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.