PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE EARLY EUROPEAN IMMIGRANT.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE PATAGONIAN WELSH.
SOUTH OF SALTCOATS.
In the late nineties I located a Welshman named Evan Jenkins about
ten miles south and a little west of Saltcoats. He had some means and
besides taking a homestead he purchased some land. He had formerly
farmed in Patagonia, in southern South America, but found he preferred
to be under the British flag. He was a good farmer, very hard working,
with several children all of whom were workers. He built a comfortable
house of adobe for which he found the yellow sub-soil clay very suitable,
but put up log stables and outbuildings, there being at that time plenty of
timber in the adjoining "Thompson Bush". South of this bush there was
a large open stretch of open country, rolling, with sloughs which in dry
seasons dried up and produced an abundance of hay, and the soil was
good. He often told me that was just the place for his fellow countrymen
whom he had left behind in Patagonia.
These Patagonian settlers had been assisted to emigrate from Wales
to that country some thirty years before, and had settled along the "Chi-
bouk" River, a considerable stream which rose in the Andes, and flowed
through a wide fertile valley. The valley was cultivated mostly for wheat
and alfalfa, but irrigation was necessary, as it was usually a dry country.
By the aid of this irrigation good crops were raised, and horses and cattle
were raised in large numbers, very much the same as was the case in the
early days of our own west. There was a great drawback however, for
the Chibouk was apt to flood the valley and this happened in several suc-
cessive years. The Imperial Government had therefore decided to repatri-
ate those who wished to leave the country. I took note of Jenkins' infor-
mation, and wrote to the Commissioner of Immigration at Winnipeg.
Shortly after, in the spring of 1902 about four hundred Patagonian Welsh
arrived at Saltcoats in charge of a Winnipeg Official, who had tents erected
near Jenkins' farm. He put floors in the tents, gave the settlers some
good advice and returned to Winnipeg, leaving the immigrants very large-
ly to their own devices.
Complaints came in as might be expected and I was requested to look
after the immigrants and locate them. I had the same old trouble caused
by the survey marks being destroyed, but I settled some eighty-eight home-
steaders.
Some of them had means and built pretty good houses, others put up
adobe or sod buildings. The young men and girls went out to work. The
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