Why did my ancestors ever choose to settle in this cold, cold, cold country?
The cold snap between Christmas and New Year’s got me wondering why my ancestors – why anybody’s ancestors – ever chose to settle in this cold, often dry, often hot, Godforsaken part of the planet.
Our ancestors came from all over the world to settle on what they thought was the uninhabited plains, uninhabited except by a few Indigenous people.
Why did they come? Was it because of their thirst for adventure? Was it the climb-the-mountain-becauseit’s-there syndrome. Was it need? Ot was it to escape something worse?
For the most part our ancestors came here to escape some sort of hardship or plight. And the almost-free homestead land was a huge attraction. Nothing attracts humans like the idea of something free. My great-grandparents, grandparents and family on my father’s side came to America first, settling close to the Oklahoma Panhandle near a place called Shattuck. Shattuck is as dry and hot, but not quite as cold as Saskatchewan. And it was in the worst part of the 1930s Dust Bowl during the Depression.
While my German-speaking family wasn’t particularly welcome in the Anglo-Saxon county, racial discrimination did not drive them to Canada.
Their choice was weather-driven. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother, my grandparents and grandmother’s family lived close together on farms near Shattuck, which is located in a weather belt called Tornado Alley.
The Hilda, Alberta community history book describes the main event driving them to the bitter cold and high winds of Saskatchewan.
It was a sultry summer day with thunder, lightning and threatening clouds — one of 45 such days every summer around Shattuck — when my grandfather and his wife came home late from gathering brush for firewood in the hills. They decided to visit their parents. My great-grandmother was setting dough for the next day’s baking. My great-grandfather was resting. (Hope my wife doesn’t read this.)
“Suddenly it seemed to them the board shanty in which they lived had lifted and settled again. Then before they realized what was happening the house lifted once more leaving them out in the dark storm and rain.” They hitched horses to the wagon, using lightning flashes to guide them to my great grand uncle’s only to discover that family huddling in the cellar. Their house too had flown away.
No wonder they moved north. Tornado Alley’s swathe can cover 80 miles width.
In 1910 they settled in the Hilda district. My grandfather settled in the fall. Realizing in spring he was on terribly sandy soil similar to Shattuck he moved to a better location.
Perhaps my family felt it had no choice. Cold is better than a tornado any day.
Just think of the lawsuits from those days if we had had a consumer affairs agency or a better business bureau? The complaints of getting sucked in by the offer of near-free land without warning of the hardships, the false advertising claims would have been legend.
Is it possible that Prairie people’s distrust of government stems from a gut reaction to massacceptance of near-free land for homesteaders and a fear of getting sucked in again?
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net