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

the river. It went up in 1883 and stopped at Medicine Hat and came down in June, 1884. At that time there were also on the Saskatchewan the "Northcote" and its sister ship the "Marquis". The "Northcote" went through here from Prince Albert to Medicine Hat in 1885. The "Marquis" was built in Winnipeg in 1882 and the "Northcote" was built in the Grand Rapids. There was a freight boat called the "Baroness". The cooking on these steamers was something to talk about. Andy La Plante was a half-breed born in Winnipeg and had been on the Second Relief Expedition for Franklin. He had wandered to Medicine Hat and was cooking on one of the boat and it was some cooking. I was going to Winnipeg once and took him with me to see the place where he was born. The place was built up with magnificent buildings but he soon got tired and wanted to come back. He made a certain trip when he was about seventy-five years of age and took with him his dog and her family of pups. He got about 8 beavers and started for home. There were no rab- bits that year so he could not snare a living thing and he couldn't shoot a living thing. He ate the dog and the pups and he scraped the hair off the beaver heads and boiled them down and ate them. He grew feebler each day and finally reached the Indian Reserve at Moose Woods. When he found he was in safety he collapsed and fell beside the water hole. When te Indians came down to water their horses they found him there and sent for Doctor Willoughby. He came round all right. You ask what brought us all in to Saskatoon. We brought a raft of lumber down from Medicine Hat. It was sold to the settlers to build their houses. Fred Kerr, Mr. Hattie and Hilliard were carpenters, while Fred Smith was a tinsmith. These men expected to work in their various lines on the 200 houses which were to go up. That is what lured them in here. For myself I came because I had the chance to bring down the "May Queen" and because I wanted to see the country. I had no intention of staying, but I could not get my money from the Temperance Coloniza- tion Society so I had to stop two or three months and by that time I be- gan to like the place and took up a homestead. I never left the country for fourteen or fifteen years except to go away for supplies. I homesteaded about 300 yards west of what is now the Quaker Oats factory. It was on the south half of 30-36-5. "Louis" Gougeou homesteaded on 22-36-5. Archie Brown and Wm. Horn homesteaded side by side touching the northeast corner of my quarter section. I built the first house on the west side of the city. That was in 1885. Mr. Gougeou did not build because, under the Hamlet Law, if a man had children of school age he could live in the nearest school place to his home- stead and was exempt from having to put up buildings, which the home- stead law called for. The following people settled north of the city in 1884: Henry Smith, his wife, four sons and one daughter; Pickard took up a homestead, stayed a short time and left; Steacy, who afterwards became a member of Parliament in British Columbia; Halstead, a Methodist min- ister; Canary Smith, Mason, and Seager Wheeler. Some of the Lakes came in 1883 and some in 1884. They settled on the east side of the river and the Caswells on the other side at Clark's Crossing hard by the present Clark- boro. The names of the Lake boys were Parker, Frank and Charlie. When I came down on the boat I got $100 a month and all expenses. Louis Gougeou got $8.00 a day. The other fellows were working their passage to get here to get carpenters' work when they arrived. The meals were cooked in square oil cans. Some flour was dumped in and mixed with salt and then it was boiled. That was the principal food. At that time flour was worth in the settlement about $5.5O a sack. Sugar sold at 25 cents a pound. Taking the freight into consideration things were not out of the way at all. There was little or no cash in the place. The year after the Rebellion I received a Government cheque for $2O.00 and there was not a person in the whole settlment who had $20.00 with which to cash it. I had to keep the cheque till next spring when I went to Moose Jaw. I was married to Mary Ellen Thomson, the sister of Mrs. Fletcher. Miss Thomson came in in 1885. We had to go one hundred and ten miles to a Protestant minister at Prince Albert. We started out just our two Page 46

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