver and mu
skrat populations plummeted. Beaver dams and ponds, an important part of a northern forest ecosystem, were burnt out and not rebuilt. Experiments were carried out to dam small lakes and streams to encourage muskrat and beaver populations.115 Streams normally used for transportation purposes either completely dried up or were too low to allow the passage of freight canoes or barges. As a result, northern communities demanded road work as relief projects to try to establish land links to the south.116 These land links sometimes affected local ecosystems, changing water courses. The environmental impacts of the drought and forest fires should be considered along with the surge in non-Native trapping to explain the devastating drop in fur resources prior to 1945.117

  First Nations and Métis

  As homesteaders pressed north past the Forest Gate region into the grey soil zone at Moose Lake, Hell’s Gate, and east to Candle Lake, new homesteaders competed with trappers, cordwood and railway tie camps, hunters, and berry pickers for available resources. All were constrained by the boundaries of Prince Albert National Park, which disallowed homesteading, trapping, or hunting within its borders. First Nations families from Little Red River Reserve who traditionally used northern boreal territory had to share the trails and restricted resource base with an ever-increasing number of drought refugees. The results were devastating to the First Nations population. Moving farther and farther away from the reserve to access forest resources placed excessive strain on reserve families. Throughout the 1930s, increased hardship could be found.