Fieldtrip to Canada July and August - Part III

Our fieldwork focused specifically on three townships in Manitoba. Those were chosen as they have a majority of immigrants of one ethnicity but also include people from different background within the township and on its edges.

These townships are:
Tp6-R14-1W  north of Baldur, which was settled largely by people from Iceland and Ontario
Tp4-R17-1W south of Ninette, which was settled largely by people from Scotland and Ontario
Tp18-R3-1E south of Gimli, which as settled largely by people from Ukraine as well as some Icelanders.

During our visit to the Municipal Archives of Manitoba we copied all the homestead files relevant to these townships. The homestead files are Department of the Interior files which document the administration of Dominion lands made available for settlement, through homestead entry, sale, grant and pre-emption. The files include applications, inspectors' reports, and correspondence and sometimes naturalization and citizenship documents.

John Nicholson's Homestead Inspector's Report

During the last week of our stay in Manitoba we visited all the townships, inspected the homesteads and photographed any historic buildings or ruins we came across. Below is an example of the buildings we documented:

Township 6-14-1W - Sigurdur Christopherson's house NW-10-6-14

S. Christopherson's house newly built in 1896

Township 4-17-1W - An old frame house & the Nicholson's Homestead

 

Township 18-3E-1W Mykola Myketa's homestead SE 35-18-3

Fieldtrip to Canada in July and August -Part II

During our research trip we visited the University of Manitoba Archives in the Elizabeth Dafoe Library in Winnipeg. The archives hold the fonds of Michael Ewanchuk who was a prolific writer on the Ukrainian communities in Manitoba. 

The fonds include annotated township maps, interviews with pioneers, photographs and the manuscripts of Ewanchuk's numerous publications.

Included in the various papers is a letter written by the Icelandic-Canadian author W.D. Valgardson (b. 7 May 1939) in which he recalls growing up in the Gimli area among Icelandic and Ukrainian families. It is noteworthy that the things that come into Valgardson's mind as he recalls his childhood are differences in material culture between the Icelandic families and the Ukrainians; fences, barns, foodstuffs and the garden produce. The distinction between things Ukrainian and things of other origins also suggests that even if there was interaction between families of different ethnicities the ethnic labels still applied and clearly separated Ukrainian farms from Icelandic farms.

Ukrainian women picking turnips c. 1910. Archives of Mantioba,
Sisler Collection 193 N11654

Ukrainian women picking cabbages c. 1916. Archives of Manitoba,
Sisler Collection 190 N9603

"Funny, the things one takes for granted as a kid but which, later in life, one looks back on with amazement. Like growing up with people called Solarchuk, Keller, Daedash, Yurechuk. ... I cannot imagine what my life would have been without Ukrainians. It is not the big things but little things. Daily things. Peroghis. Holobchi. Poppy seed cake. Borscht. Fields with fences made of stone, all picked by hand. Camp Morton. Barns built of log rounds. Greek Orthodox crosses. Gardens bursting with with onions, potatoes, carrots, beets, raspberies [sic], sandcherries. Ukrainians, I once said, could grow a garden on an asphalt parking lot. Flowers. The kalamayka. Baseball at Meleb. Sports day at Frazerwood. Cordwood brought in from the farm being piled in our backyard. The Ukrainian language flowing around me in my grandmother's kitchen. The Cryllic alphabet. But most of all, it was the people I will never forget. Hard working, passionate, proud, loyal. Good people to grow up with. Good people for friends. Good people to have in Canada." (UofM Archives, Ewanchuk fonds, MSS77_A04-129 Box 27).

Fieldtrip to Canada in July and August - Part I

This summer we carried out archival research and fieldwork in Canada. I spent the first week in Calgary at the Glenbow Museum Archives. The archives are fairly small but hold a a large amount of documents relating to the history of the settlement of the West including the fonds of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The archivist there were very helpful and the week's work promises to yield some interesting information on the Clandonald Colony in northern Alberta. Below are a few anecdotes to give you an idea of the archival material collected. 

The Clandonald settlers came from the western isles of Scotland, Ireland and England under the leadership of Father Andrew MacDonnell. They settled in townships 51-54 in ranges 5-7 West of the 4th Meridian north of the town of Vermillion. 

Before the Clandonald settlers took homesteads in the area the township that came to be known as Clandonald was called Wellsdale. Wellsdale was largely settled by Anglicans who protested the name change. It went through despite these protests and perhaps as a sign of their intention to stay in the area the Anglicans moved their church from the countryside onto the new townsite of Clandonald. This reminds us that the township was not homogenous, neither ethnically nor in terms of religion, even though it was established specifically to be home to Catholic immigrants from the British Isles.

Horses moving Wellsday anglican church in 1927, Alberta. Glenbow Archives, NA-4775-7

The Clandonald settlers were sponsored by the Scottish Immigrant Aid Society who provided them with a ´starting kit´ upon their arrival. This included a pre-fabricated house and barn built by the Stavelock Lumber Company in Edmonton. They were also provided with livestock, machinery and tools. These were given to each settler under  chattel agreements, which were to be paid back with interest at the rate of five percent per annum.  

Prefabricated home of Murdock McKinnon, Clandonals settler, 1926. Glenbow Archives, NA-331-10

Murdo McKinnon´s chattel agreement with the Scottish Immigration Aid Society. Glenbow Archives, M-2269 1878

The Glenbow archives also hold land examination files from the C.P.R where from the first half of the 20th century. These include lands that were settled by Clandonald settlers, such as the northern half of section 3 township 53 range 5, west of the 4th Meridian (N 3-53-5 W4). The land was inspected in October 1943 (see below). In that year it still had the Stavelock buildings on it. The house was described as being in fair condition while the barn had "salvage value only".

Examination of N 3-53-5 W4, Glenbow Archives

In the coming months these data, along with other material collected this summer, will be analysed and archived in the project archive and finally written up in reports and articles. 

 

The Community Picnic

(Credit: Come into our Heritage. R. M. of Argyle 1882-1982, p. 20)

The first picnic in the Grund and Bru district in the Municipality of Argyle took place in 1884 at Jones's Lake. A short account of the events of that day was printed in a special historical edition of The Baldur Gazette on March 14, 1940:

"Baldwin Benedicktson entertained at stilts Sigurjon Snydal shone in the ox race, and talk about swinging the ladies with their hoop skirts and peak-a-boo hats under the oak trees; Albert and George Cramer shone there, as well as Hossy and Joe Josephson. Albert Cramer, the popular ladies' man, came to this picnic in a brand new wagon. Bjorn Anderson remembers escorting this 'water-loo' home hand in hand along the prairie road picking and saying it with flowers. Other sports were baseball, a club had been formed in the Hecla School and bicycle riding was popular. The first bicycle road race was won by Siggi Sigmars" (Baldur Gazette, March 14 1940, p. 7)

Most of the characters named in this account are Icelandic apart from the Cramers. The Cramer family originally came from Ireland and settled in Pennsylvania. From there one son, George Cramer, moved to Ontario where he married Mary Ann Raycroft. In 1880 whole family, which included 10 children, moved to the Argyle District. Albert (the ladies' man) and George were two of the eldest sons. 

A Picnic in the Country. Provincial Archives of Manitoba
New Iceland Collection 276. N11280.

W.J. Sisler wrote about various events in the 'typical' lives of the early pioneers and between his accounts on harvesting, haying and building bees, are his thoughts on the community picnic:

" In Manitoba in fact in all three western provinces it [the community picnic] was the meeting place for all sections of the community. The settler who had crossed the Atlantic did not at all times meet his neighbors from Eastern Canada on a basis of equality and unity. In one section that I knew it was English vs. E. Canadian in another Orange vs. R. Catholic., Lutheran vs. Baptist. 

[...] 

The crowd began to gather about 10:30. There were swings and sports to entertain the children, a baseball game or tournament, races, athletic contests, jumping, vaulting, shot put etc. In some cases there was a program of music, organ, violin, accordion or even a brass band.  At Squirrel Creek the usual thing was to have amusements for the children in the morning, general visiting of neighbors from adjoining settlements, a dinner spread out on long tables, free for all, a program of music and songs, sometimes speeches, then athletic sports and games, closing about six o’clock to give time for all to get home and do the chores before dark.

It was the great equalizer of all sections in the community. I have heard a story about a picnic at Souris Man. It was sponsored by the Orangemen and a R.C. priest who had newly arrived in the settlement was invited to give the main address. At some of these affairs top notch athletes were seen in action. 

[...] 

The great purpose of the Manitoba Picnic was to get friends and neighbors within a radius of 10 miles or more [together]. A 1/4 or 1/2  section of vacant land mostly prairie with some poplar bluff afforded an ideal site for such an event provided the weather. A slight shower of rain never dampened their enthusiasm but a heavy downpour occasionally did. The community picnic 50 years after the pioneer stage of Manitoba settlement has been replaced by the bigger events in the larger towns. In 1950 a trip of 100 miles is as easily as was one of 5 or 1 in the early days. " (Provincial Archives of Mantioba. MG14 C28 Box 10, Ledgerbook, p. 184-186)

Pioneer Women

Icelandic pioneer woman spinning. (Provincial Archives of Manitoba, New Iceland Collection 507, N11492)

W.J. Sisler (see post below) interviewed Kari Byron from Lundar in the winter of 1944

"My mother raised ten children and we hadn't much money. We had a flock of sheep - 50 to 75. The wool was nearly all used in the home. She washed, carded, spun and knitted that wool into mittens, socks and underwear for the whole family. She made shoes and moccasins from the hides of the sheep and cattle. She did this for several years. One year she knitted five heavy sweaters for winter wear.
Butter. She made hundreds of pounds during the year, most of it in spring and summer. The milk was put in shallow pans - the cream skimmed off then churned by hand. It was salted and packed into tubs and kept till fall. In the fall it was taken out, worked into pound prints. It was taken to Winnipeg and exchanged for tea, coffee, sugar and other goods we could not produce ourselves. We always had plenty of meat, fish, venison and if we were short of these we could snare all the rabbits we wanted [...]
How my mother ever did bring up a family of ten, and do all the work herself except milking cows. When we were away making hay she sometimes did milk the cows too. She would take all summer to make 1500 pounds of butter. Now they make as much in the creamery in an hour.
I'm telling you all this as a tribute to my mother. In any story of the early days the work of women such as she should be recorded. They kept the home fires burning while the men were in the fields, woods, on the trail or fishing out on the Lake. Younger generations should know and appreciate what they did"

All Canadians?

W.J. Sisler traveled around the Interlake area of Manitoba on various occasions in the first half of the 20th Century. He took several photographs, which make up the Sisler Collection at the Provincial Archives of Manitoba and wrote a significant amount about his trips and observations about the country and its pioneers.

In 1946 he interviewed some of the pioneers and Sigurdur Stefansson from Hnausa, on the west coast of Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba recounted this story:

"My father taught me to read in his own language, to sing the Icelandic songs and I learned from him the old Icelandic dances. Though I fought with the Canadians in the war of 1914 and was wounded three times I still think of myself as belonging to Iceland. I love the sagas, songs and dances of the little country. Though I fought three years for Canada I do not love it as I do the country where my father was born. I hope to go some day to the country where the sagas, songs and dances I learned in my youth are known. 

Once in London during the war I was in a pub with two companions. One of these was an eastern Canadian and the other was English born but had lived for some years in Canada. We met a group of English soldiers on leave. They began to poke fun at Canadians telling us we were no good for fighting men until the English showed us how. Then our English-born companion tore into one of them, we jumped into the other two and gave them enough so that they stopped making fun of us and they left the pub. Our own little Englishman was right with us. We three were all Canadian then. When I got back home I still felt that I belonged to to the country of the Icelandic songs and sagas. I want to go there some day to see it." (Provincial Archives of Mantioba. MG14 C28 File 8b).

Sisler taught the children of immigrants in North Winnipeg for years and was very interested in the idea and the processes by which  people of different backgrounds could become Canadians. Some of his notes bare witness to this as well as some of his newspaper clippings - such as the photograph below of the Strathcona School Football team, which is a striking illustration of the work of Empire as boys from various background work together as a successful team.

Conference in Canada

In January me and Jeff attended the Society of Historical Archaeologists' conference in Quebec city in Canada. We gave a paper at the conference titled "European Cultural Landscapes in Manitoba - An Interethnic Perspective". The presentation was apart of a session titled “New Perspectives on Inequity: European and Indigenous Voices in the North American Landscape” which was organized by Giovanna Vitelli and Lisa Rankin.The paper was well received and discussions with other scholars helped us sharpen some of our developing ideas and thoughts. 

These maps were made for the presentation. They show the countries settlers in these two areas on the praire came from. The one on the left shows how the settlers from Iceland clustered in the Argyle settlement and the one one the right shows clusters of settlers from the Hebrides. On both maps settlers from Ontario are represented in red and settlers from England in blue.