John Black, the Apostle of the Red River / Or, How the Blue Banner Was Unfurled on Manitoba Prairies

by George Bryce

CHAPTER X. The New Settlements.

To some, the story of early settlement appears prosaic. To the deep thinking, there is in it romance of the most thrilling kind. Who has not read with sympathetic interest the story of Abraham going into a far country that God would tell him of? How Scottish hearts have been moved with the accounts of the Highland Clearances, when thousands of crofts and straths and glens were left behind, and their occupants hurried forth to find homes in Pictou, Glengarry, or on the banks of the Hudson!

It is not only in the painful separations, the leaving behind of spots and scenes consecrated with the dearest memories, and in some degree the sense of failure in having to give up old associations forced by hard necessity; but the tearful outlook into the unknown, the dread of meeting the inhospitality of a cold world, and the utter feeling of uncertainty that give its human interest to the emigrant ship as it sails forth from the old-world port, or the settler's wagon as it wends its way through the bush or over the "interminable prairie."

All the pathetic scenes of early settlers' life became familiar in connection with the Red River becoming a part of Canada. As soon as the Rebellion had been quelled, and Manitoba became open for settlement, a movement took place from all parts of Canada to occupy the fertile prairies of the West. Farmers, whose families were finding the small farm of one hundred acres or less on which they had grown up too strait for them, sold off their possessions and journeyed to Manitoba to take homesteads and pre-emptions on its virgin prairies.

For the first few years the journey was made by rail to St. Paul, in the American State of Minnesota. Here the old-fashioned settler's wagon with its canvas top—the prairie schooner as it has been called—was revived; the household goods and a stock of provisions were packed in closely, and after them the women and children entered to undertake a journey of nearly five hundred miles to the new land of hope in the north. The father and sons drove the herd of cattle and the extra horses; and from camping place to camping place groups of settlers' wagons moved in daily caravans over the prairie trails.

In one such wagon the writer remembers to have seen an old lady of over eighty years, who, seated in her commodious arm chair, held her post among the boxes and bedding and farming tools over this long and weary route. At a stopping place in the then utterly wild territory of Dakota, the writer remembers to have seen the quaint entry in the register of the wayside hostelry of J. W., "Citizen of the World." The traveller had evidently been impressed with the illimitable stretch of the prairie, so like the sea. At times the unbridged coulée, with its depth of water, was to be crossed, when all the goods had to be unloaded from the wagons, the goods and chattels floated across, the horses and cattle made to swim over; and a delay, sometimes dangerous, of several hours checked the forward advance of the caravan. Sometimes the fierce storm of the prairie rose, and compelled the parties to keep camp for two or three days. The writer calls to mind one storm in 1872 that blew over tents, drove horses and cattle hither and thither over the prairies, and well-nigh brought bands of travellers to despair. Such are the dramatic features of frontier life.

At times the settler and his family went by rail as far as the Red River, and reached a town two hundred and twenty-five miles by land above Fort Garry. Here a Red River steamer was taken, and by following seven hundred miles of the winding river the destination was reached. The Red River steamer was of the Mississippi type, flat-bottomed and easily running over shallows. Indeed, speaking in western phrase, it could run over the prairie if there was a good heavy dew upon the grass. The extra goods were towed in barges behind the steamer, and old-timers still delight to recount the picturesque scenes connected with the Red River steamboat. At times, when the river had flooded its banks, the steamer lost her course in the night, and was compelled to fasten her bow to a tree on a prairie bluff till the morning. Thousands of the early settlers of Manitoba remember the river steamers—the delay of days together when stranded on the rapids—the wretched meals, and the primitive accommodation. Arrived at Fort Garry, the settler found the troubles and discomforts soon forgotten in the hurry and bustle of a new life.

Then the toilsome journey, on steamboat or over muddy roads, with myriads of mosquitoes and inevitable hardships, was past, and the steamer "tied up" at the warehouse, or the prairie caravan crossed the ferry of the Assiniboine and camped by the walls of Fort Garry. The sun seemed to shine all the brighter and the air was all the more exhilarating since the goal had been reached and the land of promise entered on.

At a distance of about half a mile from the fort was now springing up the straggling village of Winnipeg. This nucleus of the present city was a separate place, with different ideals and often divergent aspirations, from old Fort Garry. For years the struggle prevailed as to which should rule, but the increase of population, the influx of men of wider view, and the softening influence of time abolished the rivalries, and the Hudson's Bay Company has in late years entered into all the objects and prospects of the city along with its most enterprising citizens. The picture of that early Winnipeg is a strange contrast to the city of to-day.

Soon after his arrival the family patriarch and his stalwart sons found their way to the land office, inspected the list of vacant lands, ascertained where acquaintances had gone, and after visits and journeys hither and thither, made up their minds where to take up lands from the embarrassing plenty that was offered them. New townships were opening up in all directions where the surveyors had gone, and east and west new settlements sprang up like magic.

The Kildonan people, from their greater intelligence than that of their neighbors, and their long residence in the country, were naturally much consulted as to the best parts of the country and the localities most desirable for settlement. Their habits of life, however, being more pastoral than agricultural, had led them to different views from those taken by the majority of the new-comers who were farmers. The writer remembers very well in 1871 hearing of several Canadian families, who had broken the immemorial custom of settling along the river bank, and had ventured beyond Bird's Hill on the one hand, and Stony Mountain on the other, several miles from the river. These were looked upon by some of the old settlers as simply mad, their failure was prophesied, and the expectation was strongly held that they would be frozen on the plains, or lost in the snow-drifts if they attempted during the winter to find their way to the old settlement. To-day, tens of thousands of Manitoba settlers have their comfortable houses on the open plains.