Day: March 1, 1997

For Saskatchewan the beginning of the 20th century was a time of optimism. The land was free and there was money to be made by anyone willing to work. Hundreds of thousands of settlers poured into the province and there seemed no bounds to the growth. Even the Palliser Triangle, the west’s most arid region, filled up with farmers. The elaborate celebrations in Regina on Sept. 4, 1905, inaugurating Saskatchewan as a province and attended by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, reflected the confidence of the era.

However, people quickly were confronted by reality. The pioneer experience on the prairies was incredibly difficult. There were success stories, but also many failures. Later, after WW I, the prairie economy experienced a serious recession. Drought in southwestern Saskatchewan between 1919 and 1922 resulted in abandoned farms and population decline in that region and served as a warning of what lay ahead.

Nevertheless, there was good reason for continued optimism. There was a record harvest in 1928. Prices were not high but were satisfactory. Mechanization was beginning to make life on farms easier. Tractors were replacing horses, and automobiles were ending the isolation that pioneer families had faced. A report issued by the Bank of Canada in 1937 noted that between 1925 and 1928 the average person in Saskatchewan had one of the highest net cash incomes in the world. Saskatchewan farmers, who a generation earlier had spent their first year on their prairie homesteads in sod huts, could now look at their expanded farms and two-storey frame houses with pride and a sense of accomplishment. They confidently prepared to pass this on to their sons and daughters.

Then disaster struck. Even before the Wall Street crash in October 1929 wheat prices were dropping. The prairie crop that year was small, and the disastrous drought began. In the time ahead, Canadians came to view Saskatchewan, not as a land of opportunity, but the darkest spot in a tragic depression that swept the country.

The major reason for the collapse of the Saskatchewan economy was the international depression and its effect on world trade. The province was almost entirely dependent upon wheat. Wheat commodity prices declined drastically in 1930 and 1931. An international financial crisis developed, and trade patterns were disrupted. The price of wheat fell to 35 cents per bushel in 1932, a price one economist later noted “had no parallel in its world counterpart throughout the preceding 400 years.”

The average price for wheat between 1930 and 1939 was only 60 cents per bushel. No Canadian industry suffered as much as agriculture in the 1930s, and none recovered as slowly. In the process the Saskatchewan economy was ruined.

The West was not only affected by low prices but was doubly cursed. The plains region experienced what can best be described as an environmental or ecological disaster caused by climate and the cultivation practices of the preceding generations. In Saskatchewan, unlike much of the rest of Canada, the Depression always has meant two things: Economic collapse and drought.

Stories of the Dirty Thirties in Saskatchewan begin with the weather. Drought conditions developed on the Great Plains in northern Texas and Oklahoma and swept northward across the 49th parallel. The huge North American Dust Bowl resulted. “Okies,” as John Steinbeck described in The Grapes of Wrath, left the land and headed for California. Temperatures reached great extremes in 1936: 45 C in North Dakota, 42 C at Brandon, Man., and during the third week of July over 40 C every day throughout the Palliser Triangle, an irregularly shaped area located roughly between Cartwright, Man., Lloydminster, Sask., Calgary and Cardston, Alta.

In Saskatchewan the heat reached a peak in 1937. On July 5 it was 43 C in the towns of Midale and Yellow Grass, 42 C in Regina and Moose Jaw and in nine smaller towns in the southern part of the province. The heat was accompanied by below average rainfall. Old Wives Lake, south of Moose Jaw, went dry, and high winds coated the area with alkali dust. Fife Lake, which had covered a township near the Montana border, also dried up, revealing tons of buffalo bones.

The high temperatures and low rainfall over several years caused a devastating drought. The worst year was 1937 when wheat production in the province averaged 2.5 bushels per acre. The average for the entire decade was only 10 bushels. In some places gardens failed completely and even potatoes had to be brought in from other areas. In the central and northern parts of the province the drought was not nearly as severe, but low agricultural prices meant that economic conditions were only slightly better. The south, meanwhile, was a prairie desert. One observer described a part of the area at the time: “The land was lifeless as ashes, and for miles there is scarcely a growing thing to be seen…. There did not appear to be one single field that will produce a bushel of grain or a load of fodder.”

The strongest and most remembered image of the Depression in Saskatchewan is the dust storms. They began in 1931. Parched soil that had been loosened and pulverized by years of plowing was blown off the land by hot, dry winds. Clouds of dust, black blizzards, moved across the province. Soil drifts built up covering fences, filling ditches and forming banks against farm buildings. On one day in January 1931, a month when Saskatchewan is accustomed to blowing snow, it was impossible to see across the street in Moose Jaw at 1 p.m. because of blowing dust.

The Depression and drought had tragic social consequences, and it is impossible to understand the impact without an appreciation of the suffering that occurred. In some areas the circumstances were especially desperate. The Canadian Red Cross was involved in the distribution of relief and its files contain many examples of human tragedy. Pierre Berton, in his book The Great Depression, 1929-1939, recounts several. The Regina representative of the Red Cross toured the hardest hit areas in 1936. He came across a family of nine children all dressed in gunny sacks. Later he encountered a family of 11 crammed into a one-room shack. The children used newspapers as mattresses and sheets, and slept in the same gunny-sack clothing they wore during the day.

But the one thing there was no shortage of in southern Saskatchewan was gophers. There were reports of gophers being stewed, canned, pickled, smoked and fried. Tommy Douglas, first elected to the House of Commons in 1935, described having supper with a family near Weyburn in 1933: “We had a supper of gopher stew. We had bread made from some frozen wheat that had been crushed with a grinder, and we had coffee made from roasted barley.”

Thousands abandoned their farms and attempted to begin new lives elsewhere. Many moved to unsettled land far to the north. Their trek northward and their experiences in an isolated and strange environment resulted in some of the most serious cases of deprivation. Standards of living often were as low as in the worst parts of the wheat belt. Sandy Nicholson, later a Saskatchewan member of Parliament, was a United Church minister in 1935 in an area into which many from the south moved. He made the following entries in his diary while visiting some of the families:

Thursday, March 28. They apologized for their food. They had no fruit, butter or potatoes.

Friday, March 29. They had a cup of tea and bread without butter before we went to bed.

Saturday, March 30. …had hot cakes for breakfast with syrup made from water and sugar…had a drink made from roasted wheat which he called Bennett Coffee… had dinner, three fried eggs for four people and some potatoes, tea, bread and corn syrup.

Perhaps it is understandable that a Saskatchewan mother would comment, as one did in 1933, that “I can only say, emphatically, that I do not want my children to be farmers.”

All of this indelibly marked the province and its people. Gone forever were the days when it was said that wheat was king and Saskatchewan the province of the future. Such sentiments must have been a distant and likely bitter memory to a 50-year-old farmer as he loaded his family’s few belongings on a wagon and headed north.

And so the Depression was a dividing line. It separated an earlier period of expansion and growth from a time of regional disparity when the West would not lead Canada into the future but look to other areas of the country for support. Never again would anyone believe that a prairie farm offered certain prosperity.

The psychological impact of the Depression is more difficult to assess. How many lives were ruined by the hardships of the 1930s? How were parents affected who were unable to provide adequately for their families, particularly when they had expected to be able to? Or what about the teenagers who were told that their high school education would be delayed only to learn that it would be cancelled forever? That was the reality of the situation in Saskatchewan during the ‘30s. Sometimes, though, it is pointed out that Saskatchewan people laughed at the conditions they faced back then. But what should be remembered is what Tommy Douglas, a great practitioner of Depression black humor, said about this: “They learned to laugh about some of their problems. There are times, you know, when there are feelings that lie too deep for tears, so they had to laugh to keep from crying.”

This, however, is not the end of the story. In some ways it is just the beginning. Faith in the future survived even during the worst of times. Where hope nearly was extinguished, it was revived. Saskatchewan recovered from the disaster. And through it all people showed an almost incomprehensible determination and spirit.

In 1934 two journalists toured the drought area. The articles they wrote were graphic accounts of desperate conditions. But they also reported that farmers maintained that there was nothing wrong with the land and said that “if we get enough rain next year we can grow 40 bushels per acre.” After visiting the worst drought district, they wrote: “The people living here, who ought to know, say that the land is still all right. It will grow crops if nature will only provide rain. They still believe a ‘comeback’ can be made if it will rain next year.”

Such stubborn confidence recalls the characters in the novels of Shellbrook, Sask., native Sinclair Ross, one of the few writers who realistically portrayed life on the prairies during the Depression. When faced with the extremes of summer droughts or winter blizzards, the people showed pride and determination and refused to accept defeat. The central character in one of Ross’s short stories refused to be forced off his land by the drought. In reply to his wife’s pleas to move away, he said: “You’ll see it come back. There’s good wheat in it yet…. We’ll have crops again…. Good crops–the land will come back…. The dry years won’t last forever.”

Margaret Laurence, the famous Canadian novelist, commented on this faith in the land in Ross’s writing: “Indeed the land sometimes assumes a character as harsh as that of the vengeful God who sorely tried Job and the farmers who stay on, year after year, seeing their crops spoiled and themselves becoming old in youth, yet still maintaining their obsessive faith in the land, are reminiscent of Job himself. ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.’”

Perhaps it is true that such faith was blind and obsessive and such optimism no more than wishful dreams in face of futility. However, without it the wheat economy would not have survived, and there would have been no recovery.

It is ironic that eventually the 1930s came to be considered the beginning of a great success story for Saskatchewan. Ordinary men and women, against incredible odds, were not conquered by the environment and won the fight against the desert. Solutions were found to the problems that had destroyed the wheat country. New farming methods, improved types of farm machinery, drought resistant grasses, dams, dugouts, irrigation–all were a part of a massive rehabilitation program. Farmers came by the hundreds to meetings to discuss with crop scientists and agricultural engineers how their land could be saved and restored. If one image of the Depression is a dust storm, an equally important one is a gathering of farmers at a discer demonstration. The first is a picture of despair, while the second is one of hope and optimism. On one occasion research officers from an agricultural experimental station met with farmers in a crowded one-room school north of Swift Current. Before the meeting began, a farmer rose and spoke: “We aren’t here today for social talk and we didn’t come here just to visit with you. We’re here to learn how to control soil drifting. We’ve got a problem, and we want you to tell us how to fix it. If you can’t do that, tell us right now and we’ll go home. But if you’ve got any answers for us, if you can tell us anything that will help, we will stay with you till the cows come home.”

Those weren’t the words of a defeated man.

The Depression and drought had long-term economic, social and political effects, and great changes came to the province. However, the Saskatchewan of 1905 was not totally destroyed. The fundamental faith in wheat and the land remained. That faith was confirmed when the rains returned, and record amounts of wheat were produced in the period following WW II. Few, if any, came to the conclusion that it had been a mistake to settle the West and that the plains should be allowed to revert to the weed-covered waste land and short grass range that they had once been.

Today some environmentalists question the wisdom of people having come to the great semi-arid expanse of the West to “bust and break” the land with plows and replace the sturdy grasses with a crop not naturally suited to the region. They point to the dust storms of the ‘30s and argue that modern scientific agriculture has only postponed the inevitable and eventually will cause another ecological disaster, perhaps slightly different in form. The generation that survived the drought in Saskatchewan would disagree. And, to this point at least, so would their children and grandchildren who continue to grow wheat on the plains. The faith in the land remains.

Pierre Camu, 73, of Ottawa, had no problem deciding what to buy his two youngest grandchildren last Christmas. The gifts were personal and affordable; for each he donated $36 towards building a new national dream known as the Trans Canada Trail. In return, both grandchildren will have their names permanently inscribed in a pavilion located somewhere along the trail because each $36 donation builds one metre of trail.

Earlier, Camu donated a total of $252 for his other seven grandchildren. And so together, Camu’s nine grandchildren, who live in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, will have their names attached to nine metres of a 15,000-kilometre trail that will wind its way through every province and territory in Canada.

By the time the Trans Canada Trail is officially opened on July 1, 2000, many thousands of people will have their names associated with the project. Camu, one of its pioneers, expects that in three years the trail will be the longest of its kind in the world, stretching from the Beaufort Sea to the U.S. border and from Vancouver Island to the east coast of Newfoundland.

The project, which is being managed by a non-profit organization called the Trans Canada Trail Foundation, is seen by many as one of the most ambitious endeavors in modern Canadian history. The foundation has raised more than $2 million since its public launch in 1994, and today has close to 60,000 donors and supporters across the country.

Camu says the trail will accommodate five core activities, namely hiking, cycling, horseback riding, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling where possible. Estimates are that the trail will take 750 days to hike, 500 days to ride on horseback and 300 days to cycle. This spring organizers hope to establish an important link when they declare open the Trans Canada Trail’s first interprovincial gateway at St-Jacques, N.B. A huge sign on the gate will welcome trail users into each province.

As of January, approximately 800 kilometres of trail were in place, including Galloping Goose Trail in Victoria; the trail from Kildonan Park in Winnipeg to The Forks–the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers; Caledon Trailway in Caledon, Ont.; the Guysborough Trail in Guysborough, N.S.; Confederation Trail on Prince Edward Island and the Newfoundland Trailway.

When the first Trans Canada Trail pavilion opened last year in Caledon East, northwest of Toronto, donors could search out their names among the 4,000 etched into acrylic panels. Opening ceremonies included an outdoor breakfast, hay wagon rides and a visit from a pilot who called himself the Red Baron. Using a WW I replica of Baron Manfred von Richthofen’s aircraft, the pilot performed a low fly-past before he was chased off by two antique Royal Flying Corps machines.

Enthusiasts compare the Trans Canada Trail with the Canadian Pacific Railway or Trans-Canada Highway. It took a national dream to get the trail started and Camu, along with 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics organizer Bill Pratt, is credited with having played a significant role.

Camu, who has served as president of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and Canadian Geographic, is convinced rural serenity, wilderness and nature’s chorus will contrast with urban bustle and noise. In 1992, Camu was a consultant for the Canada 125 Corporation, a national organization formed to celebrate Canada’s 125th year in Confederation. While he was in charge of programs, Pratt was administrator. “At the end it seemed to us everything was fading away. But one idea gained grassroots support.”

Camu and Pratt received $500,000 from the federal government to get the project started. The idea to focus on five main outdoor uses for the trail was adopted, and Pratt–the project’s first executive director–used his experience as a Calgary businessman to push its appeal. Organizers say the trail will mean different things to different people, but they say it will–among other things–help preserve and protect the environment, promote physical fitness, provide safe areas for recreational activity and educate people by bringing them closer to nature.

Executive director John Bellini says: “Canadians want it and Canada needs it.” Bellini’s office space in Montreal was donated by Canada Trust, and corporate sponsors include Canada Trust, Chrysler Canada, sports television networks TSN and its French language counterpart RDS, Canadian Airlines International and Maclean’s and Canadian Geographic magazines.

The idea of many Canadians working together to fulfil a common vision–one they feel will result in a physical symbol of Canadian unity–appeals to supporters.

In Gander, Nfld., Terry Morrison, the executive director of the Newfoundland Trailway Council, says work is well under way on several sections of the former Canadian National railbed in the province. He says the railway closed down in 1988 and since then the Trailway Council has been developing a multi-purpose trail. When he was interviewed last January, Morrison was hopeful that a significant portion of the trail would be completed in time for this year’s 500th anniversary of John Cabot’s voyage of discovery. He says the trail will eventually cover 900 kilometres between St. John’s in the east and Port aux Basques in the west. He believes it will benefit the province in a number of ways and looks forward to it becoming an important part of the Trans Canada Trail. “It’s a unique opportunity for us to preserve and protect a valuable part of our heritage, while at the same time encouraging a healthier lifestyle in terms of the recreational choices available to people. There is also tremendous potential for new business opportunities, particularly once it’s tied into the national network.”

In Halifax, Nova Scotia representative Jack Carruthers was pleased to hear that Minister of Sport and Recreation Jay Abbass bought a metre of trail and then challenged other members of the Legislative Assembly to buy in as well. Carruthers says more than half the trail in Nova Scotia is complete. It begins at North Sydney, passes Baddeck and deserted historic settlements of Cape Breton Island’s Scottish crofters, crosses Canso Causeway and follows abandoned railways through Nova Scotia to New Brunswick.

Carruthers says a good trail boosts business and makes users bright and bushy. On the other hand in Guysborough it drew attention to unemployment when approximately 70 people applied for a six-month contract position to co-ordinate the building of the trail through there.

Prince Edward Island’s Confederation Trail will be lengthened from 225 to 350 kilometres. The route is an abandoned Canadian National Railways line between Elmira and Tignish owned by the province. Between Kensington and Charlottetown the trail will divert to Borden so travellers can connect with the new bridge to the mainland. However, there is no bicycle path on the long bridge road that crosses the Northumberland Strait to Cape Tormentine, N.B. “That was an unfortunate arrangement when the bridge was built. We hope vans will take cyclists and bicycles across,” says trail representative Robert Boyer.

In New Brunswick, segments from Cape Tormentine to Shediac, then inland to Moncton, down to Saint John and north to Fredericton will be linked to Grand Falls, Edmundston and St-Jacques. Safety is a vital consideration and the New Brunswick Trails Council suggests a volunteer trail safety patrol it developed with the RCMP may serve as a model for other areas of the country.

“The most important thing,” says Richard Senecal, secretary of Conseil québécois du sentier transcanadien, “is for trail officials to work with people in the regions who will decide the route.” Le Petit Temis trail stretches for approximately 130 kilometres from Rivière-du-Loup on the St. Lawrence River to Dégilis in eastern Quebec. Trails leading to Quebec City and Montreal may be established on both sides of the St. Lawrence because, says Senecal, the “more developed south side is better for cycling and the wilder north better for hiking.”

Further west the Trans Canada Trail passes through the well-established trails in Gatineau Park, north of Hull. Senecal says middle regions of the province will be linked east and west to complete the long trail through the province. He concludes: “In Quebec there are different understandings when you mention Trans Canada Trail. We don’t intend to state some political message on Canadian unity. We believe Quebecers are satisfied with the concept and want to contribute.”

An Ontario trail should make its outdoors accessible as never before. Trail representative Bill Bowick of Nepean says acquiring abandoned railway corridors is a challenge when it comes to linking trails in the south. Problems further north are different. “For instance fire safety is a greater issue in the north,” he says. “And though snowmobilers cross lakes hikers go around them.”

He says outdoor groups in North Bay and Sudbury and a rails-to-trails coalition in the southeast are examples of the grassroots commitment the Trans Canada Trail needs. These volunteers work alongside regional planners, tourism officials and trail builders. It’s believed that this kind of consultation should provide not only a trail but access to stores, toilets, bed and breakfast and other services. A well-used trail is expected to encourage bicycle repair and food shops, camping and tourism.

Bowick, an engineer, took a week off work to meet trail associates in Ontario. He covered the 1,500 kilometres between Ottawa and Thunder Bay before having to return home.

Naturalists, equestrians, cyclists, scouts, girl guides and members of trail associations make up volunteers within the Manitoba Recreational Trail Association. “We are building local trails at local levels,” stresses Fred Whitehouse of Winnipeg. He says the South Whiteshell Trail Association is constructing a multi-purpose trail in the provincial park area. He points out that Oregon Trail users have to book a year in advance. “I think the trail is an idea whose time has come–it should become part of Canada’s tourism infrastructure.”

Norm Van Tassel, president of the Manitoba branch of the Korea War Veterans Association of Canada, expects the association will raise a Korean war memorial on the trail. He noted 34 of the 516 Canadians killed in the Korean War were from Manitoba. They served mainly in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and the Royal Canadian Regiment. Van Tassel expects the memorial to be unveiled when the association convenes in Winnipeg in September 1998. A member of St. James Branch in Winnipeg, he adds: “Here is an opportunity for Legion branches near the trail to buy space for suitable reminders to young people of what veterans achieved.”

In Saskatchewan, a provincial parks and recreation association has formed a trail council. “Our council recognized the role communities have to play in getting the project off the ground,” says trail representative Garry Michael in Regina.

Saskatchewan routes may take in Duck Mountain, Douglas and Cypress Hills provincial parks as well as Regina. In Meota, north of Battleford, a story on the trail in the newspaper sparked interest. “After that article my phone started ringing off the hook,” recalls local chairman Bob Collier. “History groups, recreation associations, bed and breakfast owners and local businesses joined in.”

The trail will arrive in Alberta through the Cypress Hills before heading for Medicine Hat, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Drumheller and Calgary. In the foothills of the Rockies it will split west and north. Trail representative Betty Anne Graves hopes the trail will be used appropriately. “That’s to say, everything from horses to snowmobiles won’t be manageable near cities and mountains alike. It’s really recreational, not a wilderness trail.”

The northern route will take travellers past Red Deer and Edmonton and through Fort McMurray on the Athabasca River, Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca and Fort Smith on the 60th parallel. Adventurous travellers can then take the Yukon Territory route to the Arctic or rest in the Northwest Territories capital of Yellowknife.

Don Jekue, publisher of the Slave River Journal in Fort Smith, believes northern people are keen to get their parts of the trail completed over historic water and overland paths. Northbound travellers will go by the Canol Road pipeline route to Norman Wells. This WW II attempt to take oil to Alaska for the war effort leaves a legacy for hikers.

Yukon trail representative Ross McLachlan says communities and land administrators will determine a route along Dawson Trail, Chilkoo Trail and First Nations trading ways. He says Whitehorse, Dawson City and Watson Lake are committed to the project. The trail will re-enter the Northwest Territories along the Dempster Highway from Dawson City. It will reach Inuvik and end at Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea.

In Yellowknife, Northwest Territories trail representative Jim Connor believes the northern route can offer hiking, canoeing, dog sledding, snowmobiling and skiing. “But it’s challenging up here,” warns the Yellowknife airport desk ticket officer. “I don’t know if we’ll succeed in having it all ready for 2000, but we’ll try.”

British Columbia trail representative Bill Archibald of Maple Ridge says things came together when the trail foundation adopted the Kettle Valley railway grade from Grand Forks in the West Kootenays to Brookmere, near Hope. The provincial government had taken years to acquire all of the abandoned railway grade and organizers say it will form the backbone of the Trans Canada Trail in the province. The trail will run from Calgary across the Kootenay River to rustic Invermere, sweeping across southern British Columbia town by town westward to Vancouver and by ferry to Vancouver Island.

Archibald says British Columbia trail donors contributed $30,000 of the $460,000 needed to reconstruct the historic Selkirk Trestle in Victoria. The trestle once carried rail traffic from upper Vancouver Island into downtown Victoria. Today it gives hikers a breathtaking view and opens to a 70-kilometre trail to Nanaimo. Trails BC president John Appleby states: “This (trestle) project is probably the best use of donor funds because we participated with three levels of government and a corporate donor.”

A Vancouver Island trail group wants to locate the trail’s western terminus pavilion near Juan de Fuca Strait. On the other hand Archibald awaits the day people can look inland from the Pacific and say: “If I keep walking on that trail I could go right across Canada, one foot in front of the other, to Newfoundland.”

Financial contributions to the Trans Canada Trail are tax deductible. For more information, contact:

Trans Canada Trail Foundation, 6104 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC H4A 1Y3, Tel: 1-800-465-3636, Fax: 1-514-485-4541