Lögberg-Heimskringla - 16.07.1969, Blaðsíða 5

LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, MIÐVIKUDAGINN 16. JÚLÍ 1969
5
History of the lcelandic Settlements
at The Narrows, Manitoba
by
Geirfinnur Peterson
XXV.
While Barney operated like
a;> he expanded as usual
^Wing to jnfiux 0f people
n the operation at Siglunes
lctl called for about 25 men
&adily employed while the
f' u Were g°ing> and then the
n business in winter with
^bstrong. He either encour-
§ed or was Armstrong’s
uSgestion to build a store at
for
for
es. It didn’t take long
ihe store to take shape,
it
was built principally
eiti the production from the
i and then the storé was
°Peration the following
/^bfner. As Siglunes was alive
^1 h activities — a huge lum-
l ^nill, store business, fish
2q lriess, there were usually
t>tnen on the spot between
various operations. Steve
a,ahhews had had consider-
> e experience in the store
j^ness so that was his job.
0 arney was here, there and all
They had some kind of
v ardin.g house there, it wasn’t
^ long until Barney got the
ly ^°n to build himself a real-
blg house out of decorative
]>t blocks — a house high,
and wide. There was even
attic in it. I think it con-
jg of somewhere between
Qj ,and 20 rooms and he put an
steam boiler in the base-
^ ^nt amd heated all the house
steami. That is a house that
stand for hundreds of
b ^asa mute monument to
it Mntthew’s greatness.
lje lsplayed his personality as
a man of big ideas and
everything i!n a big way.
a , hey carried on like that for
tL. w years, and then the same
lílg that ended the store
'^in.
to
sto:
ess at The Narows began
affect Siglunes,
'Pes
namely
the
— in every town on
H °ad. They drew the busi-
Plae ðWa^ from these local
N,
Pt ii?W harnay Matthews took
^att Hal for a partner. The
l^nership didn’t last very
tej>® as it suited Matt Hall bet-
he to he in a business where
lv be loose, and I actual
Pto 0tnk his W1^e chchl’t aP_
e °f the partnership as a
making
ly,._7 She w
^'Voman.
'I'ho „
]VlaI, consequence was
P’r-. _^s°ld his share to Asi
trod an' ^hls was the in-
reieUCtÍ°n i^si’s l^ter long
har° at Siglunes. Asi and
b^. y operated the lumber
of *. ess together for a period
and then Bamey, who
h°n \tiinS tired of the opera-
JYgJ think, sold out to Asi
an<f an the lumber business,
at his place and holdings
lSlunes all but the one
proposition
a shrewd busi
that
quarter of Jon Matthews’ that
belonged to Steve and Ranka.
This quarter the Freeman’s
bought later on, and Grettir
Freeman who is there still has
big holdings on that point both
the Matthews and Freeman’s
place, and operates a cattle
and fish business with Ole, his
brother.
While this lumber business
was operated entirely at Siglu-
nes, the Holmes boys and Joe
Kjemested established a fish
box factory at our place as
there were thousands of cords
of boxwood in that area ön
our land. As far as I know,
they were the first operators
of a fish box factory on Lake
Manitoba. Of course they
sawed some other lumber to
get some hardwood sold to the
municipality for culverts and
up and down the lake as fish.
boxes. They even hauled some
to Ashern as the railroad came
through, and shipped them up
and down the line. They used
a steam engine for power —
one they’d owned and used for
breaking of land. John and
Fusi Holmes had broken up
quite a lot of land for different
people prior to going into the
business. When the supplies of
boxwood dwindled around this
particular point and they gave
an indication that there wasn’t
too much in it, they quit the
business and sold the whole
thing — steam engine, mill,
box factory, to fellows across
the laike named Anderson.
Harry Anderson and his
brother took over but it wasn’t
very long until there was
another box factory establish-
ed on a far bigger scale started
by Asi Freeman at Siglunes.
This he operated all the years
that he was at Siglunes and
when he moved north to Gyp-
sumville he put up the factory
there, and finally turned it
over to his boys, Siggi and
Jimmy who operated the same
outfit at Grand Rapids when
they moved there and went
into partnership with Granc
Rapids trading Company.
PEOPLE OF THE DISTRICT
At the end of my story I
intend to place an appendix
containing the names of all
householders known by me tó
have lived in the district and
the number of children in each
household. On the basis of this
count there were approxima-
tely 204 adults, 246 boys and
226 girls.
These figures on population
in the given district from
Siglunes to Silver Bay consti-
tute about average of the num-
ber that existed in the com-
munity from the boys of the
early settlers up until about
1930. Some of these people
emigrated and others came in
their place, so we have a fair-
ly reasonable average of the
individual tally of adults and
children.
After 1930 when nobody
could make a living, quite a
number m o v e d away into
various directions; even some
young people left looking for
some way of making a living
with eVerything dropping —
cattle values down to one
tenth of what they were be-
fore, and salaries in the same
manner.
This period I’m now cover-
ing is after the end of the first
world war which I will come
to.
In addition to the population
tabled, there were other peo-
ple living in the area, some of
whom were here, when settle-
ment occurred. T h e y were
mostly Metis of French Indian
descent, a good many of whom
had come up from St. Laurent.
One of the early ones to ar-
rive, I believe, was William
Monkman, a man we came to
know and respect in the com-
munity. He was a self-chosen
leader amongst his people and
they looked up to him as did
others that came to know him.
Quite a few of the people in
the area were his relatives and
lived at what later became
Dog Creek. It was inland from
Lake Manitoba bordering on
the reserve of Dog Creek and
therefore only about V4 mile
across the bay to where this
little hamlet originated. There,
of course, have been two gen-
erations there since we came,
and in some instances three
but still many of the original
names are found there today:
Monkmans, Desjarlis, Chart-
rands, Bones, Loyers, Pelle.
tiers, and so forth.
At the present time one
might find 2 or 3 Desjarlis
families, about 3 Monkman
families, one Bone, probably a
couple of Loyers, a Spence,
and also a French family De
Buke, Masou. There has been
an average of 15-16 families
there all along pretty well as
far back as I can remember.
These people live in a group
on government land, divided
into lots. They paid small rept
to the government, but were
exempt from taxation. Their
children have always gone to
the Vogar school, a non segreg-
ated school. There haVe always
been good relations between
this group of people and the
settlers, and while a good
many of them in the past have
lived on trapping, fishing, etc.
there’s always quite a number
of them that work for other
people in the ccwnmunity at
such jobs as fishing, haying, or
other miscellaneous jobs.
But now of course, a good
many of the younger genera-
tion work in the city of Winni-
peg and many have moved
with their families.
As a store business was
started at Dog Creek in the
early years when Stefan Stef-
ansson moved in there and
then consequently a post of-
fice, which grew into a little
village, and I would say that
the number of children from
that group has increased con-
siderably, and for the last few
years there has been a two-
room school at what is now
called Vogar. The name “Dog
Creek” was changed to “Vog-
ar” quite a number of years
ago. Vogar has been lucky for
years in the sense that it has
had extremely good teachers,
and pupils have progressed
satisfactorily and to my know-
ledge, there’s never been any
trouble between the groups of
children and that school has
certainly never been operated
on any racial lines.
Billy Monkman was the first
mailman to carry mail from
Scotch Bay to Fairford and at
the same time deliver mail to
the local post offices, establish-
ed in the areas of Siglunes,
Hayland, Narrows and Oak
View. That was in the era
right after the railroad was
established from Winnipeg out
to Oak Point in 1906.
It was a difficult undertak-
ing in those days, as there
hadn’t been a dollar’s work of
improvement on roads and
bridges by any government.
On his travels to Fairford he
had to cross three creeks
which he could sometimes ford
when the water was low, but
more often had to drive
around them out on the lake.
One creek is on the Indian
reserve at Chief’s Point, the
second was at Silver Bay, the
formidable creek in the flood
of 1902-03 and especially if the
wind was from the northwest
sometimes increasing the
depth to three feet over and
above the natural level by the
pressure of the wind.
Then he had to cross out on
the lake, and cross a small
channel where the horses had
to swim for about 75 to 100
yards, hitched to the demo-
crat, with the mail on some-
thing to protect it from the
water; the third creek was 5
miles further north but not
quite as bad.
For this, Billy as we called
him, got twenty dollars for the
round trip from Scotch Bay to
Fairford, distance of 160 miles.
Besides that„ he had to deliver
to the local post offices for
which he had another team.
He always had someone work-
ing for him as he couldn’t
begin to handle it alone.
On top of this, he had to
táke the mail from Fairford to
Gypsumville, a round trip of
about 30 miles. But during the
summer of 1902 in the high
water, it was unfit for the
horse and with water in depth
of 2-3 feet all the way on the
west side of the river, so he
had to carry the mail on his
back. He got the sum of 7 dol-
lars for the trip — a trip
which few men would have
made for $70 wading in slush
and quagmire fröm knee to
waist most of the way. But
Billy did it and as always,
never failed to fulfill a mission
he’d undertaken to complete.
We all leamed to respect this
quiet, stately individual who
was 6'3", broad of shoulder,
and dignified of bearing. Billy
came of a very good family,
and we came to know some of
his brothers, always respected
and liked in the district where
they lived. George Monkman
of Swan Creek was one and
Thomas of Rabbit Point anoth-
er. The latter had probably as
g o o d a herd of purebred
shorthorn cattle as were avail-
able in many parts of Mani-
toba. They were the huge roan
shorthom c a 111 e that were
later almost extinct by the
saerifice iör a few ideas in
shorthorn breeding — mainly
that little small-boned cattle
that were nice to look at but
otherwise not profitable to
breed. I don’t know where to
put the blame for the fallacy
of that decision except with
the Shorthom Breeders asso-
ciation itself and the Agricul-
tural Department. It was dis-
covered too late, but the breed
has since improved consider-
ably, as everyone has scram-
bled to get back to this huge
breed of cattle as their worth
had been discovered.
Although in his services for
the postal authorities, Billy
Monkman never failed, but
rather on occasion did prob-
ably more than his contract
calléd for, taldng into consid-
eration the impossible condi-
tions I’ve described, when the
madl contract was up for ten-
der, and road conditions had
improved with bridges on the
mentioned c r e e k s , he was
slightly underbid by someone
else, and the postal authorities
took carriage of the mail away
from him. This brought hard-
ship on Willy and his family
and also people he’d been hir-
ing for these local jobs and
tliat he’d bought special equip-
ment for: two teams of horses,
democrats and buggies. These
he had no longer any use.
He died at Dog Creek and left
his relatives to carry on there.
Continued.
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