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Summary
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8.
miles north east of Sintaluta, hauling his wheat out to Sintaluta, and doing the
winter chores.
That winter of 1906-1907 was notorious for its severity. One cold bitter
storm after another, and weeks at a time, the mercury stood at 40 degrees below
zero. When Spring came, the Winter road bed had built up with the continuous
snow blowing over it, until it was like a high railroad grade all the way to
Sintaluta and all through the country.
As Springtime drew near, Martin let me have the team and sleigh some days, and
J. Nicoll and I began looking for our homestead equipment. We each bought four
large three year old steers -- to be broken in for oxen. Then we attended auction
sales and bought the wagons and what other machinery we needed for the homestead.
I now quit my work with John Martin, and we bought ox harness and began every day
breaking the oxen to drive by hitching them to an old sleigh, giving each team a
drive every day as well as we could.
The Spring of 1907 continued bitterly cold with driving winds and zero temperatures.
About May 1st we loaded all our supplies into a freight car-- also the eight
oxen, and billed out our car for Swift Current. The old car broke down and had
to be repaired in Moose Jaw. I remember jumping out of the car at Moose Jaw on
on May 2nd on a pond frozen over, and the ice easily carried my weight.
Two days later, on arriving in Swift Current, we began to understand a little
of the immensity of the migration that was in progress, as car loads of settlers'
effects were arriving from all over Eastern Canada and the United States. They
switched us out onto a siding which was over a mile long. It was blocked with
Settlers' cars which were unloading. Many had just unloaded, and their belongings
were piled up across from the track. All this length of track was piled with
wagons, binders, and all kinds of farm equipment. We had to have plenty of patience
as we waited our turn to get in line so as to get to our car. Our green oxen
had to be either tied or unhitched as we loaded and unloaded.
We hauled all the stuff six miles north of Swift Current to a homesteader's place.
He had offered us an empty building to store our goods while we took the first
loads north to our homesteads.
Then on a fine May morning we headed north with our four oxen on each loaded wagon.
As the bright May sun melted the snow there were pools of water in low places.
About 9 a.m. we came to a pond in the road with boggy land on either side. We
rested our oxen. I was ahead, and using the whip, hurried right through onto
hard ground. Nicolls' team stopped to drink, and his load settled down. Each time
they pulled. then let it sag back. so I attached our chain to his wagon and hooked
on ahead. But when my team pulled, the wagon team held back and would not move.
Noon came, and our situation looked bad. We had lunch. dug out the wheels and
tried again, only with the same results. Only one team would pull at a time.
We talked of packing all the load out to shore but decided to keep on. Finally,
about 4 p.m., we lined up and straightened up the two teams and the whole eight
oxen leaned into their collars. The wagon load began to move and never stopped
until it was out on dry land. We had both done a little shouting, which may have
helped some too.
The next day was Sunday, so we soon chose a level place where there was
grass for the oxen. We unhitched and hobbled the oxen so they could feed, then
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