The photograph above, taken in 1859 is one of the first photos taken in southwestern Manitoba. The photographer was Humphrey Lloyd Hime a photographer and surveyor recruited to provide a photographic record of an exploring expedition.
The trees grew because the prairie fires stopped, and because cultivation altered the drainage. The trees, in turn, further altered drainage. Altered drainage likely changed the nature of the rivers,
and streams. But, underneath it all, if you get away from the roads and highways, from the population centres, from the well-tilled fields, you will find the land much as it was.
It was, by most accounts, harsh, yet inviting. It is difficult to get a real picture because the accounts left are so subjective. The impressions of the first European settlers were colored by their hopes and dreams. They recount what to us might seem incredible hardships with a matter-of-fact sort of shrug. One gets the feeling that they sometimes reported only the highlights - and that they accepted from the outset that the hardships came, literally, with the territory.
I think that most of the “pioneers”, like the early fur traders, were so entranced by the newness and the openness of the place that they tended to ignore the loneliness and the harshness of the climate. They were caught up in the excitement of their individual endeavours - leaving the old behind, striking out towards the new. They were just too busy and too distracted by their dreams to pay much attention to trivial details like weather and lack of amenities. And they kept coming.
Not all of them stayed, but many of them thrived.
By 1876 the survey was making its way westward, ahead of the first European settlers who were to arrive at Grand Valley, just above the Rapids noted at the top centre of this map, and at Millford, near the junction of the Souris and Assiniboine.
Surveyor's maps published annually between 1879 and 1882 show that the southwest corner went from being empty - to being nearly full. Well, not quite full - it took a few more years for the dust from the Manitoba boom to settle. While most of the land had been claimed and/or purchased by 1882, it took another decade to separate the speculators from the homesteaders, the buyers from the actual settlers.
The little square sections on the map filled up. The names were shuffled. Many newcomers found that the well-marketed campaign to attract settlement had oversold the attractions of the new land and decided it wasn’t for them. Some learned that farming wasn’t for
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them. Their names were replaced by the newcomers. This slowed and the population stabilized. Many prospered.
Then the towns sprang up as increasing income caused the need for services to skyrocket. Many of the first towns didn't survive the transition from the era of rapid expansion to the era of entrenchment and economic growth. They had been situated along the first highways - the riverbanks. And although the exact locations were chosen with an eye towards the coming railway, that factor involved guesswork, and a good dose of optimism. The new towns of the 1990's were based on actual rail lines not proposed ones, and there were many of them. No one wanted to travel far to deliver their produce, or to purchase supplies, and with the spread of the rail lines, they didn't have to.
The cycle of increased production leading to increased purchasing spiraled through the first few decades of the new century, and after a sobering interlude in the thirties, renewed its march into the early forties.
Then the next change began. Increasingly large and mechanically sophisticated farm machinery made it possible for one family to farm thousands of acres. Increasing costs of production made it seem necessary to do so. The townships (36 sections or square miles of land) that once supported from fifty to a hundred families now were home to fewer and fewer. Rural depopulation began. And like the spiral of supply and demand that created the rural towns, a new, downward spiral left buildings abandoned on every other old farm site, and empty fields where towns once stood.
Drive through western Manitoba, and you will see fields of wheat larger than the entire farm I once called home. That field can be harvested in a few hours by a combine costing more than our half- section farm was worth. A hog barn staffed by just a few men produces more pork per month than an entire municipality would ship to market in years. The era of corporate agriculture began and our pioneer past has become even more remote.
But it would be so nice to stand on a hilltop and see the land as it was in those days before the ox and plow were replaced by the
tractor, and before the crooked dirt trail was replaced by the straight smooth pavement.