April 25th

Mix of sun and cloud this morning with most of the cloud over the mountains.

Well our Vancouver Canucks lost again - they have one chance now to move on.
I tried to start a poem yesterday, but where we are visiting while in the Shuswap there is too much noise and concentration and free thinking are somewhat prohibited.

Maybe today I'll retire to the motorhome and try again.

Here is chapter 7 of RH's experiences.

Chapter 7.

Prior to 1880, Portage la Prairie had been the head of navigation for the steamboat line.  Now with the rapid settling of the country further west, they planned to make Grand Valley the terminus.

This boat line was a great aid to our settlement.  Freight rates were high but they were cheap in comparison with the cost of hauling by team.

The settlers in our community had laid in what they had considered a sufficient supply of provisions to tide them over the breakup period when the roads became impassable and the river ice would break up and melt out.

This period was much later this year than usual, and their stocks of supplies were becoming exhausted and some were on short rations before the first boat arrived.

I had set up a camp at the sawmill site on the river, and had several men engaged in making preparations for the machinery that we expected would arrive on the first boat with our food supplies.

When the first boat came along, it was heavily loaded for points further west, and we were told our machinery and supplies would be along on a boat the next day.

We were then on short rations, so work was suspended and the men went out hunting for prairie chicken or other game, to supplement our rations.

The boat did not arrive the next day and each day that followed we looked eagerly down the river valley for the tall smoke stacks of the steamer to appear.  At last when it did arrive, it was four days after the other boat had passed.

We were in weakened condition when we received our machinery and supplies but in a few days we were back to normal again, and the machinery was being rapidly prepared for business.

When we began operations the lumber was taken away by the settlers as fast as it was cut, and it was some time before we could obtain a sufficient supply ahead to erect a building to live in.

My brother, Nathan, resided on the farm and cared for the stock and the teams were employed to haul lumber there for buildings for we had to vacate our winter home that had served so well before the rainy season began.

The mill help were recruited from among the settlers, and they usually worked to obtain lumber for buildings on their farms.

Jacob Diehl was our first sawyer.  He homesteaded that year in 7-12.

There was very little cash in circulation in those days.  Settlers without money would furnish me with food supplies in exchange for lumber and shingles.  Some were given time and if hail or frost destroyed their crop the account had to be carried for another year.

When harvest or haying time came, the help who had farms had to leave and attend to them during hay and grain harvest, and those who remained with me, went to our farm to put up hay, and the mill was shut down for a time.

There was a large hay marsh near Tom Hingston’s place in 7-12 where we usually put up hay.  There was such a heavy growth, it did not take long to stack great quantities of it.

When prairie fires raged during the fall much hay was often destroyed even when protected by fire guards, as fire brands from the rank growth of grass would be carried long distances by the wind.

In 1880 all desirable homestead land in 7-12 had been entered on, and several new settlers had come in, and the land to the west was being rapidly taken up.

Our farm was on the trail, and we became acquainted with many who settled further west.  Travelers would usually call on us as they went by, and they would give us the latest news from the outside world.

It was ludicrous to see what some land seekers would sometimes bring along with their wagon and teams before they had found a location.  One would have a fanning mill, another shingles, and so on with things that they might not have use for, for a year or so.

One day the boys saw two men coming along the trail, so the four of them planned to play a joke on them.  They entered the house the house, and placed a couple of pistols and dirk knives on the table, and were excitedly playing cards, when the strangers arrived.  They were asked to sit down, and the boys kept on with the game which became more exciting, and it appeared there was going to be a fight, so the strangers quietly sneaked out, and went on their way.  They told a settler what a gang of desperados they had seen, and thought they had surely reached the wild west.

Many homesteaders at first had insufficient funds to remain steadily on their claims, so would obtain employment elsewhere for a time.  They would have to be on the watch for fear their claims would be “jumped”.  Jim McDonald had a claim a mile west of McLeod’s and he was told it had been jumped.

He was driving a team for us at the time, so the boys went to work one night and took a part a small portable house that we had, and set it up on Jim’s place, and put a stove and a few things into it.  When the neighbors saw the house in the morning, they could scarcely believe their eyes, and some went to the house to make sure, and there found Jim attending to his household duties.  This house was the means of saving Jim his homestead.

I had to make frequent business trips to Portage and Winnipeg during the summer.  As I was Warden of the municipality of Norfolk some of these trips were in its interests.

When the stage of the water permitted steamboat navigation, I traveled that way.  When the water became too low for that, I would make a raft of logs and poles and float down stream.  I secured a box on it for a seat, some hay to lie on, some reading matter and a supply of food.  I made two trips to Portage on rafts, and once I went through to Winnipeg in a skiff, which I made from our mill lumber.

Mrs. Smart, at the ferry crossing a little below our place, was horrified to see me go by on such a flimsy contrivance, and pleaded with me to come ashore for I would be surely wrecked and drowned.  Their ferry man had been drowned there a few days previously and this may have caused her to be unduly nervous, and alarmed at my raft venture.

I had a rudder to control the raft in order to prevent it from being swept close to shore where the current was eating away the river bank at bends.  This action of the water would cause trees to become undermined, and fall into the river.

Some trees would fall and remain in a horizontal position with their limbs projecting from the water.

Sometimes in spite of all my efforts the swift current would draw me towards shore and sweep me beneath these branches, and I would have to lie flat, and cling to the raft to prevent myself from being dragged off into the water.

At night I would become caught on snags and sand bars and I would have to get into the water and push off.  I found this means of reaching the Portage much easier and a little faster than walking.

I might have used horses for these trips, but they were much more useful on the farm, and then the poor roads made travelling with horses about as slow as on foot.