Pioneers of History

A chance conversation confirms a family’s role in building the West as part of the little-known Barr Colony

If you’ve never heard of the Barr Colony, you’re in good company, as the name often generates a blank look even among Canadian historians. The Barr Colony, founded in 1903, was one of the last great emigration schemes in English/north American history.

Reverend Isaac Montgomery Barr, an expatriate Canadian, had long dreamed of establishing a colony somewhere in the British Empire. In the early 1900s, Barr had relocated to the United States after leaving Canada in 1883 under a cloud of failing marriages, far-fetched schemes, and financial disagreements with congregations and bishops. Heading overseas to fulfill his ambitions, Barr arrived in London, England, in January 1902, armed with several impressive letters of recommendation. One letter claimed he had a licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury to preach in England and work with the Colonial and Continental Church Society.

As it happened, the society had also just hired another clergyman with an interest in immigration and much more knowledge of Canada. Reverend George Eaton Lloyd was a native Londoner who received his theological training in Canada at the University of Toronto. Like

Barr, Lloyd had spent a brief time on the Canadian Prairies as a young man, but his exploits were far more glorious than Barr’s: He was a veteran of the 1885 North-west Rebellion, serving in the Queen’s Own Rifles. Lloyd set out to spread the word through the British Isles about the opportunities available on the Canadian Prairies.

THE SCHEME

In August 1902, Barr wrote to the Canadian Commissioner of Immigration at his London office, offering to assist English farming families who wanted to settle in Canada. At the time, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s decision to send Canadian troops to South Africa for the Boer War was unpopular, and the Prairies and Northwest Territories needed farmers. The commissioner agreed to pay for a ten-page pamphlet called “British Settlements in North Western Canada in Free Grant Loans.” Readers concluded that the Canadian government supported Barr’s scheme and the all-british colony was born.

Barr soon met with the Canadian Deputy Minister of the Interior, full of excitement about the promised land. He failed to mention, though, that the regular stagecoach route to North Battleford, Sask., the colony’s location, followed an old wagon trail used mostly by Métis. The trail led north and west through Prairie land furrowed by tracks of buffalo and strewn with their bones. Barr described the road as excellent, all streams bridged and bad spots graded. In truth, however, the road consisted of a path for a single horse. Barr went on to say that the land consisted of beautiful, rolling, fertile Prairies, with thousands of acres producing abundant game and rivers teeming with fish. There was no mention of long winters, late springs, early frosts, tormenting mosquitoes or the tenacious sloughs.

In late September 1902, Lloyd and Barr came face to face for the first time in London. While the two men shared a common vision of promoting immigration to the Canadian Prairies, their methods and personalities were very different. Unlike the Commissioner’s Office, Lloyd made a real attempt to check Barr’s credentials. Nonetheless, their meeting and shared goal ultimately resulted in one of the largest colonization enterprises in the Canadian West—an undertaking that came to be fraught with dissension, mismanagement and disillusionment.

By February 1903, almost 2,000 people had signed up for the program. The majority of Barr Colonists wanted to move to Canada to become farmers or homesteaders in pursuit of the promise of “land for everyone. Everyone will live upon his own land.” Regulations set out by the Canadian government declared that “every male over 18 years of age is entitled to a homestead, or free grant of 160 acres—a quarter of a section. Women who are the sole head of a family may apply.”

Success was dependent on many things, but farming experience was crucial—and most of the colonists had none. Still, on March 31, 1903, the SS Lake Manitoba sailed from Liverpool, England. The former troop ship, built to carry 700 soldiers, now carried 1,960 men, women and children, along with their luggage and prized possessions. Two other ships, Lake Champlain and Lake Megantic, also left

Liverpool carrying Barr Colonists.

Discontent and near rioting took place on the voyage. The Lake Manitoba carried the largest group, and they suffered the most. Food was scarce and almost inedible, and quarters were quite cramped. Barr had to keep out of sight for fear of his life. After several days at sea, the ships finally docked at Saint John, N.B., unloading their cargo of English travellers— some dressed as gentry, others in pioneer clothing—into the quiet harbour town for a brief respite.

Despite a lack of organization and pre-arrangements, the voyage soon continued west by train, skirting Montreal, stopping in Ottawa and then following the Ottawa River north towards the Prairies. Passengers staring out the windows were faced with a cold and rocky landscape. The coaches were warm, but they were also uncomfortable and chaotic, with children crying and cinder dirt covering everything.

Some of the colonists stayed in Winnipeg, finding work for $35 a month, plus free room and board. After the remaining colonists arrived in Saskatoon, Bain wagons with oxen or horses were purchased, with milk cows tethered to some of the swaying vehicles for the final plod northwest to the new settlement. Many of the travellers had never driven a horse, let alone harnessed one to a plow or a wagon. As time passed, dissent grew as Lloyd urged colonists to get on the old, rocky trail, which was full of sloughs. Prized possessions that were too heavy were soon unloaded and left by the wayside. Women and children walked, plagued by mosquitoes.

PART OF HISTORY

Discontent with Barr came to a head by the time settlers reached North Battleford, near where Lloyd had been wounded 18 years earlier during the North-west Rebellion. At that point, Lloyd was asked to take over leadership of the colony, and the settlement area was eventually named Lloydminster in his honour.

My grandfather George Lowe was encouraged to come to the Lloydminster region by friends who had arrived earlier. Leaving his wife and two small daughters behind in Derbyshire, Chesterfield, England, Granddad and his brother John left Liverpool, England, on May 10, 1906, aboard the S.S. Victoria. They arrived in Quebec on May 18, 1906. Based on information my mother had given me, and some photographs from Granddad, I always believed they were part of the tail end of the Barr Colonists, but I was never quite sure.

Granddad and John worked their way from Winnipeg to Lloydminster by taking lumber jobs, bridging and gold dredging. John decided to return to England in 1906, while Granddad went on to Marwayne, Alta., a small community about 45 minutes from Lloydminster that had been settled in 1903.

When another gentleman failed to follow the necessary conditions laid out for land ownership, the government eventually cancelled the first application, and the land was made available. Granddad officially obtained his homestead entry on March 5, 1908, to NE1/4 26, Township 52, Range 3 west of

the 4th Meridian.

My gran, mom and aunt arrived in Canada on April 19, 1907. Their cross-country trip west was not as arduous, as there was now a rail line. During the winter, Granddad worked in the Edmonton area on the Clover Bar railway bridge, and later at the Daly and Marcus coal mines. That first winter, the family lived in a tent more or less in the centre of Edmonton. Granddad would travel back and forth to Marwayne to cut logs and stack them teepee-style to dry. Eventually, the dried logs were used to build the house and its furniture, and finally the family was able to live on their own land. Using his two oxen “Tom” and “Bill,” Granddad plowed and then cultivated the ground. Clearing the land and putting buildings up was part of the requirements for obtaining the homestead title. In 1918, the family moved to Clover Bar, Alta., east of Edmonton. By then, two sons had been added to the family. Granddad worked at the Marcus coal mine while Gran cooked meals for many of the men.

As it happened, in August 2016, I was chatting with a dear family friend, Margaret Chalmers, who was 90 years young at the time. The topic of the Barr Colonists came up, and Margaret told me her father and my granddad had talked about Granddad’s trip at the tail end of the Barr Colonists. Finally, after wondering for all these years, I knew for sure that Granddad was indeed a genuine Barr Colonist, a part of Canadian pioneer history.