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WE have been having very bad
weather, blowing half a blizzard off and on, and the temperature at 450
below zero. No one has been to the post office, so we have had no mails for
a couple of weeks, and the snow is very deep. I have no sleigh, but hope to
get one, or borrow a neighbour's early next week, for we are wanting home
news badly. This last week I have had a very lively time. When I went out on
Sunday morning I found my well frozen, and I could not get a drop of water
for my stock. I got a neighbour to come over, and we worked hard all the
afternoon at it, and all Monday, with the glass still at 45° below zero—very
jolly, I can tell you—and of course when all was fixed and right, a thaw
began to set in; but it cannot last, and we shall probably pay for it next
month.
We had a meeting the other
day to form a committee for the school. The Government has granted us a
school, and formed us into a district—so much for progress even on the
prairie.
I went to the meeting and
made my maiden speech, which I need not tell you was not a long one; but the
Yanks and Canadians were having it all their own way, and I did not quite
see why the English should be left out in the cold; so now the school has
three trustees, one of each nationality. We expect to get the school-house
up soon; we have seventeen children of school age in the district.
I did not want a school just
yet, for it will mean about 25 dollars taxes a year to pay; but on the other
hand it will make land go up in value. The schoolhouse will be about 2½
miles from us.
We are also going to try and
get the roads made this year. If they were, it would mean far less wear and
tear to our rolling stock; but I suppose that we must not ask for too much
at a time.
We are getting on fairly well
this winter, only we are rather short of wood; we have to burn green wood,
and we have none too much of even that; but till I get bob sleighs I cannot
use my wagon to go and get more, and the horses having no work are pretty
skittish. When I take them to water it is all I can do to hold them. The
last time that I went down to the bush my team ran away from me. I only
caught them up a mile or two on, where they had run into a bluff and could
not get out. It was a piece of luck overtaking them so soon and having
nothing broken. It is no joke going to the bush alone with fresh horses,
when the thermometer stands as low as it does now.
My cow has not calved yet,
and so I have to go 21 miles to get milk for the boy. The heifer is in calf
and will make another good cow, I hope, towards the end of the year.
I hope to get a good bit of
land broken this year to crop next. I am putting in 8 acres of wheat, and
all I can of oats, so as to have feed and seed for next year. I shall have
all my seed to buy this year, and seed potatoes also to replace those we had
frozen; it really seems to be always buy, buy, buy. I often wonder if we
shall ever get truly ahead. At present we do without anything that is not
absolutely necessary. We often, in sailors' language, make a topsail do for
a foresail; still with all the hardships and discomforts we have to put up
with, I do not think that I should care to change this sort of life for any
other now, there is something so grand and free about it, every one is so
busy with their own affairs that they leave you and yours alone. If you want
to see a friend you can go just as you are; quite as sure of a cordial
welcome in your old working clothes as if you had on the finest broadcloth;
but all the same for the wife there remains too much roughness for her to
take the same view, and for several years to come she must miss many of the
refinements of the old existence. This appears to me to be the greatest
drawback to a settler's life.
I want to get a riding plough
if I can manage it, so as to be able to drive the four horses, for they are
sometimes more than I can manage on an ordinary plough, and I often wish
that I possessed four arms and four hands.
The cold snap continues and
we have a great deal of snow, several people I am told have been found
frozen on the prairie, but in nearly every case drink has been the cause of
the tragedy. No one who cannot give up the drinking habit should ever think
of coming out to the North-`Vest; there are too many difficult situations to
be navigated almost daily, where a clear head is the only means of avoiding
disaster. A town is being started 20 miles north of us, Asquith is to be its
name; it is on the line to Edmonton, and 500 dollars worth of plots have
already been sold, and the hotel begun. I am told that a surveying party is
coming out to survey a line from Saskatoon to the Goose Lake district, also
that the Grand Trunk Railway will most likely run north of the lake; if it
does we shall be in luck's way. I must get as much breaking done as I can,
for this is my last year, and I must have 30 acres in crop before getting my
patent for the land I had from Government; it would never do to be put back
a year. I am getting 12 bushels of wheat to put in for my seed next year,
and 20 bushels of seed oats. The ploughing season is so short that it is
impossible to do a great deal of breaking, unless one has help and good
horse power. There are a hundred other things to be done—haying, cutting
wood, feeding cattle, getting water for domestic use, milking, and so on
through a whole series of unavoidable duties, that when all is got through
and has come on to one man's hands, he has to look pretty slippy if he wants
to do a day's work in the field.
My wife does all she can,
baking, washing, ironing, cooking, but I must do the roughest part for her,
or she would be utterly worn out. Potatoes are selling now at 1 dollar a
bushel, wheat costs 1 dollar to cut per acre, and you have to find the man
and his four horses and supply the twine for the binder, and after that it
costs 6 cents a bushel to thrash. I have been rather unlucky in my last trip
to the bush. Just as I was loaded and ready to come home I turned over
before I had got a hundred yards, and I had to make my load all over again.
I was not alone I am glad to say, a neighbour was with me. I bought a set of
bob sleighs, or I do not know what I should have done for wood. |
