 |
 |
 |
 |
'Memoirs'
By Albert A. Bock
Dark skies, not dark with clouds, that would be most welcome, but dark with dust, the good earth that the high winds put high in the skies, filling the air with it's almost unbreathable particles. The sun - when seen, is a glowing red orb in the heavens. Hot winds, sloughs and lakes becoming arid and cracked dry - people beginning to lose hope - yet desperately doing their best as they then seen it to till their land and wrest from it sustenance in food for their families and livestock.
This was the picture of southern Saskatchewan in the year 1931, after two of the most devastating years the broad open plains which had set, in many places, records for the production of man's basic food, wheat. were laid waste due to the lack of moisture and man's inexperience in farming methods, and a period set in where for the following 8 years little hope was held of it's ever recovering fecundity.
This is a story about many of the people who could not
continue on because financially they were just not able to, they were not people who gave up,
they just could not carry on under the financial conditions. Word was passed along from
mouth-to-mouth of the rains and the opportunities that existed in the northern parts of the
province, and a great pioneering surge of feeling was borne among these dry land farmers.
By the hundreds they moved north - they sold what they could and took what was left with
them, and the following story is about what they found and experienced.
Big River, Saskatchewan - was there ever a Garden of Eden such as this? Grass on the meadows waist high and blueberries luscious and ripe on the hills, with damp, wet ground again underfoot! Gardens of the people who had settled there were bursting with vegetables and the cattle and horses sleek and fat with all the pasturage necessary, coming from the south with it's aridness this truly was the land of promise!
And truly were the most happy years one could live despite the hardships in being so financially poor and the weather so cold, which proves something I hope, perhaps that money isn't everything.
On the 15th of August 1931 we unloaded at the C.N.R. loading platform our entire worldly posessions, consisting of 1 cow, 2 pigs, 12 hens, a wagon, sleigh and a miscellaneous of beat-up household furnishings. Also there was a tent and a large wood cooking range that was to become one of our most prized posessions in our entire stay in the north, this along with $40.00 cash was all that we possessed.
It was loaded onto a 4 wheeled trailer which was to become the main means of transportation of our effects to our homestead - did you ever hear the expression "mutton from mutton", well we had it! Oh yes, I had a double-butted axe and a native of the country advised me to put a rope handle on it and swing it about my head, and it would cut trees in this way or cut my head off - keep your fingers crossed!
After the hot, dry, dusty years in the south with crops and gardens dried to a crisp - the clear skies and rain-washed green of the north woods appeared as a virtual Garden of Eden, the long drive from the south had left Anne and Bubbles very tired and it was only the thought of the responsibility which he had undertaken kept a man from sharing their fatigue, a trip of some 550 miles over gravelled roads wash-boarded beyond description and the bush trails muddy and dusty when the gravelled roads were left behind was done in an ancient Model "T" Ford coupe loaded so heavily that the slightest bump made the tyres scrape the fenders, all at speeds not over 30 miles an hour was enough to tire anyone!
However after leaving Prince Albert our spirits gradually began to rise, more and more we encountered the wonders that regular rains can cause in the countryside - and the years spent in the drought ridden south seemed to be slowly washed away and the clear moist air of the north with the smell of green, growing and ripening foliage filled our hearts with hope and gave us a renewed desire to carry on. In any case we beat the train into Big River and we were there when our car of settler's effects was shunted and spotted at the loading platform.
I shall never forget that first night in Big River with our one cow Rosie tethered in the lush green grass nearby and our only horse lean and lanky Buster nearby, the 12 hens in the boxcar clucking happily now that their hen-house at least remained still, and best of all our tent that was to be our home for the next two months which was pitched with the beds set up ready for a nights rest and cooking our supper on the range, we were all so tired but so very, very happy!
We had a guitar and we were happy, we sang - there was Al & Anne and Bubbles and a lot of the townspeople gathered around us that first night in Big River, we sang songs and laughed and there was never a happier group of people in the world - and we had nothing!
During the ensuing week we moved out to within one mile of our homestead, this location was decided because it was necessary to cut a roadway through the bush and swamp to about a half mile from the place we had selected as a building site. Then the days followed where the logs must be cut and pulled out of the bush and finally a campsite established near the building site to cut down on travelling time between jobs.
We had 12 hens as I mentioned before and it is a remarkable thing that these hens co-operated in the most unusual fashion - they would come into our tent to a backless cupboard there would lay their eggs, Anne would open the door and say "Yes Brownie or Blackie has been here" and pick out an egg! Of these hens I must tell you a story - Bubbles had the hens all named, the ones I can remember are Blackie, Biddie, Brownie, Spotty, Grey and Sharp (because of her beak I imagine) and of course there was a big Grey Plymouth Rock rooster who was a very noisy and arrogant fellow who ran the whole show (or thought he did!).
Bubbles gave him short shift and refused to have anything to do with him - but she trained the hens to eat out of her hand, she would call them by name and in turn they'd come forward and pick the morsel out of her hand - each one in turn, Old Man Rooster got a "shoo" and had to fend for himself!
The meadow that first spring there was very wet and the cattle & horses of course when walking on the edge of it, sunk their feet to some extent into the soft ground, Bubbles twisted her ankle in one of these holes and when asked by her Mother what happened she said "I stepped into a horse-hole"!
We will never forget our first log cabin - on the 1st of October we moved into a 14 x 16 foot mud-chinked log cabin with a slat and tar paper roof, with the big cooking range glowing at times red-hot to provide heat, after almost two months in a damp, cold tent it was heaven!
Of all the posh places we've stayed in our travels nothing can compare to the first night when we finally had a roof, heat and a home!
Strange as it may seem it was the first home we ever had and I can say (and Anne could too) that no other home ever gave us as much of a thrill. You can buy a home, pay it off, improve it and make it much better than it was - but try going out in the bush and cutting the logs then building the cabin with your own hands, you will find that this is really a home! We did it twice - and twice for others!
The feeling of being cosy in a cabin in the north bush with lots of firewood and a feeling that you have really accomplished something.
Cold - yes Cold! Cold so that the sap in the trees would bang like a shotgun and the northern lights would streak across with all the colours of the spectrum have let loose, don't let anyone tell you that the Aurora Borealis dosen't make a noise - we have heard them hiss (I don't care what the great scientists say - they do hiss!)
I suppose our greatest feeling of consolation during that first winter in the north bush was that up the range line three quarters of a mile we had friends - Fred and Bert Gallagher, Fred was a real humerous Irishman who had the ability to make a joke out of any situation and also cause everyone to be a little bit hipped-up about what, who and why other people even existed. Our neighbors and friends came over and helped us build (in one day) a barn for the hens, cow and horse (pictured above).
The old Ford coupe which had served us so faithfully was parked under some 60 foot poplars and retired for the winter, our supply of water from a well dug hastily nearby supplied us with brackish but sanitary water and with bush partridge, prairie chickens and the good steady supply of eggs from the chickens we managed to feel some sense of security.
Somewhere someone wrote the words (maybe it was quoted in the Bible) "And there were Giants in those days" - looking back on the Autumn of 1931 I can only say, we too, must have taken on the stature of Giants, how else could we have accomplished as much as we did from August until the snow-storms came in late October.
Rosie our faithful cow strained herself to supply us with a meager amount of milk all through the following winter and in early spring gave birth to a bull calf - I am afraid that we placed ourselves ahead of the calf because due to lack of proper sustenance in his early months he never amounted to a great deal so he did later in the summer of 1932 provide us with much needed food - a little skinny and stringy but at least it was food!
1932 - this will always be remembered as our potato and egg year, we managed to trade labor (we had nothing else) and receive in return plenty of potatoes, a few carrots and some cabbage. But for days on end from May to September we ate eggs and potatoes, potatoes and eggs - Anne boiled, scalloped (with the help of Rosie), fried and baked the potatoes - she boiled, fried, poached and devilled eggs until the poor woman must have been almost out of her mind! For breakfast we had eggs and potatoes, for lunch we had potatoes and eggs and for dinner we had a choice - either eggs and/or potatoes!
We had coffee and tea as well (the cheapest grade) and flour at $1.98 per 98 lbs - 3rd grade, out of which Anne produced the largest and the most wonderful bread that could be imagined, Bubbles and I made short work out of all she turned out!
In the spring of 1932 the Rains Came - our meadow, our good source of hay was flooded as well as the dugout we called a basement, our well became a flowing well - water ran in one side and out the other, leaf mould and other organic substances made it necessary to boil the water for our use and the terrain became so boggy and water logged that we went about for days with permanently wet feet.
Mosquitos by the trillions gave us no rest day or night (and these were the days of no insect repellent), the largest and most vicious mosquitos swarmed down on us and gave us and our animals no peace.
Horse flies of an enormous size drove the animals almost crazy and perhaps worst of all there was an almost invisible gnat that raised welts the size of 25c pieces on our hands and caused bleeding areas on all the hairless exposed parts of the animals bodies - the only way to define our situation is to say that it was "Homesteading Under Difficulties"!
One day when driving the cow home to milk I walked up to her side and struck a group of Horse flies which had settled on her flank and I killed seven in one slap! This may not be a record but it gives you some idea of the suffering of the animals, we employed smoke smudges to drive the pests away and the animals were sometimes so pestered that they would lay down too close to the fire and burn their skin - suffering the pain of burns rather than that of insects.
Then late in July the huge Dragonflies came, I have never found out if they prayed upon the mosquitos and Horse flies but in the years we were in northern Saskatchewan and elsewhere I have always noticed that when these great beautiful blue Dragonflies with their transparent wings graced us with their presence the mosquitos and Horse flies dissapeared - anyway, their coming was a time of rejoicing and the relief that they brought was beyond understanding.
Now we knew that although winter would not be far away we would at least be blessed with a month or two of Autumn (and the hoped for Indian Summer) which was really the best time in the north woods.
The End
Read Beryl Bock's Ladder Valley memoirs...
Site designed and maintained by Andrew
McPhee © 2000-2008