Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  The sprouting postal districts as well as the growing community at Little Red enthusiastically embraced the mixed-farming ideal. Shacks and houses were made with logs and locally sawn lumber. Soon community halls, churches, and schools were built using the same materials. The community hall at Paddockwood was built in the winter of 1915–1916; a rousing dance was held at its inauguration. Soon after, a school was proposed.102 A cheese factory was built at Albertville and a creamery at Henribourg. These were local endeavours that offered a commercial outlet for the surplus milk and cream from the homesteads and injected cash into the mixed-farming economy. Garden produce, wild hay, fresh meat, eggs, and dressed game found a steady local market.

  Although the mixed-farming ideal was theoretically based on an ecologically mixed landscape, and though promoters believed the north Prince Albert region eminently suitable, building a farm in the forest region rather than on the prairie meant solving a completely different set of problems. The landscape required new breaking and cultivation methods and equipment, different crops, livestock feed, and more time to change from a pioneer homestead to a settled and permanent farm. The Alingly oldtimers recalled in the 1950s that

  The appearance of the landscape was very different at that time, with all the low spots and sloughs full of water. The abundance of water was a great attraction for all kinds of waterfowl [and] the mosquitos were very bad during June and July. As well as being too much water, there was also a great deal of poplar bush, spruce and willow. The clearing was done with an axe, and by burning. The breaking was done with four horse teams and fourteen inch brush breaking plows. The clearing was hard work, and slow, so if ten acres were done in a season it was considered a big job.103

  Another major problem arising from the forest locale was swamp fever (infectious anemia), a viral infection thought to be water borne that killed valuable horses. The University of Saskatchewan College of Agriculture studied swamp fever in response to the needs of the forest-based mixed farmer. Heavy horses (such as Clydesdales or Percherons) noted for their strength on the open plains were of less use in the northern bush: the larger horses were “too clumsy, took too much feed, not as nimble in the bush for skidding logs, rather prone to swamp fever. The shorter, chunkier kind of horse was better.” Such comments represent the trial-and-error nature of trying to bring prairie-based agriculture to the forest edge.104

  Common methods of land preparation, before a plow ever came near the soil, were clearing the land by axe, grubbing out the roots, and burning the trash. Land clearing was a time-consuming process and a major deterrent to bush homesteading. Prairie land, free from scrub bush and endless roots, could be turned to profitable crops much more quickly, offering a faster return for the farmer. Fortunately, the government soon recognized that farming at the forest edge required a different set of rules. Homestead regulations designed for an open prairie environment, in particular the amount of land that the dominion expected to be broken up, plowed, and “improved” each year, could not be met. Homestead inspectors took local conditions into consideration and were known to allow patents on land where far fewer than thirty acres had been broken. Formal regulations justifying these decisions soon followed. The most common method of calculating the labour required to clear and break a bush homestead was the five dollars per acre rule. The dominion believed that open prairie land could be broken for five dollars per acre, for a total of $150 for thirty acres. If land was heavily forested, then it could cost as much as twenty dollars per acre to clear and break; therefore, some homesteads were allowed patent with ten acres or less in crop. The Buckland history claimed that

  The Homestead Inspector occasionally tried to check up on the clearing and breaking of settlers. He usually got lost or stuck in a mudhole with his buggy. He found it easier to waylay the settler at Prince Albert and take a statement from him about his improvements. In bush countries the required acreage was reduced and left to the discretion of the Inspector, so long as the man was a bona fide settler. An acre looks a lot of land in the thick bush, and the term “homestead acres” was a standing joke. They were as much exaggerated in size as the fish some anglers catch.105

  Roads were cut by hand with limited government subsidies along road allowances—a departure from the original trails that usually took the easiest route through the bush. Roads were critical to local politics. The Buckland municipal council pointed out that “many settlers who would have located in these townships had not done so on account of the bad condition of the roads.” Road improvements, the council argued, would not only help the local population and encourage new immigrants but also contribute to the city’s finances and security. If settlers could get to and from the city more efficiently, then they could deliver wood and other goods more easily into town as well as build more efficient farms. “Transportation means everything in a new country,” the council added, with a ring of both warning and promise.106 Residents regularly called for municipal and provincial governments to improve transportation connections. They also took matters into their own hands at times, building roads and bridges to ease local traffic problems.107 Settlers, for example, were interested in improving not only the roads into Prince Albert but also the trails that led east-west between communities. It was arduous and unnecessary, settlers thought, to have to go all the way to Prince Albert and back out on a different trail to reach a neighbour’s house, school, community hall, post office, or village that was only a few miles away. The settlers and the rural municipality were effectively repeating what Frank Crean had noted in 1908 and 1909: the limits of the area north of the North Saskatchewan River (at least within the forty-mile band of supposed potential agricultural land) had less to do with the quality of the land for mixed agriculture and more to do with the limits of transportation.

  In concert with the city of Prince Albert, homesteaders began agitating for a railway branch line north of the city. It was clear that, despite approval of the line in 1912, the Canadian Northern Railway was not building the expected line fast enough to suit local interests and conditions.108 Although railways were important for all western farms, farmers in the forest landscape had particularly acute heavy railway transportation requirements. In a formal petition from the city of Prince Albert to the minister of railways, the mayor of Prince Albert, William Knox, argued that

  A good many of these people are struggling to make a living on land which has to be cleared of bush but without Railway facilities they can scarcely make a living and the authorities of this City are afraid that all the expense which has gone into advertising the district and the money which the Government has laid out in settling it will go for nothing.… In this particular section it is for the most part poplar bush some of it of very considerable size.… If a Railway were built in there would be a good business done for quite a number of years in shipping out cordwood, and this industry would enable the settlers to get their lands cleared.109

  The cover letter to the petition noted that “if a railway could be commenced immediately the settlers in that part of the country would be able to find work, would be able to clear their lands of timber and ship [it], and from the revenue derived from this source would be able to bring the land under cultivation much more quickly than under present conditions.” Although the local lumber and freighting industries offered off-farm work, the sheer number of homesteaders became more than these industries could support. A railway offered a different economic prospect, allowing homesteaders to capitalize on their poplar trees by turning them into cordwood. A local petition to go with Prince Albert’s appeal was signed by sixty of the area’s settlers. It emphasized the importance of this resource not only to the incomes of local homesteaders but also to meet the needs of prairie farmers: “The matter of fuel shortage has become a question of more than ordinary importance, not only to the people residing in the North, but also to those residents of the Prairie Sections.”110 Fuel shortages and the killing winter of 1906–07 were not far
from anyone’s mind, and settlers used those memories to support their request for a railway line.

  In the meantime, despite transportation difficulties, those operating homestead farms in the north Prince Albert region were experiencing early prosperity, particularly during the war years. With wheat at or near two dollars per bushel, a phenomenal price, homesteaders had cash to put toward clearing and breaking new fields. Oats and hay were also in high demand, and the northern farms were well suited to providing these staples. War restrictions led to a surge in demand for farm produce, particularly meat, milk, eggs, and butter. The local lumber camps were in high production to serve the war effort, providing another excellent market. The newly established creamery at Henribourg had doubled its operation by the end of 1918, before the flood of soldier settlement. The cheese factory at Albertville swung into high gear.111 As the fields grew, carving acreage from scrub aspen bluffs and heavy timber to create productive farmland, homesteaders could apply for patent. By 1919, the majority of land in the Alingly, White Star, Henribourg, and Albertville districts had been alienated from the public domain into private holdings. The 1955 jubilee history of the Buckland municipality noted that “the close of World War One marked the end of the first stage in the economic development of Buckland. Many of the homesteaders had left, and been replaced by men who bought their farms. ... Homesteads ... were beginning to be called farms.”112 Some of these farms, proved up and patented, were rented out to newcomers.113 Homestead work in the Paddockwood district was also progressing well, though newcomers were limited when the area was reserved for soldier settlement.

  The prices of farm commodities, particularly wheat but other crops as well, led to continued homestead registrations throughout the Great War. Over 5,000 homesteads were filed in the Prince Albert land office throughout the war years even though external immigration had effectively been halted. Homesteaders were either internal migrants or the offspring of previous settlers, with sons requesting permission to take on homesteads in response to wartime demands and prices (and perhaps to dodge war service).114 Demand put pressure on local land resources: if the areas around Alingly, White Star, Henribourg, and Albertville were filled and transitioned to fully fledged farm operations, and Paddockwood was reserved for future soldier settlement, then where was that development to go?

  As early as 1914, the Ratepayers’ Association of Alingly, the community that considered itself “hemmed in” on the south by Wahpeton (Sioux), on the west by the Sturgeon Lake Cree Reserve, and on the north by Little Red River Reserve, began petitioning the Department of Indian Affairs, once again, to open Little Red for settlement. The petitioners argued that “outside of slough quarters there are no homesteads available in this Township and very few in the adjoining Townships.” Predictably, the Alingly farmers targeted those living at Little Red, charging that “there are only eight families of Indians living on the North West corner of this reserve[;] it is unfortunate that this large tract of mixed farming country for which the Indians appear to have little or no use should be held up in this way.” Not only were there merely a few families “holding up” the development of over fifty square miles of farmland, the petitioners declared, but also those living there were not pursuing agriculture. Little Red inhabitants were making their living choring for the lumber camps and operating stopping places for freighters, and the petitioners conveniently ignored the fact that many Alingly homesteaders were pursuing similar activities.115 To add insult to perceived injury, they claimed, “there are three Indian Reserves in or adjacent to this Rural Municipality [Buckland,] and although the Indians use the public roads, they do not contribute to the making or the up-keep of them.”116 Roads and road building were already a point of contention for municipalities scrambling to fund such modern developments. The reserves, in the estimation of the Alingly ratepayers, were a serious drain on local resources.

  The perceived “best use” debate over Little Red River Reserve dragged on for years in letters among the Department of Indian Affairs, Lands and Timber Branch; the Ratepayers’ Association of Alingly; and the Prince Albert Board of Trade. Reserves could not be summarily opened for homesteading. The land had to be formally surrendered, and—as the previous attempt had shown—getting surrender for Little Red would be problematic at best and probably impossible given the different opinions of the parties in dispute.117 The local Indian inspector dutifully wrote to Ottawa, stating calmly that, in his opinion, it was only a matter of time before “the northern bands interested in this reserve will begin to see the advantage of earning a livelihood from farming instead of depending on the hunt.”118 The reserve was steadfastly defended as the place where the northern bands would find their agricultural future.

  In fact, settlers at Little Red were farming, though they were not bound by the restrictions and expectations of the Dominion Lands Act that set out rules defining homestead success: a minimal percentage of acreage opened and improved, a house, a barn, and other signs of “improvement” per quarter section. As a result, they had not expanded their operations or developed fields and crops to the extent that local farmers believed was the minimum. By 1914, there were at least sixteen heads of families on the New Reserve agitating for a local day school to serve more than twenty children. Local men, such as William (Billy) Bear, who operated a farm on the reserve as well as an extensive freighting business, stood his ground both in the matter of a land surrender and in pushing for local services, particularly a school.119 The residents of Little Red derived their livelihood from both the local landscape (hunting, fishing, and farming) and local industries. Their way of life was entirely similar to that of the non-Native homesteaders surrounding the reserve—the difference lay in the emphasis. For the boreal families settled at Little Red, farming was just one aspect of a diversified economy drawn from products of the edge landscape. For incoming farmers, forest resources were a supplement to the more important business of developing a farm. The mixed base of hay crops, root vegetable crops, lumbering, and freighting income continued on Little Red River Reserve until the end of the war.120

  Conclusion

  The difference between mixed farming and grain farming became enmeshed in the contrast between the forested regions and the open plains. The forest edge offered resources such as trees for fuel, wild hay lands, and water sources. The shorter growing season with potentially damaging wheat frosts did not affect the oats crop needed for fodder. Wood was available to build houses, barns, and fences, an expensive undertaking on the open plains. Local lumber camps and freighters created strong demand for farm products and provided cash labour opportunities. As early as the 1890s, Prince Albert boosters promoted mixed farming at the edge landscape to both external and internal migrants. After 1906 and the opening of homestead land north of the river, this migration grew. Immigration to the north Prince Albert area was heavily influenced by the advertising campaigns of the Prince Albert Board of Trade, which emphasized highly coloured landscape differences between the bleak, isolated, dry open plains and the lush, green, forested northern landscape. Like HBC servant Anthony Henday, mixed-farming advocates and Prince Albert boosters believed that settlement required both “fine level land and tall trees” in a “pleasant and plentyful country.” The ecotone in the north Prince Albert region was indeed a “plentyful” country where economic incomes or in-kind services from the landscape fulfilled a variety of needs and provided a mixed ecological and economic base. Extreme environmental conditions across the open plains, including devastating winters with extensive fuel shortages, also influenced migration. Proactive migration patterns brought settlers drawn to the mixed-farming promise of diversity and resilience and the beauty of the forested landscape.

  Depicting the forest edge as a mixed-farming area is a significant but little understood aspect of Saskatchewan’s agricultural history. The difference between the open plains and the forested region has often been described but not analyzed. The tremendous push by the Prince Alb
ert Board of Trade to find a creative “hook” to entice settlers to the area became entangled in contemporary debate over the potential of mixed farming versus wheat farming. Mixed farming was depicted as an ideal farming method that shepherded and husbanded the land. It drew broadly on an ecological mix of resources, crops, and stock, thereby lowering farm risk. Such an enterprise, it was argued, offered perhaps a slower road to riches but a sure and steady one.121

  The edge ecotone, along with the difference in the lifestyle, farming practices, and economic possibilities of the landscape, played a substantial role in soldier settlement, assisted land settlement schemes, and later aided Depression resettlement in the north Prince Albert region throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

  Chapter Five

  Quality of Permanency

  Best friends David Dunn and James Stoddart, born in Scotland in 1885, were among the thousands of immigrants who came to western Canada in search of a new beginning. Taking harvest work in the Rosthern area of Saskatchewan, between Saskatoon and Prince Albert, they heard about the new homestead land opened up north of Prince Albert. Filing on adjoining pieces, the two continued their quest to build capital, working on farms and in cordwood camps, freighting, and construction to get a few dollars ahead. But the quest for capital threatened their long-term dreams: with no improvements on their homesteads, they were about to lose them. The men conferred. Homestead rules dictated a simple solution: they abandoned their two quarters, claiming that they were too stony to farm. Opting to abandon the land and lose the ten-dollar filing fee gained them time and retained their homestead rights. By 1914, they felt confident in their savings and together filed again, on two quarter sections next door to their originals, not far from the burgeoning village of Paddockwood. Erecting a log house, barn, and well, and breaking four acres on each property by 1915, the two were well on their way to fulfilling their homestead duties. But the war grew in strength and needed able men. Dunn and Stoddart signed on with the Prince Albert 44 Battery Royal Canadian Army.