Book 2 : CANADA, cont’d
Leonard and Arthur jumped on to our train and greeted us a few miles before reaching our destination as they were working on a railway repair gang. Sam and Maggie kindly put us up for about a month until we got work. I went to Yorkton to look for employment, by rail to Canora, walked the rest of the way - 30 miles. Called at some farm houses on [9] the way and got some milk to drink. I got a ride the last few miles, but no success in getting work. There was none but the railway gang which Eustace and I joined in June.
It was mostly pick and shovel work, digging gravel out of a pit and loading a gravel train which stood near but above us, so had to throw it up quite a bit, with the sun scorching us and no breeze. It was hard and sweating work. Then we would get on to the train and go miles, sometimes near a hundred, and unload it. Then there was raising the track and, as it had not been repaired since laying down on the prairie, it had sunk in some places 3 feet. Well, it had to be jacked up and filling put under it - gravel, if any; if none, sods from the prairie which lasted until the next heavy rain when there would be a wash-out where no gravel had been used.
We worked during that summer [10] from Canora to near Saskatoon, from June to October 28th when it froze up. Pumping the hand-cars as hard as we could the wheels went round but, on account of frost in the rails, there was no grip, and we were discharged. We went to station and got our pay checks, and got on the next passenger train for Invermay. One of the straw bosses[1] said he was going to head a gang and told me he would take me on, on payment of $3.00. I paid, but never saw him again!
So I bought some lumber and built a shack. Len, Eustace and I lived in it that winter. Just two rooms, and a hole in the ground for a cellar[2]. Also, we dug a well about 16 ft. deep and got water. Built up a log crib at the top. A lot of snow fell that winter but we made merry at Christmas time and danced about outdoors in our white shirts on Christmas morning in the bright sunshine, although pretty cold.
[11] Our shack was built of logs with lumber for roof and door. We put up willow or poplar bedsteads and had straw mattresses - sacks stuffed with straw. We had a heater for a cook stove and so kept fairly warm. I went one day to help Leonard with his shack on his quarter and stepped back into his cellar. As the ground was as hard as iron, I hurt myself. Could not get up so they, Len and Eustace, got Uncle's team of oxen and a stone boat and lifted me on and took me home where I laid for 10 weeks before I was able to walk properly. It did not matter much as it was winter and we did not have much to do.
However, before I went away, I paid Uncle to break 5 acres[3] so that I could get a bit of crop the next year. He broke 3 acres on which, in the spring, I sowed barley at 50 cents a bushel. I got a crop of good barley. [12] Had to get a man with a binder to cut it, for which he charged me $3. or $1. per acre. During the fall I hauled it home. In winter I bashed it out with an old axe handle and had no trouble in selling it. I winnowed in the old fashioned way but did not get it so clean as if done by machine.
That first winter we put up a stable and pig sties, and cleared a yard surrounded by trees for shelter. In the spring when the thaw came our water tasted queer so had to empty the well. We got out 27 dead rabbits! It's a wonder we were not poisoned. So had to dig another well as we could not fancy any water out of the first one for drinking.
We had to go 6 miles to Invermay once a week for mail, groceries and oil, lamp oil, as that was our luminant. The whole time we lived on the farm homestead which Sam had taken for me [13] at the beginning of 1906, so I had to pay taxes on it the first year although I only went on in November. However, we cut several cords of wood[4] and stacked it for sale or future use.
In the spring Leonard and Eustace went out to work, Leonard to cooking on a gang and Eustace to telephone work[5]. I went and helped Sam with haying and harvest. The next winter we built a log house as I hoped to get my wife and rest of family out as soon as I could. So when they came back for the winter we cut logs and built a 5-roomed house, 2 rooms upstairs and 2 down, with a lean-to kitchen at back and a lean-to shed at side.
I can say now that it was not well built. We did not peel the logs[6] and did not fit them very well, but what did we know? Not much about these things.
[14] So in 1908 Lillian, my wife, and Helena, Cyril and Olive (children) arrived and I met them at Invermay. The train passed me when I was a mile out of town and so I found them waiting. Oh, how glad we were to meet. On the way home we had to go through fire and water. Someone had set the prairie on fire and I had to get down and put out enough fire for the oxen to go through. Then it was a wet season and all the sloughs[7] (Note 7) were full and overflowing. If there were any sloughs on the trail, we had to go through, and we were all mighty glad to get home safely.
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[1] Straw boss = under-foreman
[2] Cellar - an enclosed space dug out under a building, used for storage, etc.
[3] Break 5 acres - plow the virgin soil in preparation for seeding.
[4] Cord of wood - a measure for wood, usually firewood, equaling a pile 4x4x8 feet, or 128 cubic feet.
[5] Telephone work - installing telephone poles and stringing the telephone lines across the prairie.
[6] Unpeeled logs - Dad used to tell of the logs cracking in the winter cold like the report of a gun.
[7] Slough - A depression in the prairie, often filled with water, or deep mud.