Tidbits of Alberta

[Red Bullets]

Good Day AO. I'm thinking I should add a few more tidbits a little more regularly.

This is an interesting story written by Mark Gaillard about a colorful man from Alberta's past. Worthy of sharing. Enjoy.



MEDICINE HAT, AB – May 12, 2017 – It is well-known that perhaps the most famous North West Mounted Police member of all time, the legendary Sam Steele, was the proud possessor of Regimental Number 1.

But who was Regimental Number 2?

John Henry Gresham “Turkey Legs” Bray was born on January 24, 1840, at Bewdley, Worchestershire, England. His father died when he was one year old and his mother when he was eight so he was raised by an uncle.

In June 1859 at the age of 18 he enlisted in the British cavalry in the 10th (The Prince of Wales’s Own) Royal Hussars Regiment. Soon afterwards his regiment was transferred to India. However, with rebellion brewing in Ireland, they were transferred to Carragh in County Kildare to assist the Irish Constabulary, the force that would be the model for the North West Mounted Police.

In 1863, John Bray left the Hussars to become an instructor with the Staffordshire Yeomanry on Burton-on-Trent. Later, on June 13, 1868, he left the British military.

John Bray decided to seek a new life and adventure in Canada.

Exactly 145 years ago, on May 12, 1872, he departed England for Quebec City on the ship SS “Nile,” never to return to his native land.

In the spring of 1873, he saw an advertisement for the newly established North West Mounted Police. In Toronto, Ontario, he submitted his application along with 621 men.

The recruiter, Arthur Henry Griesbach, the first recruit to join the NWMP with as Number 1 (more on this later), sorted through the applications and selected the 50 best men. John Bray was the top choice, no doubt due to his experience in a British cavalry regiment.

John Bray was among the third contingent of recruits to depart Toronto for Fort Dufferin, Manitoba, where the new Force was being assembled.

Once at Fort Dufferin, he was sworn into the Force and was assigned Number 92.

In preparation of what would later be known as the “March West,” John Bray was assigned as the Chief Constable (equivalent to Sergeant-Major) of “C” Troop, under the command of Inspector William Winder, Officer Number O.5. Members of “C” Troop rode light chestnut-coloured horses and also were the “artillery troop,” responsible for towing the Force’s two field guns.

Among the Mounted Police, John Bray was known as “Turkey Legs” – he was quite small by Mounted Police standards, being only 5 feet 9 inches tall.

Upon reaching the Belly River, the March West was over. In June 1875, Bray joined the men under the command of Superintendent James Morrow Walsh, (who later in his career would have two Officers’ Numbers O.7 and O.109!) in the Cypress Hills where Fort Walsh had been established.

Here John Bray, orphaned at a very young age, would have his own family.

Apparently, the location of Fort Walsh was selected to be near the abode of the Métis family of Edward McKay.

Ruth Daw, in her chapter “Sgt-Major J. H. G. Bray, the Forgotten Horseman” in the 1974 book “Men in Scarlet,” published by the Historical Society of Alberta, wrote:

“It has been suggested that the fort location was selected because McKay had five daughters who were all considered pretty and respectable girls. In June 1876, John Bray married one of the McKay daughters and they had one of the first babies to be born at a NWMP post.”

John Bray’s family quickly expanded in size – Flora (born 1877); Bessie (born 1878); Helen (born 1880); and Harry (born 1882).

In August 1878, the Force decided to regularize and consolidate the Regimental Numbering System. Arthur Griesbach had been in the meantime commissioned as an officer. Samuel Steele, who had first engaged as Number 5, was the Corps Sergeant-Major who was the most highest ranked non-commissioned officer in the Force. So Steele was assigned Regimental Number 1.

Sergeant-Major John Bray was the second most senior non-commissioned officer, so he became Regimental Number 2.

He was present at the 1881 trial of Star Child, who was accused of the murder of the first NWMP member to be killed on duty, 19-year-old Constable Marmaduke Graburn, Reg. No. 335, who was shot and killed while on solitary patrol in the Cypress Hills on November 17, 1879 (RCMP Honour Roll #3). Star Child was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

Sergeant Major Bray was also the NCO in charge of the NWMP Farm at Pincher Creek from 1881 to 1882.

Concerned about his wife’s loneliness in a cabin full of kids while he was away on duty, John Bray decided to leave the Force. He was discharged on November 8, 1882.

Upon his discharge he was given his 160 acre land grant in lieu of a pension, and he selected land in the area of Pincher Creek, Alberta, where he farmed cabbage and raised cattle.

In 1885 news of the North West Rebellion reached him. Without hesitation he joined the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer militia unit that was being raised.

Commanded by John Stewart, a rancher turned militia officer from the Fort Macleod area, the 114 members of the Rocky Mountain Rangers were a mixture of local citizens, stockmen, trappers, politicians and NWMP Veterans who were hastily formed into an irregular cavalry unit.

Veteran John Bray was made the unit’s Sergeant-Major.

A member of the Rangers, John Higinbotham, a druggist in Fort Macleod, wrote in his diary: "discipline is quite unknown to them; a Mountie [probably Sergeant-Major Bray giving instruction] told me that he heard one of them, during drill to-day, call out to his commander [when the Captain apparently had to repeat an order to fall in] 'Hold on, Cap, till I cinch my horse!'"

In an article in the December 1941 issue of Canadian Cattleman, a former member of the Rangers, self-identified simply as "Old Timer," remembered "Charlie Smith was our Lieutenant. Charlie would give the orders - 'Mount, Walk, Trot,' then when we got in front of the little log saloon - 'Halt! Everyone dismount and have a drink!' That was all the drill we got."

What Sergeant-Major Bray thought of his troopers is unrecorded!

No. 3 Troop remained in the Fort Macleod area as a home guard, but No. 1 and No. 2 Troops were sent to Medicine Hat, a strategic point where the newly-built Canadian Pacific Railway bridges the South Saskatchewan River.

Although the Rebellion’s main theatre was in the vicinity of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the Rocky Mountain Rangers helped keep the peace and ensure the safety of residents of the Medicine Hat area.

Dubbed the "Tough Men" by the residents of Medicine Hat, the Rangers spent their entire period of their service engaged in long, mostly uneventful patrol rides, relieving the boredom by bothering the soldiers of the Halifax Provisional Battalion, a Nova Scotia militia infantry unit also stationed in the town.

One of the Rangers's favourite pranks was riding through the infantry bivouac located on the heights to the southwest of the town-site, collapsing tents and jeering the "feet soldiers."

A member of the Halifax Battalion, Wiliam Tupper (whose father would later be the Canadian Prime Minister), wrote at the time: "[the Rangers] go through town firing revolvers and swearing like fiends!"

Relations between the two units became so strained that Major John Stewart ordered the Ranger encampment moved a distance upriver. This decision was probably a great relief to Sergeant-Major Bray!

Following the end of the Rebellion, the Rocky Mountain Rangers were disbanded on July 17, 1885. Sergeant-Major Bray, along with 49 other members of the Rangers, was awarded the North West Canada 1885 Medal.

And like on the Guidon of today’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Guidon of the South Alberta Light Horse Regiment, which perpetuates the 1885 Rocky Mountain Rangers, is emblazoned with the Battle Honour “North West Canada 1885.”

Back on his ranch in the Pincher Creek area, Veteran John Bray would later return to Medicine Hat and settle there permanently in 1891 when he became the Foreman of Public Works in what would be later be known as the “Gas City.”

In 1896 Veteran John Bray was elected to the position of Hides Inspector and later Territorial Brand Inspector, as well the Secretary of the Medicine Hat Agricultural Association and secretary- manager of the Montana Stockmen’s Association.

Between 1910 and 1918 as a liquor inspector he issued liquor licenses in the City of Medicine Hat.

On September 9, 1923, Veteran John Bray passed away at age 83. He is buried in the Kin Coulee Cemetery in Medicine Hat; his grave marker displaying his Regimental Number of 2.

Based on his contributions to the Province of Alberta as a member of the NWMP and as a Veteran, Bray Lake, located about 42 kilometres southeast of Edmonton, is named in his honour.

In the 1970’s Veteran John Bray’s great-grandson would himself join the RCMP. Constable George W. Halstead, Reg. No. 28397, retired from the RCMP on December 20, 1995.

We will remember Veteran John Henry Gresham “Turkey-Legs” Bray, Reg. No. 2.

Mark Gaillard
Executive Officer
RCMP Veterans’ Association

[Red Bullets]

The North Saskatchewan river that many of us enjoy was once bustling with activity. So many things were going on from floating log booms from upstream to lumber mills in Edmonton, to the gold dredges and miners of the late 1800's working the shorelines and sandbars. Squatters and working men were all over the river valley. Not like the quiet serene river valley we know today. Steamboats chugged people and supplies up and down the river daily.

One place on the river that canoeists and boaters might enjoy more knowing the history of the spot is Big Island. Big Island is in the Edmonton city limits by Windermere. Across the river from River Ridge golf course. connected to the land now and not really an island unless there is high water. Next time you canoe past stop and enjoy the area and listen for the forgotten laughter of past river enthusiasts.

This article written by Peggy Donnelly is an excellent view of what this island meant not so long ago.

https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2016/0...into-the-past/

[Red Bullets]

All the starlings you see around Alberta today originated from 100 starlings that were released in New York's Central Park in the early 1890s. A group who wanted America to have all the birds that Shakespeare ever mentioned let them go. We can thank Shakespeare for the 200 million starlings that are in North America now.

[Red Bullets]

In 1878 the whitefish fishery failed at Lac La Biche. Fisheries there were controlled starting 1892 and by 1895 heavy fishing restrictions and the first fishing permits were given out just to fish on the lake.

Oddly enough, Seventeen years later in 1912 commercial fisheries were introduced at Lac La Biche so much that by 1915 the Hudson's Bay company stores in the area changed their focus from fur to the fisheries. The development of the railway to Lac La Biche in 1915 laid way for the first fish processing plant at Lac La Biche in 1916.

[Bbkkcc]

Originally Posted by Red Bullets

I'll start with some tidbits on hunting in Alberta 102 years ago.


Alberta 1914 game laws-
1 deer, 1 moose, 1 caribou, 2 sheep, 2 goats per season per hunter.
10 grouse,partridge,ptarmigan, prairie chickens per day. 100 per season.
5 hungarian partridge per day, 25 per season.

A hunting licence was 2.50 and was only required for the southern half of the province. You didn't need a licence in northern Alberta.
(*North of the 54 latitude was northern Alberta. 54 is north of hwy 16 a few miles and sort of runs parallel to hwy.16.)

A resident could also buy a 10 dollar game dealers licence to be able to sell the meat of big game and birds.

A 5 dollar licence was required if you planned to sell your elk, moose, caribou or sheep heads and they had to be stamped by the minister of agriculture. Deer, goats and antelope were 2 dollars.

this is insane.

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by Bbkkcc

this is insane.

Some would say, nothing much has changed.

Seasons and bag limits were incredibly generous by todays standards but that has to be looked at in context of what the province was like in the past.

I was born in 1954. The population of the northern half of the province was only a few thousand people back then. In fact there are way more people living in Grande Prairie now then lived in the whole northern half of the province in 1933 when dad came to Alberta.

And there was a lot more game. I remember dad telling about seeing herds of Deer along the Peace River valley that reminded him of herds of cattle he had seen in southern Alberta on his way north. Dad grew up in Nova Scotia and his dad was a deep sea fisherman so herds of cattle were something new to dad.

When I started hunting a Moose tag allowed the hunter to take a bull or a cow and the season ran from September first to January first.
The homestead act allowed dad to take one Moose without a license and the wildlife act allowed him a second Moose with a hunting license.

When Dad arrived in the north, much of the forest was gone, burnt by forest fires. By the time I was born, 21 years later, most of the forests had regrown some but much of it was not much more then big saplings.

The only Elk in the province back then were in the foothills and mountains and the Deer were few and far between, the result of massive Wolf populations that had since been wiped out by the rabies plague of the 1950s.

It was boom then bust, both for people and for wildlife.

The world we live in now is far removed from the way it was before we humans began managing every aspect of the world around us.

And we have learned little from the mistakes of the past. Our bag limits in some cases are beyond what a population can sustain and others fall far short of controlling some populations.

Wolves are still increasing in populations at an alarming rate, as are Beaver and Snow Geese. Meanwhile Moose and Duck populations remain well below historic levels.

One can not imagine what that distant past looked like unless one live through at least part of it. Fields of stooked wheat with clouds of Ducks swirling over head. Seeing 27 Moose at one time from one location.
One road into the north, and it gravel, mud and dust, or snow so deep only dog sleds could make it through.

No snow plows, no fire fighters battling forest fires, major business centers the size of today's villages. Cities with no pavement and no electricity in some cases. Transport trucks hauling freight to the far north that today would be city delivery trucks.

The one thing I see that hasn't change a lot are rifles. Sure there are a way more cartridges to choose from, but to a large degree the form and function has not changed much.

[Red Bullets]

A more recent tidbit.. There was a recent successful re-introduction of an animal into the parklands that was never really publicized much. The Fisher.

In 1990 twenty fishers were released a few miles east of Edmonton in the Blackfoot/Cooking Lake Recreation area. They were monitored for 2 years using radio telemetry. Most stayed in the area and to this day there are sightings east of Sherwood Park ,28 years later, which would suggest successful natural breeding. I remember talking to one of the people involved in the project and he told me they lost tracking on one of the fishers 3 miles upstream of Devon on Conjuring Creek.

So next time you are exploring, riding, or hunting around the Blackfoot grazing lease and Cooking lake area keep and eye out for a fisher.

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by Red Bullets

A more recent tidbit.. There was a recent successful re-introduction of an animal into the parklands that was never really publicized much. The Fisher.

In 1990 twenty fisher were released a few miles east of Edmonton in the Blackfoot/Cooking Lake Recreation area. They were monitored for 2 years using radio telemetry. Most stayed in the area and to this day there are sightings east of Sherwood Park ,28 years later, which would suggest successful natural breeding. I remember talking to one of the people involved in the project and he told me they lost tracking on one of the fishers 3 miles upstream of Devon on Conjuring Creek.

So next time you are exploring, riding, or hunting around the Blackfoot grazing lease and Cooking lake area keep and eye out for a fisher.

No kidding!

I would never have guessed that Fisher would stay in such developed habitat.
Here they seldom stray into developed land.

But then I would never have guessed that Moose would thrive in that region either.

It makes me wonder what would happen if Elk were re-introduced into the parkland portion of our province. I read that they did inhabit the southern half of Alberta and Saskatchwin when the fur traders first found their way into the west.

[ronkaren]

in the early 1900's medicine hat had 130 foot paddle wheelers' trying to make a living cruising the south saskatchewan river. i believe there was room on board for close to a hundred people. , but low river levels ended the large boat undertakings.
also in 1921 the city of medicine hat hired a professional rainmaker, that didn't work out that great either.

[IR_mike]

Originally Posted by KegRiver

No kidding!

I would never have guessed that Fisher would stay in such developed habitat.
Here they seldom stray into developed land.

But then I would never have guessed that Moose would thrive in that region either.

It makes me wonder what would happen if Elk were re-introduced into the parkland portion of our province. I read that they did inhabit the southern half of Alberta and Saskatchwin when the fur traders first found their way into the west.

They got there on their own and have been here for a while.

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by ronkaren

in the early 1900's medicine hat had 130 foot paddle wheelers' trying to make a living cruising the south saskatchewan river. i believe there was room on board for close to a hundred people. , but low river levels ended the large boat undertakings.
also in 1921 the city of medicine hat hired a professional rainmaker, that didn't work out that great either.

River boats were a bit before my time but I do know that they operated on the Peace River up until the Canol Road was built in the mid 1940s.
The Canol Road was later renamed The MacKenzie Highway.

River boats continued to provide transportation along the river for a few more years until connector roads could be built to connect communities like Fort Vermilion to the new highway.

I don't know when exactly the last one retired, I don't remember them but they might have lasted into the mid 1950s. Records were not kept for all the boats since some of them were locally owned and built.

There are extensive records for some of the more expensive boats like the D A Thomas and the Peace River but smaller local boats like The Russian Navy and the Weenusk are only mentioned briefly in records from that era.

[Red Bullets]

Since there is talk of riverboats...in an early post on this thread I mentioned a steamboat hull still being in the North Saskatchewan river in Edmonton. Just downstream of the Kinsmen Field House on the south side of the river you can see the hull during low water. I wasn't sure which boat this was when I posted about it.
Well, it turns out this steamboat was the"City of Edmonton" originally owned by John Walter. It is mentioned in the link I posted about Big Island in post #452. There is even a picture of what the boat once was. The write up explains the boat sat for years because it could not be sold. I know some of the things were salvaged. The flooring went to a dance hall downtown.

Neat when the pieces fit together.

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Great thread thanks.

[RandyBoBandy]

Originally Posted by MooseRiverTrapper

Great thread thanks.

[Mavrick]

Red Bullets, you are a pleasure to have on this forum. Love the information and history you post. Keep it up please.

[Red Bullets]

We think of the bad folks around today causing all the crime in rural Alberta. There seems to be some tradition to rural criminals in Alberta. 150 years ago there were bad operators living and trading in Alberta Territory. It was the days of the whisky forts and posts. The buffalo hunters were slaughtering the bison in the 1860's & 70's. The wolfers followed the buffalo hunters. Many of those men were rough and tumble kind of men that liked their liquor. It was not a safe time to be in Southern and Central Alberta. Wolfers were responsible for the last massacre in southern Alberta.

Next time you go fishing at Pine Coulee be reminded of what it was like back then. 'Pine Coulee Post' operated in the bottom of Pine Coulee south of Nanton before 1874. When the NWMP came in '74 Harry "Kamoose" Taylor and Willian Nond were arrested and the Pine Coulee trading post was closed. For trading in rot gut whiskey to first nations. The whisky traders' whiskey back then was a concoction more than a real alcoholic beverage. Usually it was brandy or rum watered down 7 parts water to 1 part alcohol. The rotgut pseudo-whisky was adulterated with toxic substances like sulfuric acid, turpentine, strychnine (a poison used by wolfers), cocculus indicus (a plant poison used as a pesticide and delousing agent) and tobacco. The FN people were in drunken stupors not just from the watered down whiskey but from all the additives.

There still could be a hidden keg or two buried in the area. The bad guys often buried their 'loot' to protect it. At a few trading posts there is mentioned that silverware and such things were often buried to hide them from when there were uprisings with FN and maurading wolfers.

We should have metal detectors on their shoes when we walk around this great province. You never know what might be walking over just under the surface.

[Red Bullets]

Alberta has had some very colorful characters. Those oldtimers liked to spin yarns about the early days...

Old Dave MacDougall reminisced about in the 1860's while camping in the foothills. He was alone and was out of provisions, starving and only had one bullet left. After several days of hunting with no luck he was getting weaker and finally he saw a flock of grouse all roosted on one branch in a tree by a creek. He took the shot and missed the birds but the bullet had split the branch the birds were sitting on and when the two pieces of the branch came back together it trapped all the grouses feet. As he was wringing the grouses necks one by one he accidentally slid into the creek. His pants were loose and held up by suspenders. When he was getting out of the creek he realized he a had a few fish in his pants, enough so that it popped the button off of his suspender. There was moose that was in the creek drinking and the button flew with such force it hit the moose in the eye blinding it. When Dave got out of the creek and emptied the fish from his pants. He was then able to grab his axe and kill the blind moose. Yep. That one bullet saved the day and the close call to starving.

Dave talked about a grizzly bear trap too. Find a tree with a hole in grizzly country and put honey in the hole in the tree. Then suspend a big boulder on a strong rope so it hangs in front of the hole in the tree with the honey in it. A bear would come along and discover the honey hole. The bear would push the rock out of the way and stick his head in the hole. The rock would swing back and hit the bear which would get the bear mad. He would hit the boulder harder and the boulder would swing back and smack the bear again. The bear gets so mad it hits the rock really hard and when the rock swings back it hits the bear in the head killing it.

And Dave made an interesting observation of how a woodpecker was so smart too. He noticed a woodpecker sitting and pecking at a flint rock on a cold day and that woodpecker pecked that rock so many times and so hard the rock would spark. Then the woodpecker would do a little shuffle over the spark to warm his feet.

[Red Bullets]

Back in the cattle ranching days in the 1880's...
One old cowboy on the prairie near Lethbridge area mentioned that the wind came up so strong he looked for the biggest beef steer in the herd he was moving and strung the steer up across his saddle ...just to keep his horse from blowing away.

[Red Bullets]

One of the oldtimers on the prairies was James McKay. He came to the new world in 1815 as an 18 year old in the employ of the HBco.. One of accountings was when he was traveling west with two other men somewhere between Battleford and Fort Pitt in the early/mid 1800's, during lunch on the trail, they had three young Blackfoot FN men come into their camp. They knew the territory was not Blackfoot territory and instincts told them they three FN were scouts for a larger warring party and if they let them walk away they would be sure to be killed, their topknot and their horses taken. They unemotionally shot the three FN scouts and disposed of the bodies in a slough. McKay and his companions carried on their way west unmolested. This may seem a very cruel assumption of the FN men by McKay's trio but it was noted this was a reality of the times. McKay had one other account of his times in the west. A single FN man stole one of McKay's horses and McKay chased the horse thief down with another horse. When the horse thief's horse was climbing up out of the stream McKay shot the FN thief and the bullet passed through him and also hit the horse in the head killing both. McKay was a rugged man that at 51 in 1848 was asked to be part of the search for Sir John Franklin. He went on to become the first person to vote at what was then the polling station of the Northwest Territories in 1881.(before 1905 Alberta was part of the Territories.) He passed in about 1894 at age 97. Three of John's sons became reverends and one son, James, became one of the first politicians in Manitoba.

[Red Bullets]

There were temporary foreign workers back in the day too.

During the times of the steam powered riverboats it was an interesting mention that the Captains and Mates were mainly Americans that were trained on the upper Mississippi river. They did not settle in western Canada but returned to the US every fall after the season.

[Red Bullets]

I posted this picture before illustrating how our prairie looked 130 years ago. I have since learned more about this picture and thought I would share it. This picture is supposedly of the remains of Chief Poundmaker's last big buffalo corral.

[Red Bullets]

In 1935 the average income was 313.00 per year. If you bought 1 kilgram of each of these: Bacon, sirloin steak, flour, sugar, coffee, onions and 1 quart of milk, 1 lb. of butter, a dozen eggs and 10 lbs of potatoes the total bill would have been $3.15.

Farmers sold good hard Wheat for 17 to 28 cents per bushel. (60 lb. to a bushel) Whole wheat flour was sold retail for 7 to 10 cents per pound in town.
Farmers sold hogs for 2 cents a pound live weight. Bacon was retailed for 30 cents per pound at the butcher shops in towns.
Cattle were 1 cent or less per pound. Live weight, not butchered. At a butcher shop in a town or city retailed beef sirlion steak was 23 cents per pound.
Farmers sold eggs for 5 cents a dozen. Retailers in town charged 30 cents a dozen.
Farmers sold 50 pound cream cans of cream for 75 cents to 1.25. In stores milk sold for 10 cents a quart and butter was 28 cents a pound.

[Red Bullets]

In 1848 Christmas day there was a now famous artist staying at Fort Edmonton. His name was Paul Kane. He painted many scenes and portraits when he was in the west. You can find Paul Kane's story and paintings online.

Paul Kane mentioned the Christmas meal at the fort in 1848. There would have been more than 100 people feasting. They dined on boiled buffalo fetus, buffalo tongues, boiled buffalo humps, whitefish browned in buffalo marrow, dried moose nose, roasted beavers’ tail, wild goose, and the center of the table piled high with potatoes, turnips and fresh made bread.

[Red Bullets]

An interesting incident happened in 1806 to David Thompson that maybe changed the way everything unfolded in the development of our history. While at Rocky Mountain House David Thompson was planning a trip across the mountains via the Kootenay Plains to the west with the intention of starting trade with the Kootenay FN on the Columbia river system in eastern BC. The Peigan FN people did not like that Thompson would be arming their enemies,the Kootenay, with guns. The Peigans were of the Blackfoot Nation in what is now part of Alberta. At the time of Thompson planning the trip Lewis and Clark were making their famous journey west, south of the US border. It turns out Captain Lewis killed two Peigan men and the Peigans from the our area went south to avenge the death of their men. This gave David Thompson the opportunity to get across the mountains unmolested and led to Kootenay House on the Columbia river system being established in 1807. Had Captain Lewis not killed two people south of the border David Thompson may have met a different fate on his 1806 journey.

[catnthehat]

I had ancestors on my mother’s side from (Islay) that worked for both the Hudson’s Bay and the Northwest Company .
One , Robert McVicar was a chief trader for the HBC and was involved in several fights with the Nor’ West company men .
He was a favorite of Franklin’s and Franklin named a bay on Great Bear Lake after him.
He was also married in Ft.Chip by Sir John Franklin to Christina McBeath in Ft. Chipewyan in 1827!
After he retired he settled in the Lakehead district of what is now Thunder Bay of Ontario and is considered the Founding Father of Port Arthur .
Coincidently ,Colleagues of my wife also retired there a few years back and bought a B&B residence - it is in fact the McVicar Manor which my ancestor built!
Cat

[Red Bullets]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

I had ancestors on my mother’s side from (Islay) that worked for both the Hudson’s Bay and the Northwest Company .
One , Robert McVicar was a chief trader for the HBC and was involved in several fights with the Nor’ West company men .
He was a favorite of Franklin’s and Franklin named a bay on Great Bear Lake after him.
He was also married in Ft.Chip by Sir John Franklin to Christina McBeath in Ft. Chipewyan in 1827!
After he retired he settled in the Lakehead district of what is now Thunder Bay of Ontario and is considered the Founding Father of Port Arthur .
Coincidently ,Colleagues of my wife also retired there a few years back and bought a B&B residence - it is in fact the McVicar Manor which my ancestor built!
Cat

Interesting part of your roots for sure. That is neat that McVicor's Manor is still in the circle. McVicor was in the west at an amazing era.

You don't have any resemblance to him except maybe you both prefer blackpowder and ball.

[Red Bullets]

Originally Posted by Red Bullets

Interesting part of your roots for sure. That is neat that McVicor's Manor is still in the circle. McVicor was in the west at an amazing era.

You don't have any resemblance to him except maybe you both prefer blackpowder and ball.

Note: The McVicor painting was done in 1832 by Nelson Cook. Given to the museum by Mrs. George McVicor.

[Red Bullets]

Some of the older folks will remember the air raid sirens that were placed in different towns and cities during the cold war of the 60's. Most were removed in the 1990's. I think some places might still have the sirens for historical display. Not sure if any are still functioning.

I remember the town that was nearby used to sound off the siren every so often. You could hear that siren 4 or 5 miles away. If we were in school and heard the siren we did the drill to get under our desk and put our heads between our knees.

During the cold war some of the towns had underground bunkers made of large 8 or 10 foot diameter culverts by the railway tracks too. They had fold down tables/beds on the sides and nothing else.

[Red Bullets]

When we think of the carts hauling freight/supplies we often think of the two wheeled red river carts. There also used to be "trains" made large carts with 6 foot diameter wheels hitched together and a dozen teams (24) of mules would be hitched up and driven by a single "Mule Skinner" riding an 'off pole' mule. The 'jerkline' passed through the rings on the bits of each team to the off lead mule rider. That would make one man driving 25 mules hauling a several big carts each with a ton or three of freight. These teams rarely came north to Edmonton and usually did the southern runs. One big mule freight train did make one trip north to Ft. Edmonton in 1885 during the rebellion.

This picture was taken in Utah but is a good example of a mule train. This train was known as "the Big Hitch."

[Red Bullets]

Pigeon lake has been commercially fished since 1918. I mentioned earlier that in the beginning a person had to live within 2 miles of the lake to be able to net fish.
Then...
Between 1939 and 1946 commercial fishermen were allowed unlimited quotas. It took that 7 years to deplete the fishery. The annual harvest during that 7 year period was over 181,000 kg. of whitefish per season. Limits were restricted from 1947 to 1951 when the quota system was restored.