Our journey took us from the
dinosaurs of Drumheller to the town of Red Deer, north of Calgary. We had a
night here before a short drive to Sylvan Lake to meet Diana’s ‘cousin’ Kim
and her family, husband Lee and boys Nolan and Jaxson. Kim had visited us back
in 2003 when she was backpacking in New Zealand and we enjoyed catching up on
the intervening years.
From Sylvan Lake we were
headed to Paradise Valley via Stettler where we had booked a prairie train ride
to Big Valley. This is a one and a half hour ride south, dinner and return. It
was a Saturday we boarded along with 300 others. All went well until about an
hour into our journey when a gang of outlaws stopped the train boarded and
demanded valuables and money. In a tense hold up that lasted a good 30 minutes
we had our wallets lightened while gun shots could be heard throughout. No one
was injured but we got some good photographs which the local constabulary were
keen to have in the hope of tracking these thugs down. From all accounts it
happens too regularly! 
After dinner we roamed through the little town of Big Valley
and through a couple of museums. One held the largest collection of tools in
North America.
Sunday we headed to Paradise
Valley and directly to Maureen and Greg, Kim’s mother and so another cousin of
Diana’s. I am using the term cousin quite loosely as the relationship is through
Diana’s grandmother, Jessie, being a cousin of Maureen’s grandmother, Emma.
Both of these ladies emigrated in the late 1800’s and I think Jessie got the better
deal weather-wise but no doubt they both lived through some pretty harsh conditions
to establish themselves in their new found homelands.
In the prairie country Emma
and her husband were able to purchase a “quarter”, that being 160 acres, for
$10. The land had all been surveyed into square miles and then divided into
quarters for the new settlers. 178 million acres was surveyed in the 1870’s and
this was the largest grid survey in the World. Surveyors worked hard without GPS
to divide and map the land although the area was basically all flat. A man told
me that if he cursed his dog and it ran off he could watch it for 5 days before
he lost sight! Once divided up the Canadian authorities wanted to colonise it
as quickly as possible with the “genteel” people from United Kingdom. They were
concerned that if they didn’t get the inexperienced but peaceful and orderly
society with strong values of civic involvement and leisure activity from the
UK they were at threat of getting settlers from northern USA. This might result
in tumultuous and possibly violent communities.
We visited Emma’s house, still standing but unfortunately beginning a stage of rapid
deterioration. The house stands on a “quarter” (65 hectares) and after several
years it has had a number of owners but is now back in the family having been
recently purchased by Carol, Maureen’s sister.
We also visited a herd of farmed bison which once
roamed the prairies in their millions. An estimated 25 million once roamed free
from Alaska to the US but through hunting and habitat loss were reduced to 1000
in 1889. As they are now farmed and used
for their low-fat meat there is little chance of extinction. The population now
numbers in excess of 500,000 being wild and farmed.
I did learn one thing while driving along with Lyall. I am very pleased to learn
this because for my entire life, up to the stage I am at now, I have never known.
That is, when rainfall is measured in “points”, what is a point? I can remember
asking my Dad, before I was a teenager, “…Dad, what is two points?”
“Two
points is two points of rainfall”
“Yes,
but if it was 10 points what would it be?”
“That
would be 5 times more than two points!”
“But
10 points of what?”
“Rainfall”.
I about gave up then.
But
Lyall has sorted this out for me and unfortunately I can’t get this back to
Dad. And I don’t think I am the only one who didn’t know.
So
Lyall clearly explained it is 2 tenths of an inch. 2 points is 2 tenths of an
inch. How this ever came to be the measurement of precipitation I don’t know.
It seems they have metricized an imperial number at no advantage whatsoever.
Mike, Tracy’s husband and I had a good laugh about this. I think the New
Zealand meteorologists have got this sorted when they measure rainfall in millimetres
 |
| Donna Neil Rob Diana Maureen Carol |
We visited Donna, another of
Maureen’s sisters, for a Bar-B-Que Canadian style and were able to meet her
three daughters. It was especially great to spend an afternoon with Janice Matt
and Mya. Janice visited New Zealand several years ago and stayed in The
Grapevine picking fruit. She travelled NZ meeting many of her relatives there.
Now she has a home, a wonderful husband Sheldon and a couple of potential
backpackers in 10 years time. As everyone has been invited to NZ I suggest you prepare
yourselves for their impending visits. Not sure what preparation is required
though. At Donna’s house we met her brother Neil Brassington once again. When
Diana and I travelled in the early 80’s we stayed with Neil at his parents, Art
and Joyce’s farm. Sadly they have passed away.
 |
| Diana Sheldon Matt Mya Janice Rob |
It has been a fantastic week,
visiting the “Climb Thru Time” museum in the converted grain elevator, visiting
“Lloyd” (local town of 28,000,
Lloydminster) with Janice and Maureen and Greg. We picked “saskatoons” with Tracy
and her three boys and enjoyed sitting on the elevated deck with a beer and
putting the world to rights.
We left PV on Thursday 19th
July heading south toward the township of Brooks. We drove through seriously flat
prairie lands where they seem to graze 1 bullock to 50 hectares. Either Angus
or Hereford seem to be the beast of choice. There is no irrigation, the
pasture appears poor and consequently very little stock was seen. We had a
thunderstorm to the south of us, probably 500 kms away, so flat it was quite
visible.
We head towards Crows Nest Pass
now before crossing the border into USA sometime next week.
