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Early Settlement of Bonnyville (1907 - 1919) - Page 2
By H.E. Bourgoin
M. Paquin with an oxen team
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The surveying of land had
not been completed. Surveyors had established base lines
through the forest which ran east to west at six mile intervals.
Along each base line at two mile intervals was a boundary
marker: at each corner a square of ground 36 inches to the
side, the surveyor dug a hole 18 inches deep placing the
dirt removed in the center of the square to form a mound.
In the northeast corner of that square he drove a squared
iron post. On the west of the post he engraved information
regarding the situation of location of the section toward
which it pointed. According to this system the lands were
divided into one square mile parcels (640 acres) called
sections. These in turn were divided into four equal 160
acre parcels called quarter sections or "quarters".
The Provincial government granted a quarter to any settler
for the sum of ten dollars provided that he would within
three years.
1. build a shelter usually called a "shack"
2. reside there for at least six months of each year
3. fence the entire homestead and
4. undertake to make a few acres ready for seeding.
His progress was assessed by a government inspector who,
if he was satisfied with both the quantity and quality of
work done, would grant the pioneer his Patent. At this point
he could call the land his own.
So, having chosen the area he wished to settle, each pioneer
took up the task of determining the boundaries of his particular
homestead. He started at the surveyor's boundry marker and
stepped off his land allowing three feet per step. He drove
in a stick. Then with the help of a square and a companion
he would, with the naked eye, determine a straight line
at right angles to the baseline and guide his companion
who drove sticks into the ground at intervals along that
straight line. For the time being this method of determining
boundaries proved satisfactory.
After he had established the location of his homestead,
the pioneer built himself a shelter. It was built of logs.
There were among those pioneers, men who in their younger
days had been lumberjacks in the lumber camps of Quebec.
They were extremely skillful with the axe; so, in building
shacks with logs, they were able to shape the corners of
those shelters dovetail. This made them strong and lasting.
But that was not all: land had to be broken. First, brush
had to be cleared and trees felled, and all that had to
be put into piles and burned. Then, there were the stumps.
To pull them out, one would first cut a few roots at the
foot of the stumps with an axe.
Machine called « Horse Power »
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Following this, a team
of horses would be used to pull them out one by one. The
poor beasts would throw all their weight into the collar
time after time until the stump was jerked out. This was
very hard work and often times the horses would end the
day with the muscles of their shoulders worn to the flesh.
After the stumps had been pulled out, the land was ready
to be broken. In the early days, the walking plows used
for that purpose were drawn by horses or by oxen. When the
ploughshare struck an obstinate root or a solid rock, the
ploughman was often thrown upwards or sideways and the handles
of the plough would inflict painful blows to his body. After
the land had been broken, many roots would appear, and those
had to be extracted from the breaking. This required much
forceful tugging. This was followed by the discing and harrowing
and, lastly, by the sowing which was, in the early days,
done by hand. Then, one would wait to see the fruit of the
first few acres of land.
In those early years, the methods of gathering and threshing
grain were markedly different from those used today. First
the crop was cut by a simple mowing machine drawn by horses.
As there were no binders, sheaves had to be gathered and
formed by hand. Each worker would grasp two or three handfuls
of grain stalks, twist them together to form a small rope,
tighten this around the sheave, form a kind of half knot
and insert the ends under the taught rope of straw. The
sheaves were fed into the threshing machine by hand and
as the threshed grain rubbed out the spout it was gathered
in bags. The first mill used for threshing wheat in this
area belonged to Mr. Moïse Demers. He had it transported
from his farm in Quebec by railroad to Vegreville. From
there it was drawn by two. Teams of horses one belonging
to Mr. Demers the other to Mr. Anatole Mercier. This mill
operated using the driving force of two horses that trotted
along a continuous, sloping treadmill. As the belt of the
treadmill revolved, it powered a large wheel and the threshing
machine. Power was transferred from the large wheel to the
threshing machine by a long, wide belt.
Considerable work was involved in maintaining the horses
and preparing them for work. Rising at 4 a.m., a man would
first feed each horse a portion of oats. Without the oats
a horse would get soft and sweat a great deal. After the
oats came hay. After the hay was finished the task of harnessing
began. Heavy work harnesses had to be swung onto the back
of each horse. Then the horses had to be grouped in teams
and hitched to whatever machine was to be used that day.
Once ready to move, these outfits sometimes involving two
four horse teams had to be driven with steady attention
and skill.
At lunch time, each horse had to be attended to, and after
the days work each had to be unhitched, watered, and fed.
Such work surely demanded stout hearts and strong arms.
Some pioneers such as Dosithé Marcoux and Antonin
Ouimet used oxen as draught animals because they had no
horses. Oxen were very powerful and possessed incredible
endurance but they posed problems in addition to those encountered
with horses. They were not as fast to cover the 210 miles
to Vegreville and return, with a wagon load of grain took
fourteen days. They were often difficult to handle, some
were very stubborn often when pulling a load on the trail
in the heat of summer, wet with sweat, panting, dribbling,
tongues hanging out, they would spot a swampy pool, no amount
of persuasion could prevent them from heading straight into
it for relief. Imagine the task of extricating them and
the load from the bog. Imagine also oxen pulling a load
of firewood through a trail in the bush in the blistering
heat under constant torment from myriads of black flies
and mosquitoes. In search of relief, the oxen would plunge
into the bush until they got stuck. Here they demonstrated
another significant difference from horses: they wouldn't
back up.
The hapless pioneer then had to go ahead of the oxen with
his axe and clear a semi circular path back to the trail.
Dosithé Marcoux has related an experience which further
illustrates the cantankerous determination of oxen. As he
was ploughing a field behind his stable, he inevitably had
to pass the path "home" every round. The oxen
invariably headed down it plough and all at every opportunity.
It was quite a chore, not only to stop them, but to turn
them back to the furrow. Mr. Marcoux had to resort to placing
a guardian at the stable path to offer the oxen tangible
evidence that it was decidedly in their favour to keep going
straight ahead. Such was the life of those who worked with
oxen. However those stolid animals filled a great need and
one is forced to wonder where they found the endurance to
perform so well for so long in such heat, discomfort, and
hard, unyielding yoke.
It was in 1908 that the first Post Office and store were
established about a mile and a half west and one mile south
of the present site of Bonnyville. Philorome Ouellette was
Postmaster of this St. Louis de Moose Lake Post Office and
proprietor of this store.
It was soon discovered in Ottawa that another Post Office
in Alberta was called Moose Lake; therefore, the Postmaster
General asked that a new name be suggested for ours. The
people decided that would be a good idea to add " ville"
to the name of their newly arrived, first resident priest,
Rev. Father Francis Bonny. The official name of our locality
then became Bonnyville.
It is thus that the pioneer began his career. He came, he
looked at the land; then, taking in hand his axe and facing
the forest, he carved into it, as it were, the name of Bonnyville.
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