Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  128 The homestead files for the north Prince Albert region list many quarter sections sold for little more than the taxes owing, and sometimes less.

  129 See Osborne and Wurtele, “The Other Railway.” See also Kitzan, “Preaching Purity in the Promised Land”; Macarthur, “Immigration and Colonization in Canada.”

  130 See LAC, Canadian National Railways fonds, Graphic material (RG 30) for photographs of families who came via these CNR colonization schemes.

  131 Canada, Department of the Interior, Lands Branch, Annual Reports 1923–1930. Reports were presented to the end of the fiscal year, March 31, so the calendar year did not exactly correspond to the fiscal year.

  132 For example, the Department of the Interior records indicated that in Saskatchewan in 1928, 5,808 homesteads were filed. Of those, 4,197 were filed at the Prince Albert district land office, and of those, 1,262 were second homesteads. In 1929, Saskatchewan had 6,089 homesteads, 4,873 at the Prince Albert office. Of those, 1,435 were second homesteads. These reports differ from the homestead entries recorded by census division found in SAB, R-266 IV.40. This document lists 8,007 homesteads taken in Saskatchewan in 1928, of which 5,615 were filed at the Prince Albert land office. In 1929, 8,374 homesteads were filed, 6,480 at the Prince Albert office. The balance were recorded at Moose Jaw, the only other active land agency in those years.

  133 See table V, “Number of Milch Cows in Prairie Provinces,” Murchie, Agricultural Progress on the Prairie Frontier, 26. The number of milk cows moderated between 1926 and 1929, but averaged a respectable 434,500 animals, or one milk cow for every two people.

  134 Waiser, Saskatchewan, 273.

  135 See Ankli, Helsberg, and Thompson, “Adoption of the Gasoline Tractor.” See also SAB, Department of Agriculture fonds, R.266.1. Evan Hardy, Professor of Agricultural Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, to F.H. Auld, Minister of Agriculture, 28 September 1928.

  136 SAB, R-266.1, Department of Agriculture fonds. Evan Hardy to F.H. Auld, 26 September 1928.

  Chapter Six: Poor Man’s Paradise

  1 McOwan, “The Great Northland,” Prince Albert Daily Herald, 14 January 1919.

  2 These numbers were supplied by Dominion Land Surveyor Ernest Hubbell, based on his knowledge of prices in northern Saskatchewan in 1908. By 1919, just before the postwar slump, these prices would have been much higher. See Sessional Papers, Vol. 25, 8–9, Edward VII, A, 1909.

  3 SAB, R-73 Richmond A. Mayson fonds, File I, Pioneer Trails, CKBI Broadcasts, transcripts, “Prince Albert Board of Trade” broadcast 7 May 1954.

  4 Sandwell, “Rural Reconstruction”; Ommer and Turner, “Informal Rural Economies in History.”

  5 Zaslow, Opening of the Canadian North and Northward Expansion of Canada are the best starting points to discover the north and its social and industrial development. See also Mochoruk, Formidable Heritage; Piper, Industrial Transformation of Subarctic Canada.

  6 See Tough, ‘As Their Natural Resources Fail’.

  7 Ray, Canadian Fur Trade, xv.

  8 Ray, Canadian Fur Trade.

  9 See LAC, RG 10, Vol. 3601, File 1754, Dewdney’s office to Hayter Reed, 6 December 1888.

  10 LAC, RG 10, Vol. 3601, File 1754, J.A. Mackay to Hayter Reed, 20 May 1889.

  11 Ibid., Hillyard Mitchell to Hayter Reed, 24 June 1889. Hillyard Mitchell, in addition to part ownership in Stobart and Co., was an MLA.

  12 Ibid., Hayter Reed to Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs in Ottawa, July 1889.

  13 See McPhillips, McPhillips’ Saskatchewan Directory, 127. Cited in Shortt, “Survey of the Human History of Prince Albert National Park,” 4 and footnote 7. Shortt suggested that this post was operational as early as 1886.

  14 Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, 7. See also Prince Albert National Park historical files, “HBC Post at Red Deer Lake, Saskatchewan,” 24 March 1969 (historical material on Red Deer post compiled by Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Winnipeg); Prince Albert National Park Archives, Waskesiu, cited by Waiser. See Shortt, “Survey of the Human History of Prince Albert National Park,” 7–8.

  15 For an overview of this period of Métis history, see Ens, Homeland to Hinterland and Sprague, Canada and the Metis.

  16 Klaus, “Early Trails to Carlton House,” 32–9.

  17 “Index to Material Relating to Saskatchewan Indian Reserves,” 2.

  18 Ibid., 10.

  19 “Stanley Notes,” Beaver, 1921. H.M.S. Kemp described freighter R.D. Brooks’s attempt to take a horse freight swing from Stanley to Lac du Brochet, on the north end of Reindeer Lake in 1919. The trip was disastrous, and many horses died on the route for lack of feed. See Kemp, Northern Trader, 210–3. This trip was also reported in the Prince Albert Daily Herald, 15 January 1919.

  20 Keighley, Trader, Tripper, Trapper, 64.

  21 “Horses,” “Freight Swing Era,” http://www.jkcc.com/horses.html (accessed 28 January 2008).

  22 A Look at the Past, “Freighting,” at http://www.jkcc.com/dlfreight.html (accessed 21 April 2008).

  23 Ibid. See also “Hale—Stanley and Millie,” Cordwood and Courage, 242.

  24 Brooks, Strange Hunters, 9. Brooks’s book recounted hair-raising and interesting tales of northern life and spoke of the integration of commercial fishing and overland freighting.

  25 Prince Albert Daily Herald, 15 January 1919.

  26 The Prince Albert Daily Herald reported that Brooks started out working for Colin and Stanley McKay, who had the contract in 1919, but it was clear that in later years, the Brooks Transportation Company took over. See Prince Albert Daily Herald, 15 January 1919. Brooks’ winter freighting outfit was captured on film in 1928 by the Canadian Film Board. See LAC, V1 2008-12-0004, “Freighting in Northern Canada.” See also numerous photographs in the Prince Albert Historical Society collection.

  27 Prince Albert Daily Herald, 7 January 1919.

  28 It is difficult to discuss wages, since they varied widely depending on the length of the trip, the year, and the local economy. These figures were suggested in local history books: DiLella, Look at the Past; Buckland’s Heritage; Cordwood and Courage.

  29 These are the numbers provided by the essay “Freight Swing Era,” http://www.jkcc.com/brfreight.html (28 January 2008).

  30 See “David Dunn and James Stoddart,” Cordwood and Courage, 186–7.

  31 An example is the Sigfusson family in northern Manitoba. They developed an overland freighting industry built on commercial fishing. Any supplies going up were for their own use in the fish camps, but often loads would go north empty and return full. They expanded their enterprise to include road building and became experts in ice roads over the vast inland lakes, particularly Reindeer Lake in northern Saskatchewan, which was linked to the Manitoba rail system at Lynn Lake. See Sigfusson, Sigfusson’s Roads.

  32 Prince Albert Advocate, 28 November 1894. Prince Albert Advocate, 6 October 1895.

  33 Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, 11. See also Canada, House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1894, Vol. 27, No. 11, App. 10, “Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries,” 299.

  34 Seymour, “Geographical Study of the Commercial Fishing Industry,” 15–9.

  35 Ibid., 25.

  36 “City Gateway of Wealthy and Fertile North Country.”

  37 Seymour, “Geographical Study of the Commercial Fishing Industry,” 32.

  38 Ibid., 22.

  39 Gulig, “Sizing up the Catch,” 3–12.

  40 Historian Donald Avery rightly acknowledged the relationship between farming and wage labour. See Avery, Dangerous Foreigners.

  41 See SAB, A 241, manuscript division, Reminiscences of Skuli Bachman. Bachman worked in the Saskatchewan logging industry throughout the early part of the twentieth century.

  42 Lower and Innes, Settlement and the Forest Frontier in Eastern Canada and Lower, North
American Assault on the Canadian Forest. See Howlett, “Forest Industry on the Prairies.”

  43 Lower, Settlement and the Forest Frontier in Eastern Canada, 33.

  44 Information on Vangilder and Anderson was provided by Richard Dice, “Write up Alingly and surrounding Districts,” Manuscript 705b, Prince Albert Historical Society.

  45 University of Saskatchewan Archives, Davis Family fonds, f373. The Wheat Belt Review, Canada’s Most Popular Magazine, Milford B. Martin Owner and Publisher, November 1907.

  46 Prince Albert Historical Society, Bill Smiley Archives, Manuscript 705b, Richard Dice, “Write-up of Alingly and District.”

  47 Richard Dice, in his unpublished memoir of the Alingly district, Prince Albert Historical Society manuscript 705b, “Alingly and Surrounding Districts.”

  48 See “Local Improvement District, No. 491,” Buckland’s Heritage, 14–20. The Paddockwood/Christopher Lake area operated as Local Improvement District no. 959 for over sixty years more, incorporating as the Rural Municipality of Paddockwood, No. 520 only in 1978. Cordwood and Courage, 36.

  49 Chapter 8, The Royal Mail. Buckland’s Heritage; Cordwood and Courage.

  50 Prince Albert Daily Herald, 6 January 1919.

  51 For years, both Prince Albert and Paddockwood residents believed that the rail line would eventually be extended further north, through the boreal forest to tap into the mineral resources of the Shield near La Ronge, or swing east through the rich Flin Flon region and become the long-sought railway to Hudson Bay. Various newspaper articles in the Prince Albert Daily Herald from the opening of the bridge in 1909 and throughout the next twenty years, as well as notes from the Prince Albert Board of Trade, suggested this. See, for example, University of Saskatchewan Archives, Davis family fonds, “City Gateway of Wealthy and Fertile North Country,” newspaper article, no date, circa 1926.

  52 The photograph became so well-known, and so iconic for the town, that many regional residents purchased a copy. To take a similar picture today would be difficult; the rail line has been taken out, and the landscape has once again filled in with poplar trees.

  53 “Yukon Via Prince Albert,” CIHM 15253.

  54 See, for example, the Prince Albert Advocate, 9 March 1897. Gold was also found at Rat Portage (presumably in Saskatchewan) as well as in the Birch Hills near Prince Albert, which led to a short-lived local gold rush.

  55 References to the gold dredge are found in local newspapers, and are reported in Abrams, Prince Albert.

  56 The claims office was moved to The Pas in 1920, a move that was vigorously protested in Prince Albert.

  57 Prince Albert Advocate, 15 June 1897. The Advocate reported each week another one or two men off to the gold fields of BC and the Yukon. For an oral history of prospecting and mining in Saskatchewan, see Kupsch and Hanson, eds., Gold and other stories.

  58 Regina Daily Post 17 September 1928, “New Route in North Success;” 20 September 1928, “More Details of New Route to the North.” See also Regina Leader 12 August 1929, “North’s Growth Greatly Aided by Government.” The Regina Daily Star 1 November 1928 predicted a “sensational race” between the CNR and CPR to develop northern rail lines. See “Rail Lines to Develop Rich Field.”

  59 Regina Post 10 January 1929, “Sees Future in Far North;” Regina Leader, 12 August 1929, “North’s Growth Greatly Aided by Government.”

  60 “Ninth Report of the Soldier Settlement of Canada,” Ottawa, 1931, 9.

  61 F.C. Pickwell, Saturday Night’s western correspondent, “Saskatoon and the North,” Saturday Night, 16 April 1927.

  62 Ibid.

  Chapter Seven: Accessible Wilderness

  1 SAB, A-281 Christina Bateman fonds, “Northern Saskatchewan Holiday.” Bateman’s typewritten document and its accompanying pictures can be found on the Our Legacy website, http://scaa.sk.ca/ourlegacy, database ID 27383. See also Spafford et al., “Amazing adventures of Christina and Nan.”

  2 Bateman, “Northern Saskatchewan Holiday.”

  3 Weather reports, real estate listings, provincial advisories and community events designate the area as “Lakeland.” The new provincial park will be called Great Blue Heron and runs from the north side of Christopher and Emma lakes north surrounding Anglin Lake. It abuts the east side of Prince Albert National Park. See http://www.gov.sk.ca/news?newsId=b02112db-3d0d-4ea9-948c-dafbc44a79d2 (accessed 28 May 2013).

  4 Montgomery, Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume I, 30.

  5 “Prince Albert and the North Saskatchewan.” Lorne Agricultural Society. Printed by the Prince Albert Times, 1890. CIHM 29478.

  6 “Prince Albert and the North Saskatchewan.”

  7 See, for example, Gillespie, “The Imperial Embrace”; MacLaren, “The Influence of Eighteenth-Century British Landscape Aesthetics” and “Limits of the Picturesque”; Coates, “Like ‘The Thames Towards Putney’”; Jasen, Wild Things; Owram, Promise of Eden; and Francis, Images of the West. For an Australian interpretation, see Ryan, Cartographic Eye.

  8 See Gillespie, “The Imperial Embrace,” Chapter 3.

  9 Moore’s group was unsuccessful in getting flour, although Prince Albert harvests had been good and grain was available. The mill, however, operated only on wind power and as there had been no adequate natural breezes, there was no milled flour available in the whole settlement. Moore saw the opportunity to develop a business, and took it. See Chapter 3.

  10 Another British sports-tourist was James Carnegie, the Earl of Southesk, whose travels and exploits in 1859–1860 through what was then still Rupert’s Land were published as Carnegie, Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains: A Diary and Narrative of Travel, Sport and Adventure in 1859 and 1860.

  11 For an exceptional overview of the concept of sport and game in western Canada, see Colpitts, Game in the Garden. See also Loo, States of Nature.

  12 Canadian politician Peter Mitchell visited the North-West in the late 1870s. He wrote “The West and North-West: Notes on a Holiday Trip: Reliable Information for Immigrants, with maps, etc.,” published in 1880. A sixty-three-page pamphlet, it combined tourism promotion with immigration. CIHM 11139.

  13 “Prince Albert and the North Saskatchewan.”

  14 The Lorne Agricultural Society, despite its name, was essentially a forerunner of the later Prince Albert Board of Trade. The Society consisted primarily of Prince Albert businessmen.

  15 Prince Albert Advocate, 25 September 1899.

  16 See Prince Albert Advocate, 28 November 1894; Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, Chapter 1.

  17 Chambers, “Preface,” Unexploited West. Chambers seemed unable to distinguish between north and west.

  18 See Prince Albert Advocate, 3 September 1900.

  19 For this particular excursion, see Montgomery, Selected Journals, 60–1, 13 August 1891.

  20 Montgomery, Selected Journals, 29, 52. The Prince Albert Historical Society (Bill Smiley Archives) has an original copy of this newspaper, which was handwritten rather than set with type.

  21 See Ommer and Turner, “Informal Rural Economies in History.” The work of E.P. Thompson is also important here, particularly his Customs in Common and The Making of the English Working Class. For the connection between urbanites and rural tourism in a specific context, see Shapiro, “Up North on Vacation,” 2–13.

  22 The local newspapers reported on the state and quality of the water in the North Saskatchewan for drinking. See, for example, the Prince Albert Advocate, 20 January 1909 which reported a typhoid epidemic in the city’s east end, downstream from where the city released its untreated sewer effluent.

  23 The club was originally called the Round Lake Outing Club but was incorporated as the Prince Albert Outing Club, reflecting its urban origins and customers. See Prince Albert Outing Club, Round Lake, Saskatchewan 1905 to 1990 .

  24 This land would have had a township survey completed because o
f the lumber interests, but it is unclear whether the land was subdivided by the quarter section survey. Certainly it would have been subdivided by 1907 at the latest. For an overview of township surveys for settlement purposes, see Chapter 4. The club in fact purchased Métis scrip to buy the land. Scrip was an important commodity in the Prince Albert region. Scrip hearings were regularly announced and debated in Prince Albert, which had a strong mixed-blood community. See Augustus, “Scrip Solution”; Code, “Les Autres Métis.” See also Prince Albert Advocate, 1897–1900, numerous articles.

  25 See Prince Albert Outing Club, 22.

  26 Prince Albert Daily Herald 11 April 1916.

  27 Christopher Lake was originally called “Little Bittern Lake.” Christopher Creek was known as “Little Bittern” Creek and the community that developed on the creek was known as “Little Bittern” throughout the 1920s. Prince Albert Daily Herald, 1920s.

  28 For an overview of roads and trails in the north Prince Albert region, see Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, Chapters 1 and 2. See also Cordwood and Courage, 6.

  29 Prince Albert Daily Herald, 7 July 1923.

  30 Prince Albert Outing Club, Stuart Anderson memories, 92–4. Round Lake remained essentially a private destination, its advertisements and notices confined primarily to the ‘Society’ pages of the Prince Albert Daily Herald.

  31 Bateman, “Northern Saskatchewan Holiday.”

  32 For an overview of the women’s movement and its relation to tourism, see Jasen, Wild Things.

  33 Prince Albert Daily Herald, 12 October 1920.

  34 See Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, 16–9.

  35 SAB, R-183, I.290, Department of the Interior fonds. M.D. McCloskey to E.E. Deville, 30 March 1921.

  36 Ibid.

  37 See SAB, Cummins Map Company, map no. Sask. 258, 1922 and 1930.

  38 Prince Albert Daily Herald, 11 September 1920.

  39 Prince Albert Daily Herald 8 August 1925.