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Ways of Life in Canada Images Collection

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Ways of Life in Canada Images 1

#1 Main Street, 1884.

Here is a view of the west side of Main Street looking south from William Street. Winnipeg was beginning to look like a "modern" city. In this photograph, one can see that substantial three-storey brick buildings are rising among the simpler wooden structures of the frontier community. The streets are still not paved but elegant ladies with parasols window-shop along the raised wooden sidewalks. The tracks for horse-drawn street cars are laid on the dirt street. Specialized shops selling musical instruments, sewing machines, stationery, and millinery testify to the growing sophistication of the community.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 2

#2 Tenement Houses, 1909.

This photograph of Grove Street, which was situated in the North End of the city, shows a tenement house of the kind that sprang up in Winnipeg in the years after 1900. Winnipeg's Health Officer commented in 1912 that these tenements were "badly constructed, faultily designed, inadequately ventilated, poorly lighted, and badly kept". Yet despite a plentiful supply of land, the technical capacity to build better units, and the efforts of the Winnipeg Health Officer, the city's developers continued to build structures such as these.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 3

#3 Impermanence.

Prairie society is characterized by movement. After Canada annexed the land in 1870, the West was a world of the uprooted as immigrants came from around the globe to better their circumstances in a new land. Many of these novice homesteaders spent only a few years in farming, some because of climatic or soil problems, others because they simply did not like farm life or had never intended to do more than raise a stake for another career. Even for those who prospered on a family farm, the pull of the town, which by the 1920s might be only a brief automobile ride from the fields, often led to the establishment of a permanent house within the town limits. From the earliest days there was never enough room or promise on the farm for all the children of the pioneer generation and, as the demand for farm labour decreased, more young folk headed to the big cities of the "East" (Winnipeg and Toronto) or the "West" (Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver). The establishment of huge farming operations left abandoned farms in its wake, farms like the one in this photograph taken near Scotfield, Alberta in 1928. This is not to suggest that the land was uncultivated but rather that three or four farms of average size in 1900 would make a comfortable economic unit in 1960. A similar process affected the small towns. As the economy and social services were centralized, the towns' reasons for existing were taken away.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 4

#4 The Belgians.

French-speaking Belgians were among the European immigrants who settled in Western Canada after 1890. By 1921, there were over 5,000 people of Belgian origin in Manitoba, almost 3,500 in Saskatchewan, and some 2,600 in Alberta although the Census does not distinguish between Flemish and Walloon. Many of these undoubtedly immigrated during or immediately after World War I, although both the Canadian and Belgian governments agreed that the war-ravaged country needed all its human resources for reconstruction purposes. In Manitoba, the Belgians settled around Bruxelles, St. Alphonse, and Swan Lake in the rural area, and in what was known as "Belgian town" in St. Boniface. Here they built their own church and started a popular Belgian Club. As a group, they were mostly involved in market gardening, public works, and the construction industry. This 5-horse team pulls a 1900 version of a road grader manned by an unidentified crew of Belgians.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 5

#5 La Fanfare ("Brass band") du Cercle La Vérendrye.

This group photograph of the Cercle La Vérendrye band shows one of the many musical groups which sprang up in the French-speaking communities of Manitoba. The first brass band had been organized before 1870, and was succeeded by others such as that belonging to Le Cercle Provencher. These clubs or societies were formed to provide entertainment in the form of concerts or plays. Note the assortment of uniforms and the lack of variety among the brass instruments.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 6

#6 Going to the Farm.

The reminiscences of pioneers often contain stories of their first momentous day or two in the West. They would alight from the trains in the vast flat land of the southern prairies, at a hastily assembled collection of buildings, perhaps to wander alone looking for a boarding house, perhaps to be met by friends, but always to be struck by the novelty of the environment. Then, having selected land and filed a homestead claim, a process that might occur within a week or after several years, new landowners would embark on the journey to their own quarter-section. This photograph shows a married couple heading for their land, loaded down with groceries, an assortment of furniture and utensils, a plow and an extra pair of workhorses. Their goal was a small iron survey stake, just as James Minifie described it in an essay on his father's odyssey in "Homesteader: A Prairie Boyhood Recalled":

"He set out to find the survey holes which would mark off the boundary of his land. However, four holes sunk flush with the prairie, and a small metal post less than a foot high are not conspicuous landmarks on the boundless prairie, where the sight can range over twenty miles without meeting obstruction.

My father wandered about for most of the morning, stumbling over gopher hills and into badger digs, but never finding the marker holes. Finally, he worked on a grid plan, criss-crossing every twenty yards, until with the sun due south he stumbled into one of the four holes, and with a grunt of triumph pulled out the survey post. II.XII.IX., he read. This was it! This was the north-east corner of Section 2, Township 12, Range 9. There were 640 acres in this section, and of these the western 320 were his homestead and pre-emption. To reach them, however, he still had to pace off 880 yards due west. Keeping the sun high on his left he set off, and on the 880th stride he set up his own marker, a small cairn of field stones which would define the boundary of his land."   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 7

#7 Binding.

To cut the grain, gather it and thresh it was a long and arduous task in the days prior to mechanical aids. The plants were cut by hand, usually by sickle or scythe, forked into wagons to be carried from field to threshing floor and finally beaten with a flail to separate the grain from straw and chaff. Agricultural innovators tackled these processes step by step until finally a machine was devised to complete the entire operation at once. These combined harvesters, or combines, have been in widespread use only for the last forty years, however, and were preceded by a variety of simpler labour-saving machines.

One of the first, a product of the late nineteenth century, was a binder, which cut the grain and tied it into bundles. The binder's large blades, or vanes, turned slowly above a moving knife, pushing the grain against the cutting edge. As the stalks were severed from their roots, the blades deposited them on a flat canvas table. The table operated like a treadmill, carrying the stalks to a knot- tying device which automatically tied them into manageable sheaves. The heavy work then began. Three or four of these sheaves were collected and thrust into the soil, leaning against each other in a structure that was sufficiently firm to withstand prairie winds.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 8

#8 Rawhiding on the Reco Trail near Sandon, 1896.

About fifteen sacks of ore were wrapped in a large rawhide which was dragged out to smelters or transport points by horse trains over snow-packed trails. Obviously, rawhiding could only be used in the winter months after the snows. Note the closeup view of the rawhide pack.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 9

#9 Rawhiding on the Reco Trail near Sandon, 1896.

A closeup view of the rawhide pack.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 10

#10 Water transshipment point.

Sacked ore was brought by wagon or other means to navigable waters where it was taken by steam paddlewheelers to rail connections or directly to smelters. Here the CPR ship Kokanee stands along beside a partly loaded ore barge. The CPR at various times ran a number of such boats. Among the better known were the Minto, Nakusp, Slocan, Moyie and Trail. The Great Northern Railway had a competing steamship line featuring such boats as the Argenta, International, and the well-known Kaslo. Later, steam tugs were widely used to pull the ore barges.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 11

#11 Mining Railways.

Railway construction gradually overcame the difficult terrain, an early barrier to development in the B.C. interior. This slide illustrates the costly and difficult construction conditions on two railways, the narrow gauge Kaslo and Slocan (owned by the Great Northern) and the Great Northern line into Phoenix. The wooden trestle is 193 feet high.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 12

#12 The Hall Brothers operations near Nelson.

Ore from the Silver King claims on Toad Mountain was transported about five miles to the smelter in Nelson by an aerial tramway, a device not unlike the modern ski chairlift. If you look closely you can see the ore buckets, one on each side of the centre wheel and one several hundred feet below the station. Note Nelson in the distance.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 13

#13 Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Station, Fort George, British Columbia.

Gangs of itinerants "shipped" from such mushroom towns to the camps under the watchful eye of an agent of the employment bureau called a "scout" or "mancatcher" whose responsibility it was to ensure that none of them "jumped." Frequently the men were locked inside colonist cars like these. The costs of transportation to the job always placed the stiffs substantially in debt even before beginning work.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 14

#14 Peter Veregin Leads his People to British Columbia. The slide shows Peter Veregin, the spiritual leader of the Community Doukhobors surrounded by members of his sect after their move to Brillant, British Columbia in 1907. The traditional dress of the women and children marks the determination of the sect to maintain their customs and beliefs despite the pressures of Canadian society. Peter Veregin's refusal in 1912 to send Doukhobor children to state schools brought the sect into conflict with the British Columbia government; even today, this controversy over education has not been entirely resolved.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 15

#15 The St. Albert Mission.

Father Albert Lacombe, founder of St. Albert Mission in 1861, was a man of great stature in Western Canada. He enjoyed the confidence of Aboriginal peoples and bishops, politicians and businessmen. His reputation among the Aboriginal peoples led him to act as mediator for the federal government when the interests of the Canadian Pacific Railway clashed with those of the original inhabitants. As a colonizer, he was the frequent emissary of Bishops Taché of St. Boniface and Grandin of St. Albert in negotiations with government authorities in Ottawa, Quebec, or in Europe. His Mission of St. Albert, seen here in 1895, served as the focal point for French-speaking communities of northern Alberta. Lacombe himself recruited settlers for his community. It grew from three families in April 1861, to fifty-six families by 1877 and to over 1,000 people by 1888. Father Lacombe's settlement was unique in that it was an attempt to regroup dispossessed Métis families. After 1896 he was one of the prime movers in the establishment of the colony of St. Paul de Métis, about one hundred miles north-east of Edmonton. The Métis were a wandering nation in search of a home. This colony was open to general settlement in 1907. He also undertook missions to Austria to seek aid for the Ruthenian settlers. This Oblate father, often called the "black-robe voyageur", died in 1916.    

Ways of Life in Canada Images 16

#16 First Communion Sunday at Legal, Alberta.

Legal was yet another centre in Northern Alberta which attracted French-Canadians from the United States and Quebec. This unidentified photograph (c. 1900), taken on the day of the First Communion, is striking because of the house or church in the background. The sharp and overhanging roof is reminiscent of eighteenth and nineteenth century Quebec architecture. Note also the log construction and the unusually high walls.

Girls dressed in white on the day of their first communion, and the boys wore armbands. The parish priest at centre is wearing a top hat. First Communion Sunday was only one of the many occasions for religious and social gatherings in pioneer communities. Sunday services, annual retreats, the clergy's traditional annual visit of all parishioners, along with Easter, Christmas, and New Year's celebrations, offered other opportunities for a close relationship of members of the parish.    

Ways of Life in Canada Images 17

#17 The Lamoureux Ferry.

Joseph Lamoureux built this ferry in 1882, to link the tiny community of Lamoureux to Fort Saskatchewan across the river. Already in his forties, Joseph Lamoureux had travelled extensively before settling permanently in northern Alberta. Born in the province of Quebec in 1838, he left home at sixteen for Chicago. There he married Marie Provost, his sweetheart from Henryville. After homesteading there, they returned to Quebec. Soon Joseph was off again, lured by stories of gold in California. From there, he wandered through Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Washington where he accidentally met his brother Frank. Together they made their way north to the country around Edmonton. It was in 1876 that he brought his whole family from Quebec to the little settlement on the Saskatchewan River. The Lamoureux family built a saw-mill and were pioneers in the use of agricultural machinery. Joseph Lamoureux died at the age of 70.

This photograph of the Lamoureux Ferry was taken in 1910. It includes members of the Lamoureux family and other pioneers of the region.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 18

#18 Morinville.

The first group of settlers destined to found a colony north of Edmonton left Montreal on March 17th 1891, under the leadership of the abbé Jean-Baptiste Morin. Seventeen men, most of them accompanied by their wives and children, made the trip from Montreal to Calgary in seven days. After a rest at the Immigration Hall in Calgary, they left on foot for Edmonton, this time accompanied by a land agent named Miquelon. The abbé Morin led many groups toward this Alberta region which became a gathering point for francophones. This photograph, taken around 1890, although not identified, is evidently of the wedding of a young couple surrounded by their family and friends. The clothing worn by the guests suggests that they were well-off. The solemnity of the celebration did not prevent a few guests from making a toast to the newlyweds.   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 19

#19 Prisoner of War (POW) officer portrait   

Ways of Life in Canada Images 20

#20 Prisoner of War (POW) camp   

Any descriptions have been provided by the photographer, and have not been edited by Alberta Education.
Credit: Public Archives of Manitoba (1 - 3)
Credit: Musée St. Boniface (4 - 5)
Credit: Western Development Museum (6 - 7)
Credit: Royal BC Museum (8 - 13)
Credit: United Church of Canada Archives (14)
Credit: Alberta Archives (15 - 18)
Credit: University of Lethbridge deGrandmaison (19 - 27)
Credit: Saskatchewan Archives (28 - 35)
Credit: Library and Archives Canada (36 - 53)
Credit: Canadian Museum of Civilization (54 - 70)
Credit: Hudson's Bay Company Museum (71 - 72)
Credit: The Beaver, June 1949 (73) Reprinted with the permission of Canada's National History Society © 1994
Credit: National Film Board (74 - 78)


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