NARRATIVES OF SASKATOON

1882-1912

Genealogy, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, Pioneer,Saskatchewan history, Temperance Colony, Temperance Colonization Society, Pioneers,John N. Lake, John Lake, Saskatoon history, Saskatoon Gen Web, Genealogy, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, Pioneer,Saskatchewan history, Temperance Colony, Temperance Colonization Society, Saskatoon history, Saskatoon Gen Web

was taken in the open, or at most under the shelter of the wagon. A tent was not usual rapidity of making and breaking camp was more considered than comfort. On this trip I would have used one for the return journey, but the best I could borrow was a couple of ample canvasses. For the two bed coverings, the pole of the rig, propped up by the neck-yoke, provided a ridge pole, over which, after the bed was made beneath, one canvas could be spread, its loose ends weighted down with sods or stones; the other canvas, draped over the windward side of the rig, would provide shelter for the other. Beaver Creek being made in the early evening, the first night's camp was made on the higher land beyond. The first night was always for me a wakeful one. The unusual condition of a first night's bedding on the prairie made sleep a difficult matter, whether in company or alone. The stillest night seemed somewhow not to be silent, the ears seemed only to be too dull to catch the sounds, and for hours I experienced such sensa- tion as perhaps the partly deaf may have, aware that there are many sounds about them which keener ears are hearing. Whether these sounds are coming from along the earth or through the air above or from below, they seem to be there and the foolish ears strain to catch them. I have heard others speak of it-one fancifully described it as the night-song of the prairie. I know that whether it be purely fantastical or not, it does not make for sleep. Advances toward sleep also were broken by the faint ripping sound, brought at times over a faint stirring of the night air from where the horses were grazing, the sharp ring of metal on a halter, the fanning wings of wild-fowl making for the creek water, the call of a night bird or a coyote far away-sleep seemed hardly to have come before the dawn and the necessity for rising. Ten miles must be made before break'- fast and before the sun gives more than a hint of the place of its rising one must be away. The ponies, refreshed by the double watering overnight and before starting, travelled well in the cool of the early morning. Half the day's miles must be made well before midday, to allow for a long rest for us all in the heat. A small keg of water, filled at the creek, wag carried, and would give them a spare allowance then, but their next real fill would be taken at the Elbow. This portion of the country is probably so changed and bettered by settlement as to be now unrecognizable. We who travelled it in those days remember it as the longest stretch of barren waste on the whole journey. Through many miles of broken, uninviting land the trail wound in and out about its hollows and hills, countless little eminences crowned with innumerable stones; there were stones in all the valleys, stones in the road, stones everywhere, with never a growing twig among the scanty herbage. Here and there a single boulder would show like some huge egg in its basin, the hollow about it probably formed at first by some mad- dened procession of buffalo scrubbing from their bare flanks the swarming insect pests: later, by other herds, when water collected in the basin, wallowing and carting away cooling plasters of mud. In one valley of some acres, discovered once when herding back some straying oxen, I re- member noting that all the stones lay grouped in wide continuous rings, so placed as if holding down the skirts of many wigwams in some bygone day. On the horizon, the lines of low and far distant hills were visible, the tedious hours of travel but little changing their form through the weary day. Toward the end of the afternoon a suggestive glimpse of deeper color in the skyline ahead shaped itself by degrees into definite outlines of better promise. At the end of another hour these became more distinguishable and were seen to be bold bluish headlands, slashed with lighter color and deep shadows; before long, from the crest of some unusual elevation, their double line of banks showed the channel of the great river, miles away. After the monotony of the stony wastes, the gradual developing of this approaching panorama is impressive. At no point, possibly, do the banks of the Saskatchewan unfold themselves to the view more majestically than here. The full glory of it lay before me as I drew rein on the crest Page 21

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