Sheila's Shenanigans: Short & Tall Tales of Life in Alberta

22/12/2024

Been a bit quiet here as I work on app data and promotion plus books. Anyways happy holidays from my yard to yours …

07/12/2024

For those of you watching the bear grease weather station this is different. More clear on top.

29/11/2024

This is a little trick I use. I am a bit of a food hoarder and don't like to waste so when I have extra condiments, I date them. No questions when its cupboard cleaning time as to how old things might be.

27/11/2024

I had a request from a previous post regarding Grouard that mentioned the soldiers who returned home. There was no specific list so I compiled one. At the bottom there is a transcribed article mentioning an event for the soldiers which says there were 34 of them. The images have not been transcribed but are about a Patrick Cunningham and the awards he received - and why.

The list in alphabetical order:
-- F. Amarr - had arrived in Halifax on the Adriatic on March 9th. Edmonton Journal, March 10, 1919 page 8
-- Anderson, W.M. listed as wounded: Calgary Herald Page 6, Oct 29, 1918
-- Jimmy Andrews - enlisted in the 194th a Edmonton - recently returned - The Edmonton Bulletin, Jan. 13, 1919, page 3
-- W.J. Andrews, listed as wounded Edmonton Bulletin, Sept. 11, 1918 page 12
-- J. Andrew left St. John (not sure about this.) Ed, Bull Dec 4, 1918 page 3
-- R. St. Arnault, Grouard. Reported as wounded Calgary Canadian Sept 21 1918 page 15
-- D.A. Capeo, Round Prairie, Grouard - Wounded . Calgary Canadian Sept 14 1918 page 17
-- Harry Critchley - enlisted in the 194th a Edmonton - recently returned - The Edmonton Bulletin, Jan. 13, 1919, page 3
-- Pte. P. Cunningham, Grouard - due in Calgary about April 26th. Disembarked from the SS Grampian - Calgary Alberta, Page 8, April 23, 1919 - Also P. Cunningham listed as wounded - Calgary Canadian Aug 20 1918 page 1
-- F. Forster, Grouard, Due to arrive in Calgary - Calgary Albertan page 5, March 1919
-- A.G. Gordon, High Prairie, Due to arrive in Calgary - Calgary Albertan page 5, March 1919
-- George Harvey, Jr. a member of the original 49th - recently returned. The Edmonton Bulletin, Jan. 13, 1919, page 3
-- J. Inglee, Wounded - Calgary Albertan, Aug 28 1918 page 2
-- McDermott, H. - left Quebec - due to arrive in Edmonton - Ed. Bull. Dec. 3 1918, pge 1
-- Hugh McDermott - recently returned - The Edmonton Bulletin, Jan. 13, 1919, page 3
-- Pte. W. Noskey, Part of the “Terrible Tenth’ Enroute for Calgary - Calgary Herald April 1919, Page 31
-- V. Noskey, Killed in Action - Calgary Herald, Aug 30 1918 page 11
-- H.H. Reynolds - enlisted in the 194th a Edmonton - recently returned - The Edmonton Bulletin, Jan. 13, 1919, page 3
-- Pte. R. Starnaeold, Grouard - Arrived by the steamer Celtic. Due in Calgary - Calgary Herald, Page 7 May 17, 1919
-- P. Wabishkan - wounded. Calgary Herald, Oct 18 1918 page 13
. . . . . . . .
Grouard turned out ‘en masse’ to welcome home her boys who have returned from ‘over there’ at a reception extended to the returned soldiers which was held at the Citizen’s hall Tuesday evening. Over 500 people were present to do them honor, an honor which they rightly deserved. In the absence of Mayor Maurice, the address of ‘welcome’ was delivered by the secretary of the board of trade, G.H. Trahan, who was followed by the Rev. Father Falher. Replies were given by Lieut. Novion, D.S. Hayden, Pat Cunningham, and H.H. Reynolds.

Thirty-four enlistments was Grouard’s quota for the cause of liberty. Although we welcome the return of all, we must not forget that we owe a debt of lasting gratitude to those who have paid the supreme sacrifice. Among the returned soldiers are two modest heroes, an old forty-niner, Pat Cunningham with the distinguished conduct medal, military medal and bar, and Adolph Bole-Trelier who fought with the 4th Zouaves, French infantry, securing the legion of honor, military medal with three bars and two special citations in the army orders.

Luncheon was served, after which dancing was enjoyed until dawn. The committee in charge of the affair comprised H.B. Hunter, chairman, D.E. Guy, A.J. Bergeron, Dr. J.A. Gauthier and Donat Papuette.
(From the Edmonton Journal, page 9 May 20 1919)

26/11/2024

For past and present residents in and around Grouard, this is interesting as it lists the names of the businesses there in April 1919 plus some other historical details from the Edmonton Bulletin April 28, 1919 Page 3.

GROUARD NEWS
Hugh Hunter of Grouard, is in the city on a short visit. Mr Hunter says that Salt River prairie, a few miles north of the town of Grouard, is attracting a considerable number of settlers this spring. The name does not indicate that salt is present in the soil. A small stream, who's several branches water the partly open, rolling country in Township 77, in Ranges 13 and 14, west of the 5th meridian, reaches the waters of Lesser Slave Lake by passing through the flat ground close to the lake shore, which shows alkali - so-called salt - on the surface. This has caused the name of Salt River to be given to the stream, and Salt River Prairie to the park district on it several branches in the township mentioned.
Township 77, range 14 is surveyed, but 77-13 is not. The fact of its not being surveyed prevents settlement that would otherwise take place. The trail to Whitefish and Trout Lakes crosses these townships. The soil is black and deep and the grass luxuriant. The wooded growth is chiefly willow and poplar. There are many good opportunities for stock raising on a moderate scale. Enilda station is the railroad point and the trail passes through Grouard. The distance of the prairie from the railway is 18 to 25 miles by Trail. Two settlers from Saskatchewan have located at the crossing of Heart River by the Peace River Trail about 22 miles west of town. they have 500 head of cattle.

GROUARD TAKES EXCEPTION
Grouard Town takes exception to the claim that Grande Prairie is the most northerly Incorporated town in the province. Grand Prairie is in Township 71 and Grouard in Township 75. Grouard was incorporated a number of years ago, during the happy days of the boom – and has been suffering for it since. But the town has no bonded indebtedness, in which it is better off than most towns of that era. Business is improving and prospects are good. Every house in the town is occupied. The business enterprises include five general stores; Hudson's Bay company, Revillon Freres, V. Maurice & Co., J.O. Giroux and Mr. Morneau. H. Lacroix sells groceries and provisions. A drug store is kept by Dr. Gauthier. There are two fruit and candy stores. There is a branch of the Bank of Hochelages. Two hotels, kept by J.L. Lavasseur and George Morin; two restaurants, two barber shops, two auto garages, and two livery feed and sale stables. Several gas boats for fishing and pleasure purposes are being built by Lieut. Novion, a Belgian who served with the British army.

MUCH HAY SHIPPED SOUTH
The hay cut last summer in the great marshes southwest of Grouard has nearly all been shipped south. The haul from the hay marsh to the railway at Enilda is about 11 miles.
Seeding is well under way in the district, and there is no snow on the ground.
Ice is clear from the shores of the lake, but it is still in the centre of it. The main ice does not generally leave the lake until May.

FISHING AUGUST 1st
The fishing season commences on August 1st, but may be postponed until the 15th on account of the large stocks of fish in storage at the consuming market.

Last winter's fishing was disastrous for the men engaged. The Jones Fish Company and Mr Bentley shipped fish from Whitefish Lake, and the Western Canada Fish & Produce Company, and Morin & Giroux from Trout Lake.

Some seven or eight cars were shipped. The eastern fish market broke about the middle of the fishing season, making it impossible to realize on the output. The companies engaged practically lost all they put in.

The slump in price and failure of demand was particularly hard on the companies working from Trout Lake. These lakes are about 75 miles north-east of Whitefish, and Whitefish is about 50 miles from Enilda station. The total haul from Trout or Peerless Lakes was therefore about 125 mi. The freight charge was from 2 cents to three and a half cents a pound. Last winter was the first time an attempt was made to fish the Peerless Lakes commercially. Seventy-five miles of sleigh road had to be cut from Whitefish. The road cutting was in progress when the flu struck the gangs at work. A number of men died and the work was disorganized for a time. However, it was pushed on, and at last fishing and shipping began. The catch was good and the fish excellent, including large lake trout, whitefish and pickerel. Just as things got going nicely the bottom dropped out of the market and fish could not be sold in Chicago for what the companies had paid the fishermen at the lake. The operations of last winter were certainly a bad blow to the fishing industry of the north.

Many of the Grouard soldiers have returned. Most of them have applied for loans under the Soldiers’ Settlement Act.

22/11/2024

Here’s the latest of my bear grease weather station. It was clear on the top yesterday - perhaps snow?

21/11/2024

A series of fun ads from 1913 in the Edmonton Bulletin promoting Sawridge, which is now the town of Slave Lake.

20/11/2024

If you would like to be notified when the next volume of Lesser Slave Lake News Reviews 1897-1898 is available for purchase, please complete this form.

https://forms.gle/DpsayycWYU3eRxWH8

19/11/2024

Yep. I did that - and more on the app I built. Feel free to line the page and share !! 😁

- - Imagine - -
From any site listing - click the "For More Info" button.
You'll get access to links for local information & community calendars

That's much easier than doing multiple online searchs to find out more about where you are at! We are making it easy for for you to get your ING-ON anywhere in Alberta.

We expect the app to be released in the spring of 2025. Wait for It!

For more info on the app, and our cooperative, go to INGON.ca

17/11/2024

Sawridge is now known at the Town of Slave Lake
From January 1913

SAWRIDGE, A NEW TOWN SITE, BUT AN OLD NAME
Beauty Spot at East End of Lesser Slave Lake, Which Looks For Development by Reason of E.D. & B.C. Railway Line, New Townsite Being Put On.

For many years Sawridge has been known as an important point on the steamer route from Athabasca to Grouard and on to Peace River. It is situated at the eastern end of Lesser Slave Lake and being on the telegraphic line and mail route to Peace river, has had a telegraph office and post office for a number of years. Also an H.B.C. store.

So long as old conditions of transportation prevailed, there was very little doing at Sawridge. The situation was beautiful with the sandy beach on the lake in front of the wooded Swan hills to the south. But beauty of situation, or fertility of the surrounding country, or timber suitable for sawing into lumber were not enough to attract the attention of investors.

The touch of life is given by the construction of the Edmonton, Dunvegan and Peace River railway, now in rapid progress from Edmonton to Dunvegan. Track is being laid at the rate of a mile a day. Construction has not yet reached Sawridge, but the line is definitely located and work will, no doubt, be in progress next summer. The Sawridge Realty Company, which is situated at 736 First Street, have acquired property at Sawridge, immediately adjoining the E.D. & B.C. railway.

The description of the property is S.E. of 2, Township 73, Range 6, west of the 5th meridian.

Sawridge is a proposed divisional point on the Canadian Northern and Peace River railways, and a divisional point and junction of the Alberta, Peace River and Eastern railways, for lines to the States and Atlantic and Pacific seaboards.

Credit:
Text from the Edmonton Bulletin, January 6th, 1913, Morning Edition, Page 8
Image from Provincial Archives of Alberta, Object A6922; Boat being put in water at Sawridge

16/11/2024

Who was on the Klondike Trail in August 1898?
Heres an excerpt from my upcoming book - News Reviews 1897-1898.

Messrs. Ross and McCauley, M.L.A.’s, report a large number of parties on the new Slave Lake trail using carts and wagons. One party of eight from Southern Manitoba were right behind Chalmers. They had eight carts.
- A German and his wife from New York City had one cart and a horse. A half-breed family from Battleford had a team and wagon.
- Mr. Fraser had two teams with freight for Dunvegan, and two passengers.
- Draper and Walker, of Calgary, were at Swan River with eight carts and a four-horse team.
- Gray and Legrandeur had two wagons and a buckboard. An American Party were on the Deer Mountain with 14 carts.
- Dr. Tulloch’s Party were at Deep Creek with eight carts and oxen and one horse. A large number of parties had gone on to Peace River or were preparing to go on from the head of Slave Lake.
- The three survey outfits and several other parties took the trail after Messrs. Ross and McCauley started.

A restaurant had been started at the narrows of Slave Lake and a rushing business was done at 50 cents a meal. The resident population of Lesser Slave Lake is about 1,000. Freight from Slave Lake to Peace River has come down from $2 per hundred to $1.50 per hundred. There are plenty of teams

Text Credit: The Edmonton Bulletin, August 1, 1898 - On the Trail: Page 2
Image Credit: Provincial Archives of Alberta - "To Klondike with Oxen," Object A538b, March 1898

If you would like to be notified by email when the book is released, please complete this form: https://forms.gle/VKZfn6H9oQ5g1Ags8

15/11/2024

A bit of history about the Town of Slave Lake.
The area was previously known as Sawridge. . . . . . . . . .
SAWRIDGE IS GROWING
There are now some fifty white families residing in the new town Sawridge, situated at the east end of Lesser Slave Lake. The settlement is a typical country village inhabited by thrifty farmers and energetic business men. It boasts of several stores, a livery barn, a hotel and three restaurants. A site has been selected this winter for a sawmill and planing mill, both of which will be shipped from Athabasca next spring. The machinery will be of the latest design and make and it is expected that fully thirty men will be required next summer to handle the equipment.

Thomas Lyllick, one of the earliest settlers in this district, is in Edmonton this week and is staying at the Leland Hotel. Mr. Lyllick has lived in the vicinity of Lesser Slave Lake for fifteen years. Owing to the fact that he was a resident propr to the making of the Indigenous treaty of 1899, he has been given a free grant of 160 acres of choice prairie land. Mr Lyllick owns a livery stable and restaurant at Sawridge, but he is at heart a farmer and is looking forward to the time when he can personally look after the management of his country estate. The Sawridge district, he says, is best adapted to mixed farming though small grain of every description does well. Peavine and other natural grasses are to be found in abundance. This year a spending yield of oats was reported.

From the Edmonton Bulletin Feb. 10 1913. Page 12.

14/11/2024

History of logging and the railway from Mirror Landing, Lesser Slave Lake and to Peace River from the Edmonton Bulletin, January 7, 1914, Page 1

ESTIMATED ONE BILLION FEET TIMBER TRIBUTARY TO E.D.& B.C.
Vast Natural Resources of Alberta Are to be Opened by New Line Now Under Construction – Large Number of Saw Mills Are Now in Operation

The Edmonton Dunvegan and British Columbia railway will open up immense areas of very valuable timber limits in the vicinity of the railroad’s right -of-way, and in anticipation of freight facilities in the near future, sawmill outfits are being taken into the district in large numbers. W.R. Smith, chief engineer of the E.D. & B.C. line, says it has been estimated that there are one billion feet of timber tributary to this line. G.W. Coleleugh, purser of the “Diamond I” steamboat “Grenfell,” with headquarters at Peace River Landing, who is now in the city on a short visit, met no less than four sawmill outfits being taken into the Peace River district, and others are on the way. One is being taken in by R.H. Potts, of Grouard, to a point fourteen miles east of the Crossing.
Capt. Magar will place another on the bank of the Peace, on the opposite side of the river to the Crossing: and others have been taken in by H.A. George, of the Hudson’s Bay Company at the Crossing, and Mr. Ford.

BIG BUSINESS FOR SAWMILL
On the north bank of the Athabasca, about a mile and a half from where the Lesser Slave empties into the Athabasca, there is located the sawmill owned by Cornwall and Gauthier. It was opened up last July (1913), and the plant, which is worth approximately $36,000, is said to be one of the most modern in the north. It has a capacity of from fifty to sixty thousand feet per day, and gives employment to forty-five men. The right-of-way has been cut for a spur to the Dunvegan line, about a mile away, and steel will be laid in the spring, thus enabling the firm's product to be easily shipped to any point along the railroad. Mr. Gauthier informed the Bulletin reporter that it is the intention of the firm to establish lumber yards at various points along the Dunvegan line as soon as suitable arrangements can be made.

The plant includes a 150 h.p. Boiler, a modern sawmill equipment, including edger, steam feed apparatus, Waterous carriage machine weighing 5,200 pounds, trimmer, and lath mill, the latter having a capacity of 30,000 lathes in ten hours. There is also a model planing mill containing a Williams combination machine, and it is the intention of the firm to install a Berlin machine next year. All kinds of finished lumber can be produced.

GETS TIMBER CLOSE TO MILL
The firm obtains its lumber from timber limits of three square miles, close to the mill, this berth being estimated to contain ten million feet. The timber is mostly spruce, the trees having an average diameter of from 15 to 18 inches. The firm has also under option 3,000 acres about 50 miles up the river, in which area the cruisers’ reports show that there are 15 million feet.

Mr. Gauthier informed the Bulletin reporter that between Mirror Landing and Whitecourt, a distance of 200 miles up the Athabasca, there are 26 timber berths owned by various people, and estimated to contain not less than 200 million feet of lumber.

ARE WAITING RAILWAY
Mr. Gauthier has travelled extensively in the north country, and says there are vast timer areas which are only awaiting the coming of the railroad for the beginning of operations. Along the Pembina river, which empties into the Athabasca about 30 miles above Mirror Landing, he says there is a lot of spruce and jack pine lumber, and between Grouard and Peace River Crossing he further says there is an area 45 miles in extent, containing 700 million feet of spruce, cottonwood, and tamarack.

LUMBER FOR E.D. & B.C.
Cornwall and Gauthier are supplying the lumber for the temporary and permanent bridges of the Dunvegan road to Mirror Landing, and a spur track is being laid along the ice for this purpose.

On the south shore of Lesser Slave Lake, eight miles from Sawridge, is located the mill of the Lesser Slave Lake Lumber company, with M.P. Barnett as manager. The plant includes a 70 h.p. Boiler and 60 h.p. engine, with edger and shingling machine, and the capacity of 20,000 feet per day. The firm owns a timber berth one mile square in the immediate vicinity containing spruce and a little tamarack, the diameter of the trees being eighteen inches. Donald Keith has the contract for logging this winter, and is employing about 30 men.

Between the Salteaux and the Towow (Otauwau) rivers, J.S. Mooney, the Hudson’s Bay Factor at Sawridge, who had been all through the north country, says there is the best bunch of spruce timber he has seen anywhere in the north. There is a block six miles square, and the trees, he says, average three and a half feet at the base.