And still another day of unsettled weather. We hosted a pre marriage party yesterday, so the uncooperative weather resulted in moving chairs etc in and out about 3 times. But in the end we got it done and that inspite of varying schedules for the attendees. Company over night. And rain through the night. 11C at the moment.

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.