Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  Figure 21. Spoils of the hunt north of Prince Albert, 1917.

  Source: SAB, R-B3507-1.

  In a practical sense, and for the purposes of Prince Albert merchants, both tourists and sportsmen required lodging, food, transportation, and guiding.14 Hotels, general merchants, and livery barns catered to this market, offering rooms, supplies, and rentals of horse teams and outfits. Advertisements lauded sparkling lakes, good fishing, and excellent game on both hoof and wing to entice the reader. To add to the general picture, Prince Albert’s local newspapers participated in presenting the region as a sportsman’s paradise, continually reporting good game hunting, trapping, and fishing. The Prince Albert Advocate reported, for example, that “prairie chicken and duck are very plentiful this year, and local sportsmen come home with large bags of game as a rule.”15 Tourists and sportsmen, eager to participate, brought wealth.

  The close of the nineteenth century saw the opening of several northern lakes, such as Montreal, Candle, and Red Deer (Waskesiu) Lakes, to a burgeoning commercial fishery.16 Although commercial fishing and sport fishing were entirely different endeavours, stories of immense fish wealth would reinforce the idea of Prince Albert and the North Saskatchewan region as a sport paradise. Those interested in northern development connected sportsmen and potential economic possibilities. Prince Albert newspapers cajoled upper-class sport tourists to visit in the hope that they would stay to develop economic industries. Major Ernest J. Chambers, in his 1914 report to the Senate on the resources of northwestern Canada, pointed out that the “tourist sportsman, the cultured business men, who find their greatest pleasure, relaxation, and physical benefits from trips into the wilds, are quick to discern the commercial value” of such “wild” lands in addition to their aesthetic qualities: “park-like groves of fine trees, its sylvan lakes teeming with fish, and every prospect a gem of nature’s own perfect landscape.”17 While walking through the woods, scouting game, or portaging to the next lake, sportsmen would keep an eye firmly on the economic potential of the landscape, quick to spot exceptional timber resources, future mines, or water power. Tourism and sport combined could lead to intensive and extensive economic development.

  Prince Albert’s Back Yard

  Not all of the people moving through the landscape of the north Prince Albert region were from far away. The majority of people were local. “Wild” areas across the North Saskatchewan River from Prince Albert were a favourite destination for day hikes, berry-picking excursions, picnics, and hazelnut hunts in addition to more prosaic uses such as tourism, hunting, fishing, prospecting, and firewood berths or commercial timber limits. One child was lost on such an expedition and not found for four days. Over 300 people participated in the search.18 These uses show the local and domestic, rather than the commercial and sport, aspects of the landscape.

  Figure 22. Picnic at Round Lake.

  Source: Prince Albert Historical Society (PAHS) E-156

  During her stay in Prince Albert, author L.M. Montgomery took a trip across the river in 1891. The ferry did not accept passengers other than farmers or freighters with loads of goods, so Montgomery and her party of female friends had to beg canoe rides across the river from passing canoeists (going over) and local First Nations women (coming back). Taking “enough cans and buckets for an army,” Montgomery and her companions crossed the North Saskatchewan to a landing point near the mouth of the Little Red River, then hiked along the “road to the Indian camp” and on to the “berry barrens,” a distance of over five miles. The blueberries, unfortunately, were “few and far between,” probably already picked over and dried by the First Nations women.

  Montgomery waxed rhapsodic in her journal regarding the scenery: “What a wilderness it was! Steep banks covered with mighty, heaven-sweeping pines, weird with age; below, a thick undergrowth of poplar through which we forced our way to a most romantic little spot ... that wild yet beautiful wilderness, where nature ran riot in untrained luxuriance.” The ladies returned late that night to Prince Albert completely exhausted, with sore feet and limbs. “No more over the river excursions for me if you please!” Montgomery declared.19 Clearly, the beauty that she had witnessed was not enough to entice her a second time on such a tiring excursion.

  Montgomery filled her journal with comments on the scenic beauty of the Prince Albert area; in fact, the highest compliment that she could pay was that the scenery reminded her of Prince Edward Island. Other comments contrasted the northern greenery with the plains area of the south, through which she travelled on her train journey. She was “delighted to see that it was fair and green and fertile-looking—altogether unlike those dreary wastes around Regina.” Montgomery pushed the same contrasts made by the Lorne Agricultural Society: the District of Saskatchewan centred on Prince Albert, while the District of Assiniboia centred on Regina. Within months of her arrival, Montgomery penned an article for the Saskatchewan Times newspaper on the Saskatchewan country, “a flowery peroration on the possibilities of the country as a whole,” she admitted. Despite her comparatively brief visit, she duplicated the local habit of tying scenery to economics and noting the contrast between the barren open plains and the lush northern forests.20

  Early Commercial Tourism: Round Lake

  The boom period in western Canada after 1896 and into the first decade of the twentieth century saw rapid industrial growth in the Prince Albert region: lumbering, commercial fishing, prospecting and gold dredging, and freighting. Commercialization of the local lumber industry was particularly important. The modern lumber mills at Prince Albert employed hundreds of workers in wage labour and shift work. Industrialism on this scale disconnected urban life from an older, pre-industrial, and rural life.21 With structured work hours came structured free time, and industrial workers—and their bosses—were quick to find ways to fill it. As the lumber industry expanded north of the city, trails into the north were continuously improved. Those drawn across the river to pick berries, hunt, or otherwise amuse themselves could safely and quickly expand their explorations.

  The most important trail leading north was the original artery of the Montreal Lake Trail. First created to serve lumber interests and access the timber basket, the trail was a direct link between urban and wild. From the ferry at Prince Albert, the trail angled west through the jack pines and past a body of water known to the local First Nations as Moon Lake but to the freighters, lumbermen, and settlers as Round Lake. About eighteen miles north and west of the city, the small lake was filled with fish and populated by wild fowl. From Round Lake, the trail went north toward Sturgeon Lake, the Little Red River Reserve, and the heavy wood basket, eventually leading to Red Deer Lake and Montreal Lake over the winter freighting trail.

  Figure 23. Two ladies fishing on unidentified lake, c. 1900.

  Source: SAB, R-A5628-2.

  By 1905, probably at least partially in response to the industrial pollution of the North Saskatchewan by city effluence and lumber mills, Round Lake drew attention from Prince Albert residents as a picnic and recreational destination.22 Local lumbermen James Sanderson and Mayor William Cowan, along with merchants, druggists, real estate agents, and lawyers from the city, created the Prince Albert Outing Club,23 which purchased land around the lake.24 The group built a club house in 1911 that housed a common recreational area, kitchen, dining area, and store. In 1918, a dance pavilion was erected. Lots were leased from the club and modest cabins built. Docks, swimming platforms, and slides were also added, as well as a tennis court in 1930.25

  Despite proximity to the Dakota Sioux Reserve at Wahpehton, the Outing Club and Round Lake recreational activities remained tied to private, non-Native use. Primary shareholders in the Outing Club were the city’s merchant class. The families of lumbermen (particularly foremen and clerks) came to use the facilities as well. Round Lake soon grew in fame, drawing tourists from southern Saskatchewan. The Prince Albert Daily Herald reported in 1916 that “Round Lak
e Is Wonderful to Prairie People. Many Campers Expected at the Local Resort This Summer.” An unidentified mayor of one prairie city was quoted: “If the people living in the south of the province only saw this beautiful lake with these trees surrounding it, and within a distance of 15 miles from a city, with good trails leading to it, through all those pine trees, well I do not know what they would say.” He went on: “You know I have been sending my family to a small lake on the prairie where the only shade trees we have are small willows and the heat and wind, well there really was no pleasure in it.”26 The words of this unknown mayor, contrasting prairie recreational opportunities with those found in the north Prince Albert region, were almost prophetic.

  After homesteads were surveyed and opened in 1906 and 1907 north of the city, roads and trails were continuously created and improved. The majority of these trails, however, were cut on a north-south axis. There were few east-west trails, isolating the new communities from each other. The main lumber and freight trail that went past Round Lake bypassed Christopher, Emma, and Anglin Lakes to the west. In fact, so little was known about Christopher, Emma, and Anglin Lakes that they were often depicted on maps as a single lake.27 Lack of access, and lack of knowledge, meant that these lakes could be visited only by determined trailbreakers. The Sand Hills Trail northeast of the city, toward the burgeoning communities of Henribourg and Paddockwood, led to the “new” Montreal Lake Trail cut during the First World War and the Mosher Trail to Candle Lake. Montreal and Candle Lakes were much farther away from the city over uncertain bush trails. They did not draw early tourists or corollary development to any appreciable level. Round Lake remained the primary developed tourism spot until after the First World War.28

  During the 1920s, the recreational site at Round Lake boomed. Churches and schools met there for picnics, and the annual sports day with swimming, diving, sailing, canoeing, and motorboat races (and prizes) created lots of excitement.29 Stuart Anderson, whose family owned a cabin at the lake, recalled that, “as a young boy coming from Prince Albert, I was amazed at the number of tin signs nailed to jackpine trees in promotion of businesses.”30 Outdoor camps for children were organized at the lake, and by the mid-1920s weekend trips to Round Lake were common not only for Prince Albert residents but also for those beyond. Round Lake continued to attract visitors and commercial development until the 1950s, when it began to decline. With developed roads blocking drainage patterns and increased agricultural clearing, water levels receded in Round Lake. Lower water levels led to a commercial decline for the Outing Club, and many cabins were abandoned from the 1950s on. However, the club remained viable, and there has always been a tourism and recreational presence at the lake, though not on the same scale as in its earliest years of activity. In the late 1990s, water levels rose, and recreationists once more began to frequent Round Lake in both summer and winter.

  Transition from Freight Trails to Tourism Roads

  The freight trails became more familiar as reliable access points into and out of the north. Recreationists, following the trails, ventured further afield. Nan McKay and Christina Henry’s 1919 trip is an excellent example. The women used personal connections with church leaders at Prince Albert and merchants of the Hudson’s Bay Company to organize their trip. They travelled overland on the freight artery intended for lumber, furs, and fish coming south and goods going north to various settlements. On the trail, First Nations men who owned the necessary equipment—wagon and canoe—and were familiar with the route accompanied, guided, and transported the women. The men drove horse teams or paddled, set up tents, and conveyed belongings, but the women reciprocated by doing some of the cooking. Yet aspects of their journey were new. Henry clearly considered the trip a holiday. The women travelled without white male chaperones, showcasing an important gender shift. Whereas Montgomery was chaperoned on her rail trip across Canada to Prince Albert in 1890, Henry and McKay were not. Women’s emancipation, clearly represented by Henry in her journal through comments on clothing, tenting, and cooking in the outdoors, reflects a postwar change in women’s behaviour and realm of possibility. Henry and McKay dressed in overalls and pants as it suited them, which Henry noted in her diary aroused comment from both Bird and Ross. The women flipped the seasonal dynamic, using the bumpy wagon road in summer, whereas it saw most of its traffic in winter. Henry commented extensively on the environment, particularly that the landscape had been devastated by the firestorm that May: “Not very far from Prince Albert we came upon miles and miles of burnt over woods—only blackened trunks left—a very sad sight.” “But,” she noted with optimism, “the fireweed was springing up making a bright pink carpet for the black tree trunks. The road was terribly rough—nothing but tree roots and rocks, bump, bump, bump.”31 She also noted the danger of stormy water on the lakes as well as the beauty and bounty of the natural world around them. Henry’s trip is an example of a broad redefinition of the trails leading north of Prince Albert as a bridge between traditional and modern uses of the north Prince Albert region: the old freight trail to La Ronge viewed with a new, tourist gaze.32

  Figure 24. Montreal Lake trail, 1919 through fire-killed trees.

  Source: SAB, Christina Bateman fonds, S-B491.

  Figure 25. Possibly Adolphus Bird with Christina Henry (left) and Nan McKay, 1919.

  Source: SAB,S-B510.

  Map 12. Road from Prince Albert to Montreal Lake, c. 1925. Shown as the double-dotted line (centre), the road ran along Sturgeon Lake and through Little Red River, heading north.

  Source: Sturgeon River Forest Reserve map, Friends of Prince Albert National Park.

  Trails North

  From 1910 on, reports from the Rural Municipality of Buckland (the first RM in the north Prince Albert region) in the Prince Albert Daily Herald remarked on road conditions and pressed for improvements. Each year citizens (either on their own or with municipal funding) built bridges, filled in holes, and created drainage systems to improve road conditions. By 1920, in response to the exploding new soldier settlement and incoming settlers from the prairie, local roads and trails received more attention. Motor vehicle traffic was on the rise, and roads began to be judged by their ability to permit cars. The Daily Herald reported a fascinating story in 1920:

  To Montreal Lake. Jack Woods Drives to Within Twenty Miles of the Place. J. Woods of the City Auto Livery made a trip by car into the north country last week and succeeded in reaching a point within 20 miles of Montreal Lake, having passed the Bear Trap by 7 miles. This is considered to be the most northerly point in the province yet reached by an automobile and Mr. Woods intends next spring to try to reach the lake itself. The journey which covered 93 miles was made in 7 hours, which is not considered a bad record, as Mr. Woods says that the last 15 miles of the trail was pretty bad. The trip is another evidence of the invasion of the northern territories by the advancement of progressive civilization, which is gradually bringing settlements, at one time considered remote, in easy contact with the city.33

  Although the trail is not specified, it would have been the same trail taken by Henry in 1919, passing through the Little Red River Reserve and the Sturgeon River Forest Reserve, where Bear Trap Lake was a notable feature. The lake had been dammed by the Prince Albert Lumber Company, and a canal had been constructed south to the Spruce (Little Red) River to facilitate water flow and handle log volumes. If Woods reached a point seven miles beyond Bear Trap, he did not reach Waskesiu, though he would have been close to “The Forks,” a stopping place where the trail branched one way to Montreal Lake and the other way to Green Lake.34

  A map owned by Friends of Prince Albert National Park showed the forest reserve boundaries prior to creation of the park. The map, issued originally in 1923, showed roads in the region as of the mid-1920s. The road “from Prince Albert to Montreal Lake” bypassed Sturgeon Lake, snaked through the west side of the Little Red River Reserve, and went into the forest reserve. This main road branched a
t “The Forks” to go east and north to Montreal Lake. Although a trail is shown leading to “Waskesiu Summer Resort” and “Primeau Road,” the original freight road did not deliberately access resorts or lakes.

  Map 13. Sturgeon River Forest Reserve roads, c. 1928–29. The motor road was hand-drawn on this map to contrast the freight trails that existed before it. Today cyclists and hikers use portions of the old freight trail west of the auto road.

  Source: Friends of Prince Albert National Park, Waskesiu. Scan by the author.

  Neither Woods nor Henry mentioned any of the smaller lakes near that road, with the exception of Montreal Lake as their destination. Yet both parties made their trips for no other purpose than leisure and travel tourism. It seems somewhat odd from our present perspective that the lakes now considered key points in the Lakeland landscape—Emma, Christopher, Anglin, and Red Deer (Waskesiu)—received no reference. The trail as it wound through in 1919–20 bypassed all of these lakes. Drawn in ink on the map shown above is the “Motor Road” built when the forest reserve became the nucleus of Prince Albert National Park. This road took a slightly different route, deliberately drawing near the shores of Sandy Lake and ending at Waskesiu Lake. The trip by Henry and McKay blended the practical freight road with tourism, and the trip by Woods (partly to advertise his business, City Auto Livery, which rented cars to motorists for short-term jaunts), introduced motor tourism to the north Prince Albert landscape. Their escapades marked a major turn in regional tourism development.