Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada No passport

makes you wonder how on the south border they flood in, get to vote in California, go to school free, and get to skate and at the north border you have to be careful. Never seen an illegal Canadian kill a 20 year old girl in Iowa

Jim;
Good evening to you sir, I hope that other than staying out of some sort of Federal detention holding that you and yours had a good day.

Did you find the chaff saver device you were making the journey for?

Inquiring minds and all that Jim.

When you showed it last year I thought it was a pretty cool idea, especially in the dry land farming areas you're in.

Thanks in advance and all the best to you and your fine family Jim.

Dwayne

Yes sir!

Fellow from Golden Prairie had a factory made Whole Buncher.

Kind of a funny story, but my wife posted a picture of a whole buncher on Kijiji as a wanted to buy.

The owners brother remembered seeing one in the hedge row and told him to give us a call.

This internet thing is okay!


Had fun visiting with him and another producer from Consul.

It was a good trip. Always enjoy listening to Canadian talk radio.

Hope you are getting along okay in smokey BC Dwayne.

Jim;
Thanks for the update, I appreciate it.

My late father was born in a sod house not that far from Golden Prairie in 1920 - they were closer to Fox Valley, but it's only another 5 or 10 miles up the road from there.

Small planet sometimes with this internet thing indeed!

Have a good Friday Jim and thanks again.

Dwayne

Ha! I saw the signs for Fox Valley.


Sure looked like it could have been some tough winter country in that area.


Sod huts were common around here too.


Winters in a sod hut............hard to imagine!

We went to Niagara in 2014, and like a dumbass, left the passports at home. Asked before we crossed, on the US side. Guy said if you have a passport, it is in the system and we can look you up, just have ID when you come south. The Canadians could have cared less. Headed south, showed ID, took about 2 minutes for them to look us up and welcome us home.

Jim;
Thanks for the reply and information, I appreciate it.

Sometime when we swing back out that way I need to get off Highway 1 and see the area for myself as I can't recall ever doing so.

Before Dad was born in '20, a prairie fire came through and Grandpa plowed around the farmyard with a mold board plow I think it's called. It flipped the sod over into big slabs anyway Jim and they put my Uncle Frank who was a baby at the time underneath one of the furrows to protect him from the fire.

I can't begin to fathom how cold a soddy would be in an eastern Saskatchewan winter.

A whole lot of what my immediate ancestors went through just staggers my imagination and is humbling to say the least. Tough doesn't begin to describe the conditions or them for that matter either, you know?

I know you know Jim, being from where you are and doing what you do.

Thanks again Jim and I hope that chaff saver works well and keeps the cattle happy and fed this winter too.

Dwayne

Dwayne and Jim.....

Looking at what your ancestors did to live and survive in winters.. I'd really wager to say, we think it was a hell of a lot tougher, than they probably did...

we have a point of reference of all of these comforts we have to compare to... they didn't... in their world it was just how it was for them, and everyone else.

My grandparents grew up in lesser intimidating winter environments in the States of West Virginia and Tennessee.....my grandmother in Tennessee ( who was born in 1900) told me about her older boys, (my uncles), coming home after spending the night sleeping in the barn with some boys up the road... this was during the depression....Bill, Carl, and Charles were coming down the dirt road barefooted sliding on the ice as they ran down the road.... they had had an ice storm the night before, then followed by 6 inches of snow.
The boys pretty went barefooted year around.. like everyone did in those days. Bill and Charles did not survive WW 2.. Bill went down on a ship east of Japan in 1945... and Charles was killed in Tunisia in 1943.

My grandmother in West Virginia...she was born in 1911.. Her family was well off, compared to most local families.. with her dad owning 5 or 6 different farms.. had people work for him farming them etc. They got snow and ice down in the mountains in Southern WVa during those days. My grandmother told me that growing up, she wore shoes to school two days during her education time... from First Grade to Graduating High School.

She wore a pair the first day of class in first grade, and all the other kids made fun of her, because their families didn't have enough money to buy the kids shoes.. so they all went barefooted... year round...She refused to wear shoes from then on to school....The other time she worn shoes was when she graduated High School, at the request of her father. no one really felt put out, because pretty much everyone else was in the same boat.....

But that is a good reason that people in those days were certainly a whole hell of a lot hardier than people in our world nowadays...

Takin' this off an a tangent, the "soddies", may not have been the most in the way of style.

Thanks for the history John.

The land we are buying at present has several "dug outs" on it. With no trees and no real sod to speak of often people had to just dig a cave.

This land was homesteaded by the first White family in the area. The first White baby was born to them.


Most of the dug outs were shored up by rock....of which we have plenty!


Later on the rail road would bring up lumber and things got a lot better.

You could homestead up here right up until the first world war. As evidenced by my great grand father's homestead in 1914....where dad lives today.



Our river valley had no trees on it and no year round flow.


Once that was fixed...thanks to Canada and the St. Mary's diversion......the trees came and the river flowed year round.

Really led to the population expansion...and towns.




There was timber and a few mills in the hills to the south, but that came a bit later.



It must have been something else to be the first ones out here!

Richard, where is that sod house?

That is an internet image Jim. Bing shows some in Saskatchewan.

No help from me here in crossing the ^ artificial line since it’s been awhile since I fished for walleyes in the coffee-stained waters of northern Ontario, but I do enjoy the banter of Wab-, Jim, and BC30cal, and others too.

I think I’m a very tough guy...if I can get clean/shower every night and sleep well. Many times I have imagined life on the frontier, north or south, and how tough the daily water, shelter, and food requirements must have been, summer or winter.

Those soddies must have housed and produced some tough folks and most likely driven some over the edge.

As far as the sod houses go, I have understood they are warm, and cool. Not living in luxury by any means, but safe from prairie fires.

Back then, most country dwellings were crude.

The country north of me...all the way to the medicine line...is dotted with much BLM ground.


Homesteads that did not get proved up on.


They would find the poor homesteaders dead the next spring once in a while....the lucky ones went back east.


Its tough country, North Blaine.

A lack of firewood?

I guess so. You would burn buffalo schit or cow schit.

Lots of soft brown coal near the surface too.

Most times winter just got too long and you were too far away from anyone or anything.

A lot of disease back then as well. A long list.

Yeah!

A sore tooth was very often deadly.