Arthur Hedley Vicars Bryenton
Story of My Life

I was born on a farm, on Prince Edward Island, on Brackley Point Road, six miles from Charlottetown, near Royalty Junction. My father’s name was George Bryenton, and our family of seven (three boys and four girls) enjoyed a very happy home. I was the fourth of the family and was born October 13, 1874.

We had a very fine farm of 200 acres with a ten-roomed house and many large out-buildings, and three fine orchards of apples, pears, and plums with beautiful thorn hedges around them. We kept them trimmed so nicely. We lived about a half a mile from the road, and the school and Methodist church were on the corner of our farm, so it was very convenient for us. I remember my first days in school when I was three years old learning my a b c’s, and our school teacher, David Walker, a real good kind hearted old scotchman; and the fun we had playing ball and climbing trees in the grove by the school; and how I used to take my pockets full of apples and pears to treat my chums that had none at home; and our snowball fights and making snowmen, and skating and coasting.

Well when we got home from school, we had our work to do. We had a good herd of cows to milk (from ten to fifteen) and we always had a lot of hogs to feed, and a good flock of sheep, and about a dozen horses, and a lot of you stock and poultry. Our farm was all laid off in fields of various sizes, from five to twelve acres each, all fenced around with rails, or with thorn or spruce hedges on dykes. We usually fertilized about ten acres a year, with five acres of potatoes and five of turnips, mangles and carrots. Then the next year on that land we would have wheat sown with timothy and clover seed mixed, which would give us a fine crop of hay for that year and several more. We would have thirty or more cart loads of spuds to dig, and we usually had a frolic for that. All the boys and girls in the place would come and help pick the spuds for twenty-five cents a day. We would always have a big dinner that day, roast goose and plum pudding, so everyone was happy. The father would take the digger and dig for the rest of the neighbours, and we children would help to pick their spuds and get our twenty-five cents a day, too. So we all had fun. Then when father would plough the land, we boys would follow and pick up the spuds after the plough and we got ten cents a bushel for them. The small and cull potatoes we used for hog feed, boiled and chopped up with oats and barley chop. The turnips we sliced up and fed to th cattle and sheep. We stored the hay all in three large barns, also all the grain we could get in. The rest of it was stacked till there was room in the barn to thresh it. We always had enough wheat to grind for flour, and oats for oatmeal, and we always kept a year’s supply of seed oats and wheat in advance.

Our flower garden was just at th front of the house, and that way my work to keep it in order. There was a thorn hedge all around it, and I kept it trimmed and the paths clean of weeds. The main path was straight lawn from the front door to the honeysuckel bower at the lower end of the garden; the flowers at the end near the house; the vegetables at the other end. There was an apple and pear orchard on one side, and on the other side the road leading our to the main road.

I went to school to the eighth grade, then there was so much work to be done on the farm, that I had to stay home and help with the work. My father was a pork dealer and had a stall in the market-house in Charlottetown, and on Tuesday and Friday every week he went to town an bought dressed hogs from the farmers and cut them up, and sold them to his regular customers. He cut pork roasts, chops, ham, bacon, and made lard and headcheese, I used to got with him and deliver the parcels, and help with the cutting and selling. I surely did enjoy it.

I was very fond of the gun and rod and spent much time fishing and shooting, and snaring rabbits. I would have some to sell every market day. I got ten cents each for rabbits, and twenty-five cents for partridge.

When I was about thirteen years old I learned to mount birds and animals. I soon got to be quite an expert at it, and began to do taxidermy work for the public. We had a house up neat the road, one that father had bought from Uncle William, and I moved my outfit into it. I carried the gun with me everywhere, an soon had a very fine collection of birds and animals. I made my own cabinets, glass on three sides, and trimmed them up with mosses and grass, and snow scenes for snowbirds and partridge and owls. I found it very interesting as well as profitable. I have mounted every bird to be found on P.E. Island – from hummingbird to a peacock or a wild goose.

I was also very fond of fishing, and spent many happy hours along the streams and mill ponds casting my lines, and catching those little brook trout.

We always had a Sunday School picnic up at the north shore once or twice a year, and all the people in the district would prepare for that event. We would wash up our three wagons, shine the harness, and the women prepared the food, and we would all start off early in the morning for the shore. My! What fun we had out on the sandy beach playing, and bathing in the salt water, with the breakers rolling in over us, three feet or more high. But what I enjoyed most was shooting the gulls and plover. Then the women would spread out the tablecoths on the grass under the trees and put the dishes down and the food, and we would al get down on our knees and sing the Blessing, and everyone ate to his and her hearts content. Then we would go out to the fish-houses and fish perch and smelts off the dock while those who cared to went out for a sail. Then when they came back in we would gather up our fish, go back to the wagons and have another meal, and pack up for home. Those were the happy days of our youth. I used to go out to the Weatly River, and Glasgow to my cousin’s millpond to fish trout ant shoot duck. I spend many happy hours at those ponds. There was a goose boat down there, and I could walk down every evening and stay as long as I could see, and many a nice fish I caught in that pond; and many a duck fell before my gun; also, many a rabbit, partridge, woodcock, and jacksnipe. When we had ploughed fields in the summer the golden lover would come in flocks, and I would get them. I was always on the lookout for rare birds to mount, and I surely got plenty of different kinds of them.

Our family were Methodists and my father was a local preacher, formerly of the Bible Christian Church, and later of the Methodist Church. It was voluntary work and he would go and preach three times on some days, over bad roads, in winter or summer, two or three Sundays a month.

We had preaching in our Church once or twice every Sunday, and Sunday School every Sunday. It was well attended. There were seven in our family and twenty or more came regularly. We had an organ in the church and my older sister played it. We had choir practice on Saturday evenings. Sometimes we had singing school in the winter months in the schoolhouse. One of our teachers, a fine old scotchman, Mr Wm (William) Shaw, taught us all how to sing. My how we enjoyed singing. We had a organ at our place and in the long winter evenings we would all gather around the organ and sing those old gospels songs. It was a foretaste of Heaven to our souls. I often look back to those happy days of our youth and think we did not realize how blessed we were. How thankful I am that I was brought up in a Christian home. We always had grace before meals and family worship in th morning. On Sundays we would very often have the preacher to meals, and he would always have prayers. My elder brother, Frederick was also a local preacher, and my sister Lily was an active worker in the Salvation Army. She worked up to be an Adjutant before she died, and I am sue that now she is wearing a very starry crown in Heaven. Georgina and Ada, two other sisters, and my two brothers, and mother and father have all passed on to that Heavenly Home. My sister Amy and myself are the only ones of our family left. It may not be long till we shall be called to our Eternal Home, and what a gathering that will be when we meet in that beautiful Home above, free from all the cares and trials of this life; nor more pain and sorrow; and where all is peace and love, and God shall wipe away all tears, and we shall see our Saviour who died that we through Him might have eternal life; and swell with him in the Mansions He has gone to prepare for all who believe in Him. 

Well, some more about our home. The house was a large two story house with a large addition in the L shape, with a cellar under the main part. The chimney was built of logs below, about ten feet square in the cellar, and brick above, about four feet square on top with two petitions in it. The chimney swallows made their nest in it. My grandparents lived in one side of the house, and we in the other. Grandpa was over ninety years old when he died. Father was sixty-four.

Our threshing mill was of the old type, six horse power round about affair, a great wooden wheel built over-head on a spindle, with wooden cogs in it, and six pair of arms down from the outside of the ci4rcle to hitch the horses to. The horses walked around in a circle. The flywheel with the belt was on one side, with cogs in the spindle that fitted into the powerwheel. Then the belt from the flywheel ran to the drum. This is how we done our threshing. We mostly did it on Sundays when we’re home from school, or on stormy days. Wee could thresh about one hundred bushel a day, and clean it.

We kept quite a number of bees in my young days – fifty hives or more strung out in the orchard between the trees all painted white. We strained most of the honey and sold it in town. There was always lots of blossoms in the gardens and fields for the bees to get the honey from. The winters were very hard on the bees and we lost quite a lot of them.

The snow drifts on P.E.I. were very bad sometimes, and I have seen it so that we have had to tunnel through it to get to the buildings. The roads would get drifted so full that we had to take down the fences and go through the fields all the way to town. Then in the spring when the snow started to melt the water would block up and freeze. That was when we had the fun skating.

Well, I was the butcher at our place, and when the fresh meat was wanted I had to kill a calf or a lamb, and the pigs, but we always had plenty of fresh pork from the trimmings, and when we laying in our supply of pork for the summer, we bought the pork from the farmers and hd it delivered to our home. I did the cutting and packing in the cellar, also tended to the drying the hams and bacon; and cutting up the lard and rendering it, and cooking potatoes for the hogs, and sawing wood for the kitchen. My brother Fred tended to the horses, and cultivation of the land, and James had the cows, and sheep to feed and water. I did the shearing of the sheep. The girls washed the wool, and milked the cows. Father was the boss and did the planning, and the sowing the grain and reaping. Our reaper was a Frost and Wood, with rakes that went around in a circle, and laid the grain down on the table of the machine and every third rake would weep off a sheaf, and then we boys and girls would bind it up by hand with a straw band. Five of us could keep up to the reaper. We had the first binder in our settlement, a Massie Harris, and we thought it was the wonder of the world. Everyone for miles around came to see it work.

We never worked in the fields on the Sabbath Day. That was strictly forbidden in our home.

We had three orchards, and in the fall there was always a lot of apples to pick and store away for the winter. We used to store them in barrels upstairs in a cool room, and we sold quite a lot in the market. They were very cheap, tens cents a peck or thirty cents a bushel. We sold quite a lot of cut flowers too, five cents a bunch. Our cream we sold in bottles. Cheese we sold for five cents a pound, and potted meat at ten cents a pound, lard at twelve cents and hams eight cents, and heads and feet and ribs at three cents. We used to cut up two or three hogs every market day, Tuesday and Friday. We surely done a rushing business. Those were the good old days in the ‘80's and ‘90's — over fifty years ago now. To look back it seems quite a short time ago, and so times have moved on and on; and we do not realize that we are growing old, and we too must soon pass on. But thank god we have the aussurance tha tther is a happier Home above for us if we prove faithful unto death.

I had a friend, Ely Clements, who was very fond of the gun, and we had many a trip out to Brackely Point beach shooting ducks. We would start out in the morning at three o’clock, drive fifteen miles and get ther by daylight for the mornign flight. The ducks would start flying at daylight, and we had lots of fun for about an hour., then we woudl go home and do a day’s work and not feel too tired. I would sometimes get some rare shore birds to mount gulls and plover, or hawks, and we both enjoyed the trip. I had a nice horse and buggy, and spent many happy hours fishing and shooting all over the country. I also had the pleasure of mounting my game and eating the meat, if it was good for food.

I was quite handy with the broadaxe, and spent many a day squaring up timbers for our buildings. In the winter we cut hundreds of fencing poles for the fencing in the spring. They were fourteen feet long. We also got out wood enough for the year in the winter so we could haul it home with the sleigh, and it was cold work very often. I remember one time I had my axe glance off a frosty knot and cut an artery in my leg. It bled me nearly to death before the doctor got it sewed up. Another time I shot myself in the leg with a 32 caliber revolver. I was chasing a tomcat and tripped over a stump. The gun went off and the bullet went clear through my leg, except for about ¼ of an inch. The doctor cut it out, and in two weeks I was alright again, and I did away with the revolver. 

Now I want to say something about my dear mother. She was the best mother that ever lived on this earth to us. She done all the baking and cooking for seven of us children as well as the hired help, and made most of the clothes where we ere small, as well as keeping them mended. I never hear a complaint from her. She would have us throw our socks or pants down the stairs when we ent to bed, if they needed mending, and in the morning they were in our room all fixed up.

Georgie, our oldest sister, learned dressmaking by chart, and she made the girl’s dresses and did other fancy needle work. Lily, a second sister, joined the Salvation Army when quite young and went our as a teacher for them. She was devoted to her work and was promoted until she was a Commandant when she died. Amy, second youngest, did the other work around the house, and helped with the milking and tending to the hens and creamers and the churning of the butter. Ada was the youngest and she studied to be a teacher. She taught for a few years before she died. James, my younger brother, took over Fred’s work when he left home to go to college. When father died James had the farm. Father had asthma all his life, and died when he was sixty-four. I took over the meat business and thirty acres of land with a small house and barn on it. I lived there by myself until I got married.

Well, I was tired of batching and cooking for myself so I made up my mind to get a partner to share my joys and sorrows. I had know very many young ladies in town, as well as in the country, but never met the one that I wished to call my wife till on Sunday evening a very pretty young lady came into the church with Ely Clements and his family. Right then and there I said to myself, “that is my wife”. At the close of the service they introduced her to me as Miss Gerturde Holmes, Ely’s wifes’ sister. I just aksed her if I might have the pleasure of escorting her home, and she said “with pleasure you may”. From that time on we became real good friends, and spent many happy hours together, waling and driving in our buggy. We would go shooting and fishing and out to the North shore to gather bird’s eggs for my collection. One time we were getting gull’s eggs and Gertie took her hankie to carry them in. One corner of it let go and spilled them on her nice new dress. Well, we had a good laugh over it and cleaned it off as bvest we could, and then got some more eggs. I had quite a collection of bird’s eggs. I used to sell them to tourists from the U.S.A. I used to sell birds too, so it was profitable as well as interesting.

We continued our friendship for two or three years and got married on the fourteenth of September 1898. We had a very nice wedding party at Ely Clements with all our friends. Rev Richard Opie performed the ceremony. We had a very pleasant evening. All the boys in the district came and gave us a good chivaree, and we drove home to our cosy little home in the early hours of the morning. Next morning when we got up there was fine jersey cow tied in the stall, a present from father and mother. We had a buggy load of presents from our friends.

Our house had three bedrooms upstairs and one down, a kitchen, dining, parlour, pantry and a good cellar. We were well fixed for room. I had one room upstairs for my birds and the cellar for curing the meat. We also had a meat house, for drying hams and bacon and rendering the lard. I used it also for my taxidermy work. We had a buggy house, a barn and wagon house. We had thirty acres of land with a beautiful grove for shelter from the north. I planted about an acre of orchard trees out toward the road – apple, pears, and plum trees. But we never ate the fruit thereof as we sold the place before they came into bearing. We had a nice little flower garden in front of the house. The school and the Methodist Church were on the front side of our land by the road, with a nice grove to the west. We lived there for four years and were very happy. I did a very thriving business in the market. Our oldest girl, Muriel, was born while we were living in this place. Then we got a chance to buy a home near Charlottetown.

A short time after we were married I had a rather serious accident. I got up on a meat table in the market house to close a shutter and as I went to get down my foot slipped and I put my have out to save myself and, not seeing it, put my hand on a meat hook right in the palm. It got very badly infected and was very painful. My hand and arm, up to the elbow, were swollen to twice their size. The doctor lanced it in two places. Still it got worse until I thought I would have to lose my hand. However, the doctor opened it up again from one cut to the other, about three inches. We could see all the bones inthe center of my hand. But it healed all up in time, and I was thankful to have the use of it once more. It was three or four months in a sling - it was my right hand too. It still always gets cold quicker than the other. Father and Fred did the market work for me while I was laid up. I was surely glad when my hand got so I could use it again. Then I got back to my stand in the market once more, and things went on more lively than ever. I bought a sausage machine, and made up the trimmings into sausage, for which there was a good and profitable demand. Gertrude made potted-head out of the heads and feet, and she well on that. She also had the flowers, and the cream money, so we were very happy indeed. WE would often go out for a drive in our buggy around the country roads in the summer evenings, and into town to church on Sundays. We had a very jaunty little sleigh, and robes for the winter driving, and we made good use of it, too. And when the children came we would tuck them down in the front seat, and way we would go with the bells jingling all the way.. Oh what fun it was to ride in a one horse open sleigh! Those were the balmy days of long ago. 

Well as time moved along, we had a chance to buy a very beautiful home quite near Charlottetown, with six acres of land, formerly owned by William Dodd, a wealthy gentleman. The place was named Ardgowan. We went and had a good  look over the place, and found t to be just the place we wished for. It was a twenty roomed house, with a large carriage house and workshop, a stable for horses and cows, a henhouse and icehouse. There was a cellar under the main part of the house, about 70 feet square and divided into three compartments; all the wall were built from heavy brick, brought out from England. There was three acres of lawn in front of the house, and winding driveway through a beautiful grove to the house from the main road. There were twenty six different kinds of trees, all kinds of shrubbery, and thorn hedge around a flower garden in front of the house. So I sold our Birchwood farm to my brother James, and bought Ardgowan.

We moved into our new home and were very happy and contented. We did well. It was one of the outstanding homes in the suburbs of the city, and we were very proud of it. We bought two more tracks adjoining it – at a fancy price too. We soon got our household goods and other effects all moved into our new home, and we sure had room for everything – and then some! We had a kitchen, pantry, large dining room, sitting room, and bedroom downstairs, besides a room for drying the meat, and one for my stuff birds, and one for mounting the birds. We also had a large kitchen for sausage work and rendering lard, and making potted meat. We had two bedrooms upstairs. I used a portion of the cellar for curing the hams and bacon, and another for vegetables, and preserves. There was a good well at the back door. We kept two food jersey cows, and some hens, and a good driving horse. I could always hire an extra horse for working in the fields. We grew quite a lot of vegetables. I sold a lot to my customers in the market, and some I shipped to Sidney, mostly early potatoes and cabbages. I also set out an orchard of fruit trees, but never had the pleasure of eating the fruit.

About a year after we moved to Ardgowan our son Wendell was born. There was great rejoicing in our home. Gertrude and I were so glad to have a son and a daughter; and as stime went on – in about a year and a half – our son Ralph was born. We were just a happy little family, and we did enjoy life in those times. In the summer evenings we would all pack up in our buggy and go for a drive out in the park, and see the soldiers training, and hear the band playing. My what jolly times we had! Then at home playing croquet on the lawn, and all the other child’s games in the house. But I surely had some work to do as well, to keep the lawn mowed, and the garden clean of weeds, and the hedge trimmed, besides my other work in the fields and the vegetable garden. Then two days a week I was in the market. But I sure took pleasure in it all. On Sunday we would dress up and walk to town to church and leave the children at home with the hired help.

However, as time moved on, a great change took place, Gertrude became ill, and the doctor advised us to go west to a higher altitude. So in the fall of 1905 I went to Alberta for a visit. My mother and three sisters were living in Bowdeb. (The name of the town should be Bowden and has been corrected by the typist in future references.). I went to see them first, for a while. Then my brother Fred was living at Spring Lake, and I went to visit him. On my way back I stayed at mother’s a little while again. There was a small cottage next door to them for sale, so I bought it, so we would have a place to live if we moved. Then I returned home and sold the goose that laid the golden eggs, Ardgowan, our lovely home; and mover out west to our two roomed house. 

We had a sale and sold our stock and implements, packed up our household goods, and shipped them, and bought our tickets, and went to Alberta. We had a very pleasant trp though and we  enjoyed it very much. The children were so good, and 4veryone was so nice to them. We were five days on the journey and arrived in Bowden the first week in April 1906. There was still snow on the ground in places. We moved into our cottage and stayed there for a while. I bought a farm two miles our from Bowden, raw land. But I was not very much in love with farming. I wanted to get into my old business that we had done so well at in P.E.I. So I went to Edmonton to see what chance there would be to start a meat shop. Times were booming there just then, and the town was building up very fast. I bought two lots and built a seven roomed house, and a meat shop., and we moved to Edmonton. I started a meat shop and did very well for a while. We lived in the shop while the house was being built, and I rented a store on the other side of the street. Later we moved into the big house. We had the house all modern, with furnace in the basement; a kitchen, pantry, dining room, living room downstairs; four bedrooms and bath upstairs; electric light and hot air heating. Gertrude had roomers for three rooms, at good pay, and I ran the meat shop for about a year. Then the big stores started cutting prices and made it so the small ones could not compete with them. I gave it up, but I had made some omeny on real estate, buying and selling, when in the store so it was not lost time. Then there came the slump in real estate, and I went out looking for a homestead. 

I found a homestead near Cooking Lake on theforest reserve. It was not yet surveyed so we squatted on it until we got it surveyed, and got our patent onit. We went out in thee spring of 1907. The 24th of May, toour ne home on the farm. We got together some logs for a stable for the horses and cow and hens. We had a tent for ourselves. That was all right for the summer, but not so good when it started to rain in the fall, so we got out some more logs for our house and started building it. When we got it about eight feet high, the rains started, and we put on a sod roof. That was all right for a while but it started to rain very hard, so we had to put up our tent inside the house to keep our beds and clothing dry. We had a good laugh one night when it was pouring down – we put umbrellas up over our bed, and the baking-board over the children to keep them dry. After that I got lumber and put up a tight roof over our h3eads. We plastered and chinked the house up, all good and warm.

That was only the beginning of our life on the homestead. There was land to clear, trees an brush to cut out. Our building site was overlooking the beautiful Wanison Lake, with its three island at the north end covered with spruce trees which made it quite picturesque. It was very convenient for watering our livestock. I built a small dock out in front of the house, and built a rowboat, and we spent many happy hours on the water. We would go over to the islands for raspberries, and gooseberries, and sometimes for a picnic with the children. The islands were an ideal place to go for trapping muskrats and shooting ducks and partridge. Many a good bag I have brought home in my boat.

In the winter I did very well trapping rats and weasels; sometimes getting several hundred rats and quite a number of weasels, and some mink, and coyote. The rabbits and prairie chicken were quite plentiful. We always had plenty of meat. When we had an over supply we canned it. In winter we could keep it frozen. Well , as time went on, I got the farm fenced all around and some clea5ring done, and bought a few good milk cows, and we always had a good vegetable garden, and quite a flock of hens. We grew enough wheat to grind to keep us in flour, and to have seed for the next year. We had oats to sell to buy our cereal, and a good cellar full of potatoes.

Then along came some surveyors to survey a right-of-way for the Grand Trunk Railway. Now, up to this time we had to haul our provisions from Edmonton, over trails through the bush and muskegs for thirty miles. It mostly took two days each way. Many a night I have slept under the wagon and had my meals over a campfire. One night I started our from Edmonton at midnight thinking I could make it home the next day. About ten miles out I got tired and dosed off to sleep. The horses were thirsty, and we were crossing a  pond on a fill, so just in the centre of it the team turned in for a drink. Over went the wagon load of provision and myself into four feet of water. I sure woke up in a hurry. The horses were plunging in the mud and the water so I got them free from the wagon. It was very dark so I went along till I came to a house on the Clover Bar Road. I went in and got myself and my team dried up and warm. It was freezing weather in October. Next morning Mr Davis can and helped me get my load straightened up. The groceries were not wet. We got the lumber and other stuff out of the water – all except a barrel of lime which is still there. I got home that night, not much worse off from the soaking; but the horses both got chilled and both got influenza and died.

Well, that team of horses had cost us $475.00, and our money was pretty well tied up in Edmonton property., so I went to Tofield and bought a pari of green oxen. Although I had never had any experience with oxen , I bought harness for then and broke them in to work. They did all our work for several years. We got the work done even though it was slow. We called them Peter and Jack. It was very slow traveling on the road at two miles per hour. I have done lots of it. We cut part of our hay on the forest reserve, several miles north, and hauled it home in the winter, sometimes in 30 below zero weather. That was cold work., But it had to be done, and we lived through it and came out on top.

After the surveyors, came the construction gangs. We had sale for our eggs and butter to the camps. A grocery store started at North Cooking Lake, just one half mile from our place, with a post office, too. Them after the steel was laid and the trains started to run, time got quite brisk. A summer resort started at Military Point on Cooking Lake. Quite a lot of cottages were built, and we supplied the people with milk and cream, butter, eggs, and all kinds of garden truck. For ten years I did a flourishing business. There was a good cash market for all our milk, cream. Butter, eggs, strawberries, vegetables of all kinds and potatoes. I had four or five acres of potatoes every year. I dug our a pit that would hold five or six hundred bushel of spuds for the winter, and would sell them in the spring at good prices. We also stored turnips and cabbage. Beside selling all our own milk, I bought milk from  six cows from the man across the lake. I would go over in the boat and get the milk while the boys milked our cows. Then I would get the wagon loaded up with vegetables and other things, and start out for Cooking Lake. I carried a cowbell on the seat, and when I got there I rang the bell and the customers would meet me in groups at various places along the route. It was very interesting as well as profitable work, and I enjoyed it very much. The children did quite well in the berry season, selling all the could pick and a dime a glass.

The school was quite near, about ½ mile south. In winter the children would go on the lake in a bee line, which was a much quicker. They skated when the ice was clear. We all had great fun on the ice before it got covered with snow. I had one of the bobs off the sleigh rigged up so Gertrude and the children could get rucked in nice and warm, and I would put on my skates and away we would go for a trip around the islands two miles away. How we all did enjoy that sport! Mother would have a story book along to read to the kiddies.

Now before the Railway was built, we had no Post Office, nor no school nearer that Ministic Lake, four miles away. We had no place to hold church services, so we had the preaching at our house every second Sunday. We had a good attendance. After the school was built we held services there. Once evening when the service was at our place we had quite an exciting experience. I was away after the cows, and as I looked towards home I saw a great smoke where the house was, I ran as fast as possible till I got home. The barn was on fire and the boys were nowhere to be found. The preacher was still there. They told me the boys were in the fire and it was such a shock to me  that I never got over it. After an hour or so the boys came out of their hiding place and told us how it happened. They had seen us smudging the flies before the milking. Our camp stove was in the hayloft, so the put hay in the stove and struck a match to it. It caught in the loft and they ran and hid in the woods. I had to get out more logs and start to build another barn. We soon had it built, and also built a grainery.

We had our house in Edmonton rented most of the time, but when times took a slump it was hard to get worthwhile rent so I sold it, and the store lot. We had fixed the shop up to live in when the children were going to highschool; also, before that , to live in when we went to town for supplies. Joy was born there on October 21, 1913. The next spring there was a Fox Co. near Edmonton that wanted me to go north into the wilds and buy cross and black fox pups from the Indians and trappers for them. They gave me $1000.00 in cash and $200.00 a month and all expenses. I was away five months and brought back 35 nice cross and black foxes. I was Peace River when the war started. They wired me to come home as fur prices had dropped very low. I cam back and went to work on the farm again. I sold the oxen and bought a good team of three year old clyde horses. We named them Frank and Nelly. They were the best team we ever had. We bought an express wagon for our milk route, an some more good milk cows. I built a fox pen and bought a pair of good cross foxes. They had six pups in the first litter, one silver and five good crosses. We raised then all, but just before pelting time we lost our silver, He got out of the pen and we never saw or heard of him again. I guess someone had caught it and kept quite about it. We had foxes get our several times but always got them in again. One was out for a month but I got her in again.

Now a little about the road from Edmonton to our farm. It was graded out through Clover Bar for about ten miles from town, and from there on it was a winding trail, over hills, and through muskegs and sloughs and brush and woods. Part of it we had to cut out ourselves. I remember the time I brought out lumber for the roof of our house. I got bogged in a slough, the wheels down to the hubs in mud and water. I had to carry the shingles and lumber out about fifty yards through two feet of water. Then I put the logging chain on the end of the wagon pole and pulled the wagon on to solid ground. I loaded it up again and moved along home. I have had that happen quite often. Once when I was bringing home a load of seed oats I was sitting on the spring seat in the front, and we were going down a steep hill. There was a bridge of logs at the foot of the hill, when the wheels struck the log the far bounced me out in front of the wagon. I fell down and the wheel caught my neck. God must have said “whoa”. I went stoned blind, and when I came to I got to my feet and held on to the wheel until my sight came back. The blood was running down my neck and my jaw was badly skinned. I climbed on my rig and made home and was soon ok. We had losses and crosses as well as our gain and pleasure, but our trust was in God. Someday we may wander back again to the old homestead, Even if the buildings are burned, the land is still there.

When the Railway Construction gangs came in they made better trails, and gave contracts to the farmers for ditching the right of way. As we had sale for our butter and eggs to them, we bought some milk cows in the spring for $90.00 each. That was a very dry summer. The sloughs dried out and the water hemlock bulbs were exposed. We had two of those cows poisoned by it. That was hard luck, but others not far from us lost their whole here so we thought were lucky not to have lost more. We went our and bought two more to keep up our milk supply.

In the winters, after the lake froze up, I would start trapping muskrat and weasel. If the trapping was good I would get twenty to thirty rats and three or four weasels a day. I carried my rifle with me and I would very often get some partridges or prairie chicken for meat. When we first went to the homestead game birds where plentiful. Wanison Lake is half a mile east of Cooking Lake. It is about half a mile wide and two miles long. Cooking Lake is twelve miles across, and in the mornings the wild ducks would fly from the big lake to ours in large flocks. Many of them fell in our garden, to supply our larder. After harvest the prairie chicken would come to feed on the grain stacks, and they often made a good meal for us. Rabbits were plentiful too, as well as partridge and ducks. We would freeze then and have a supply on hand.

Sometimes I would butcher a cow and take three quarters of it to town and sell it, and have one quarter for ourselves. We always had a good supply of vegetables in the cellar, and a pit full of spuds to sell in the spring. We also had turnips. And in the spring I would have a good bundle of furs. Then in the winter I had several icehouses to fill with ice and sawdust., and several cords of wood to cut and haul for my customers at Military Point. So that all meant good cash money coming in winter and summer. I would most always get two or three coyotes in the winter when hauling from the reserve. I had a trail of my own so I would place traps in the sleigh track at a certain spot , cover it with light snow, drag and all. Next rip, a few days later, I would have one in my trap. Once I shot one on the lake at five hundred yards away with my Snyder rifle, made a perfect bullseye. 

We had a four acre pond on our farm, quite near the buildings. It was a fine spot for the ducks to hatch, and a good sheltered place for them to feed – splendid for shooting too. I kept a boat out there to pick up the ducks, and one day late in the fall I went to get some ducks. When I got there a fine string of ten scaup ducks were sitting on a log. My dog was at heel, and when I got near the ducks swam off in a nice line. I fired and my dog brought in eight. One fell out in the center of the pond and the dog did not see it. I got the boat out and it was so dried out it leaked very bad. I got a pole and the dog got in, and out we went until I could reach the duck with the pole. By then the boat was half full or water. I reached out with the pole for the duck, and down went the boat. The dog swam out and took the duck ashore. I could not swim. The water was up to my armpits, so I put the pole under my arms and waded out.

The ducks were very plentiful in those days. I have seen the lake just covered – thousands of them, of all different kinds. Our boys had a lot of fun shooting them with their 22 rifle, often getting two or three at one shot. They would get our the first morning of open season and be home to dinner with a good bag each, while hunters from town would be banging all day and come in with a mud hen and a teal. I found the 22 much lighter to carry, and it cost less for ammunition, so I got on to it very quickly too, and could get my two birds with one shot. Naturally the boys had the hunting and trapping spirit born in them. They started trapping very young, even when their mother had to set the traps for them. They got lots of rats and weasels and I did the pelting for them. They made very well at it, and bought their own rifles and kept us well supplied with game. They started their own bank accounts, and as soon as they were through grade school, they went to Edmonton for High School, and they sold papers to help keep themselves there. Muriel worked for her board while in high school, and was out teaching when she was sixteen years old. She taught until she got married.

After the boys left high school they went out to the wilds of the north trapping fur-bearing animals. The call of the wild was in their blood and nothing would stop them. The had the best of luck and got good prices for their fur. They also had the excitement and they were happy. The have trapped in northern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. They both got married and their wives went to the north with them. Wendell has three children, two boys and a girl, and Ralph has one girl. They both have had many thrilling adventures.

One summer Wendell came to Seattle to visit us, and from here he went to Alaska, and then out to the Arctic coast at Point Barrow. He went down the McKenzie River several hundred miles and over some very swift rapids. He had several mishaps but got back safely. He worked in a gold mine in Herb Lake for several years as a driller, but later went back trapping with Ralph. The boys built their homes on an island in Herb Lake, Manitoba. It must be in the blood to live on an island! Gertrude and I were both born on P.E.I. and fathers and mothers also, and our boys and Muriel.

The boys. Each have a dog team and sled. Their trap line is twenty miles or more out from home. They have a main cabin at the center , and each have two or three small cabins one day’s run apart. They visit their traps once a week, or perhaps less if it is stormy. They shoot large game for food both for themselves and their dogs. They shoot moose, elk, caribou, deer, and bear. For fur they have caught timber and bush wolf, coyote, lynx, silver, coss and red fox, beaver, mink, otter, wolverine, skunk, muskrat, weasel, rabbit, and red squirrel.

When the boys left the farm to go to high school, I had all the work on the farm to do by myself. More settlers came in and split up the summer trade so there was nothing worthwhile in it for anyone. So again we got the wanderlust. We had an auction sale and sold our stock, implements, household goods, seed grain, and potatoes and rented the farm, and in April 1923 we went to Calgary. We stayed there for the summer. In the fall we went to Seattle for the winter. We both wanted a change to a warmer climate. My nerves were getting bad. Joy, who was then ten years old was with us. We stopped off in Spokane for three weeks and then went on to Seattle. We rented a housekeeping room and lived there until we found a place to rent on Mercer Island. We found a furnished four room house with a garden and fruit trees, apples, pears, and plums. The house was on the waterfront with a good view of the city over Lake Washington. My work was caretaker for a residence a half mile north of us. We had a good stream running down to the lake near the garden, so we put a line of trough across the top of the garden to connect with the stream so were able to irrigate when required. We had  very fine vegetables. Joy went to Lakeview school for her grade work and then went to Seattle for her high school and University. She also took business courses.

Now, when Muriel was teaching school near Gadsby, Alberta, she became acquainted with a young farmer, Clifford Glasier, and in due time they were married. They started out in a farm nearby. It was prairie land with a good house and out buildings, and for a few years they had good crops, and were getting fairly well set up with stock. Then came a little boy and they called him James Arthur, after his two grand daddies. He was our first grandson. The next summer I went to visit them and spent the summer with them. While I was there they had a mishap. Muriel boarded the school teacher. The teacher had been home to Calgary for the weekend and when she returned on the train, Muriel went to Botha to meet her with the buggy. On the way home they had to pass a road grader, and the team ran into the ditch, threw Muriel out and broke her shoulder. We sent for the doctor and he came and set it, but she had to the go to the hospital and have it reset. She was there for six weeks. When she was in the hospital one of the neighbour girls and the teacher helped with the housework, and until she could use her arms, I did the chores and took care of Jimmy.

Now back a little again to the time when Cliff and Muriel were married. They were carried at Cliff’s parents’ home. Wendell was the groomsman and Laura, Cliff’s sister, was the bridesmaid. They fell in love with each other and were soon married. Then Ralph saw how happy Muriel and Wendall were he got busy looking for a partner to share his joys and sorrows. He soon married to Mabel Ogden from Calmer, Alberta.

The summer Ralph got married I was at Muriel’s place and they drove down to our place on Mercer Island, and brought me home with them. It was a very pleasant trip. We had a camp outfit and stopped overnight in Banff. We had a good swim in the springs, and at Radium, the next night, we had another swim in the springs  there. Then we camped near Soap Lake, and one or two other places, and on home. When we got there, Wendell and Laura had come in by train a few days before, with their little son,  Allen. We all had a very good time for about two weeks. Then mother and Joy went back to Muriels’ with Ralph and Mabel. Wendell and Laura returned by rail. I batched till Mother came home on the train. Joy stayed with Muriel.

Now a few words about my father family. Father died soon after we moved to Ardgowan. He was 64 years old, and was buried in Sherwood cemetery on Brackley Point Road. Mother died a few years earlier in Bowden, Alberta, and was buried there. Georgina, my oldest sister was married to John Patterson, a farmer who farmed at Janet, near Calgary. She died a few years ago and was buried in Calgary. Lily, who was a Salvation Army Officer, died in Calgary as was buried there. Fred , my brother from Spring Lake, fell of a load of hay and broke his back. He died and was buried in Bowden. Ada, the youngest of the family, was a school teacher and died quite young. She too was buried in Bowden. James, my older brother, sold the old home farm and went to Charlottetown to live. He married Carried Pierce, and they had two children, Alice and Wylie. James died a few years ago, and was buried in Delburne and the have two girls, Lillian and Lois. Fred was married to Minnie Higgins, and they had two boys and two girls. Minnie and the children moved to Peace River after Fred died and Minnie later married again to a Mr. Turner.

Now I will go back to when we first came to Mercer Island. The man I was working for, Mr Manning of Mannings Coffee, sold out and moved to Frisco. I got another caretaker job at Groveland Park with the Christian Church Community Committee. They had jut bought twenty two acres with 625 feet of waterfront on the west side with a grand view of the city. They subdivided it, leaving six acres on the waterfront for park, and the balance of it into small lots which they sold to members of the church for campsites. The lots were 30 x 52 feet. There were six blocks with from 20 to 30 lots in each block. Shelton Avenue running from the Boulevard to the park was sixty feet in width. Across the street the same width bordered the park. There were five other narrow streets between blocks. East of the Boulevard there was one block of large lots 50 feet wide by 200 feet long. They had a big celebration the day they had the Dedication Service, and they sold a large number of lots that day. Mr J.W. Baker, a real estate broker, was their agent. He did the mapping, planning and business part of it. I did the work clearing for the roads and park, making tables, fireplaces, bridges, trails, etc. I hade shake roofs over the tables, underbrushed the park, and cut cordwood for the fireplaces. I also cleared up the waterfront, but it is all grown up again now.

We rented the Michael place for four years, but when I got worked on the church park, we bought four lots on the corner of Shelton Avenue., and the Boulevard. We built a snug little four room cottage on it, and are still living in it. We grow our own vegetables and potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, loganberries and grapes. We have all kinds of flowers and shrubs. We also have lots of firewood for fuel.

About ten year ago I was stricken with Parkinson’s disease, or shaking palsy. I have not been able to go out and work for our living, so we have to depend on our savings. This disease is entirely the nerves, and it isi incurable. There s no real pain, only when I overdo it. Then muscular pains set in. But it is very embarrassing indeed, and the more one tries to stop the shaking, the worse it will become. At least that is my experience with it. My head does not shake, like some others who have it, for which I am truly thankful. It is all in my legs and arms, and it is hard for me to write and I am much better when working a little.

When I first got this affliction I went to a doctor in Seattle, and he gave me several different kinds of medicine to take, and gave me all the tests required, and I had to do to him every two weeks. I kept it up for several months, then he told me to stop taking the medicine for six weeks and come in, so I did that and he gave me the tests again and found I was much better that when taking the medicine. He said ai had better just quit the drugs and take good care of myself and not overdo. I have been going to Alberta to my daughters’s home near Nevis, for the last three summers, and my health has been very much improved. The change of climate and the higher altitude seems to be very beneficial for me. But the winters in Canada are too cold foe me now. I sure enjoy the summers there and I can be of so much help to them on the farm doing chores and the garden work. Here at home about all I can do is a little garden work for ourselves, the products of which could be bought for very little.

We have land here and could grow berries and vegetables for sale, but there are several drawbacks to that. There is a shortage of water for irrigation, and the deer are so plentiful that they destroy the gardens. Berries and vegetables are so very cheap in the city that it doesn’t pay to grow them for sale. So it seems to be a waste of time to work for nothing.

December 4, 1943   Union Hall District, Erskine, Alberta.

I think it was about five years ago that I typed the former pages, and a lot of things have happened in that time. I will try to start again where I left off. We were living in our cosy little home on Mercer Island at Groveland Park, and were very comfortable and happy with all the needful things of life at hand. But since the events of life have turned out as they have, I have been forced to dispose of our holdings on Mercer Island. My dearest friend on earth has been called away by the grim reaper, death. At age 69 she went to heavenly home on July 15, 1942. The funeral took place on Tuesday July 21st at 2:30 Pm, from the church of Christ at Erskine, Alberta. The service was taken by Rev. E.A. 
Backlin.

Gertrude had been failing for about a year. However, she kept on her feet until she went to the Maynard Hospital on the first of June 1942. I sent a wire to the children and they all came to see her before she died. Wendell stayed with me to bring her body here for burial at Erskine. The I stayed at Muriel’s till after New Years and then I went back to Mercer Island to settle up the estate and sell our home and other holdings.

In the fall I returned to Muriel’s where I had a nice little cabin built to order and placed on a cement foundation about 50 feet from their house. It is real snug and warm, but there is a great loss in the home that can never be replaced, my darling Gertrude. But there is one consolidation that I have in knowing that she is forever at rest in that beautiful home in heaven, away from all the troubles and trials of this war torn world. I am just looking forward to the time when we will meet again with all the loved ones who have gone before. It is my earnest and fervent prayer that all our children will accept salvation and that we will be an unbroken family in heaven.

Now I have arrived at the time of my expectancy, my 70th birthday, October 13, 1944. So I thought I would like to take a trip to P.E.I. and see the old home place where I was born, and Ardgowan, our home where we lived on Mt Edward Road in Charlottetown. Also, visit a few of the friends whom I used to know when living there thirty-seven years ago. I went by C.N. Railway, and had a very hearty welcome at the station by my niece Alice (Jim’s daughter) and her husband Eric Wilson. They drove me to their home at 38 Victory Avenue. This had been Jim’s home until he died. It is a very nice seven room house, all modern with full basement, garage at the rear, and also a garden. Eric is a son of the Rev Wilson of the United Church at Covehead. Eric is in the Navy and id bookkeeper of supplies at the Charlottetown barracks. Eric is a real sportsman, very fond of the gun and fishing rod. Alice is also fond of sports. She is a dear sweet jewel of humanity, and I like her very much. I enjoyed every day of the six weeks that I spent with them. I also enjoyed the week I spent at Brackley Point Road on the farm at Alley and Lizzies. I roamed around my old hunting and fishing rounds and through the woods where I used to hunt partridge and rabbit, and I walked along th brook where I used to fish trout and hunt duck and snipe.

But fifty years has mad many changes. Winter River is now nearly dry since they have put in a pumping station at Coxes Spring. There has now been a new school built on the other side of the road, and the old one is used as a hall. The Methodist Church has now been remodeled with a nice spire, and had been taken over by the United Church. I had the privilege of being at the reopening services, and enjoyed them very much. The Salvation Army had charge of the afternoon service, and the regular preacher the evening one. The church was full both times. The church was decorated with a wonderful variety of flowers, and the singing was grand. I was invited to supper at Arthur Jackson’s and enjoyed it very much.

Father’s old house was burned down after Jim sold it. But the barn and well house and implement shed and boiling house were still there. The flower garden and the two old orchards are all stumped and ploughed out. The new orchard is still there but had been sadly neglected, and only a few trees bearing fruit worth picking. I picked three sacks of Duchess for Alley one day. Alleys’ son Ivan has the farm, and had built a very nice house on the old foundation. Ivan is married to Regie Bryenton’s daughter. He is Alley’s second son. Earl is the youngest and Wyley is the oldest, he is also married and is building a house on his father’s land near the school. The house we lived in when we were first married was burned down also. Another one has bee built on the same  foundation, but not as good as ours. The road to Winter River from the cemetery has been widened and very much improved. The Airport and landing field is built on Donald MacMillan’s, John Prouse, and Saras Gillespie’s farm lands. The Sherwood cemetery has been improved. The Mt Edward Road, from St Peters road to Ardgwoan has built up wonderfully since we left. I understand that real estate has advanced in price more than double. I also had the pleasure of many drives through the country where I had never been before. One was to Green Gables in the National Park, and back along the north shore to Covehead., and then to town. Another was out to Hunter River and Wheatly to visit some friends. We also went to Pete’s Lake fishing rainbow trout, and out to Delvy on the sea at Tracady.

After my visit to P.E.I. I returned to my little cabin at Muriel’s. Both boys are still in Herb Lake. I went up to visit them a year ago last September and spent a very pleasant month or so with them. I went shooting and fishing, and I went out to their trapline. We shot a moose and some ducks and caught lots of fish. Ralph has a small island on the lake quite near the village, all to himself. Zit is just a few acres with a nice grove of spruce, poplar, and birth trees on it. They have good sized houses built with good straight logs and corked with moss, and lined inside with shiplap and plaster board. They are every comfortable and warm in the winter, and cool in summer. They live in the largest house and rent the other. They have a suspension bridge across to the mainland, about 12000 feet or so long. Ralph has a passenger boat and carries the mail and freight and passenger from the railway portage to town in the summer. He also has several small boats and canoes with outboard motors. He has a small plant for electric light, and a power saw for lumber and firewood. They have their house very nicely furnished and painted inside.

Wendell is living on the mainland about ½ mile from Ralph’s, along the shore near the old gold mine where he used to work as a driller. When the mine shutdown Wendell had moved to another mine in Kenora, Ontario, and they lived there for a year or two. Then he got rheumatism so bad that he quit the mine and went back to trapping. The rheumatism left him, so he decide to stay at the trapping. Wendell’s wife Laura, has been sick for quite a while, and has had to stay in bed for several months, but is getting better now.

Now about Joy. The last time I saw her was at her mother’s funeral in Erskine, July 21, 1942, and then only for a few minutes. She had been to Seattle to se her mother before she died, and had gone back to McLeod, Alberta where she had been training with the R.C.A.F. She had just been posted to Gander Newfoundland, and has been there until a few weeks ago when she was posted to Regina. Her work at Gander was in the Post Office and she liked it very much. She is coming to spend Christmas with us in a few days, and we are looking forward to a very happy time.

August 13, 1944

Now for a little typing. It is getting near harvest time and the prospects are very good for a bumper crop. They have started haying, but it has been slow work on account of rain. Muriel is getting a good supply of wild raspberries and saskatoons, and our garden is very good. They have about forty hogs, and around seventy or eight head of cattle., and about two hundred hens, lots of ducks and geese, turkeys, and both foxes and mink. It takes a lot of feed to supply so many mouths. I have not been very well this summer, and have had to have a doctor once. I am getting very shaky, and am longing to join my precious Gertie and all the loved ones gone on before.

Wendell has gone north on the Alaska highway to Whitehorse with a government expedition for the National Museum. They will be getting data on the country and collecting all kinds of animals, from a mouse to a moose, and all kinds of birds, and flowers. There are five of them, and they are traveling in Army tucks and jeeps. The leaders are Dr A.E. Porsild, botanist, and Dr. Rand, zoologist. There is another botanist, a cook and Wendell – he is assistant to Dr. Rand. Their headquarters is at Whitehorse, and they are working on the Canol Road between there and Norma, where the oil wells are. The Canol pipe is a four inch line laid flat on the ground and bent to the contour of the country. It carries 3000 barrels of oil a day fro Norman Wells to the refinery at Whitehorse. A distance of 580 miles. Oil leaving Normand takes six and a half days to reach Whitehorse. Wendell says they are getting along very well with their collections. They have a large number of flowers that have never been collected in the Yukon before. Wendell has seen a white wolf which he wants very much to get as they are rare. Wendell says in his most recent letter, Dated August 3, 1944 “We are now at Sheldon Lake, Mile 22 Canol Road, camped in an abandoned construction cam, where there is a fully equipped saw mill, with about $10.00 worth of tools kicking around, and all the beds and mattresses etc. and 40 cases of eggs in the dump. The first morning we ere there we shot two bears and there are a lot more hanging around. Our camp is right at the foot of Mt Sheldon, which is 7,500 feet high. It stands alone in the center of the flat country, and is near the lake. It is named after an explorer who went through here in 1900.”

November 10, 1945

Now a lot of things have happened since I typed the last entry. The most important is that World War 2 has ceased. Then, on April 12, 1945, President Franklin D Roosevelt died.

Last winter I went to Edmonton just after Christmas to spend the cold months at Wendells and had a very pleasant visit with them till spring. They have a very nice comfortable home, conveniently located, and I enjoyed it very much. The Erskine United Church is just one block from their place, and we went there for worship. I enjoyed the singing and the services very much indeed.

Wendell has spent the summer months in northern Manitoba, out from Flin Flon at Channing, prospecting for a mining company. Cliff and Muriel have bought a home at Stettler, 21 acres of land right within the city limits and very convenient for the children going to school. They bought this place at Stettler las spring, but did not move to it till after harvest, and are still moving. I have had to move my house and workshop here also. I was real glad when it arrived here to be in my own little cabin where I could lay down on my chesterfield and rest my weary body in peace and quiteness and be nice and warm. I had a coon skin coat that I bought at L.E. Prouse’s store in Charlottetown in 1895 – it was getting the worse for wear sow Wendell helped me to take it apart, and patched it up and squared and stretched it, and lined it with a nice felt lining, and made a very fine cover for my chesterfield. I prize it very much for it has kept me warm in many a stormy journey through my life.

May 26, 1946

Back to a little history. In 1799 P.E.I. received it present name. The first British subject born on the island was John Webster, born October 24, 1760. First Post Office for the whole island was opened in 1802. In 1825 the population had increased to 23,0000, and in 1883 to 33,293. In the former 18 years vessels arrived from Great Britain and 126 from British colonies. I think that is about the time of my grandfather, John Bryenton, arrived on the island from England, and located five miles from Charlottetown on Brackley Point Road in a forest of pine, maple, and beech trees. He did his share of pioneering with a family of twelve children, seven girls and five boys. He had 200 acres of land, and when he located there were no roads, just blazed trails through the forest, and settlers were far apart. They had no tractors or dynamite for clearing the land of the large pine stumps. They just cut the roots off and worked around them until they got a winch or a capsun that was worked with a horse and long chain to pull the stump over. Then they hauled them away on a sled and made fences of them. Even when I was a boy we had to dig around many of them. Some of them were six feet high and through. They made fine kindling wood as there was so much pitch in the stumps, and there were so dry, but it also was a chore to whittle off the chips, and the axe had to be sharp.

The Rev. Theophilus Desbrisay was the only Protestant minister for many year. He arrived on the island in 1775. He is represented as a man of sterling character, and a faithful servant. He died March 14, 1873. One on my first ministers on the island was rev. Francis Wetherall from England. He landed at Bedeque, June 26, 1832, after a voyage of nearly two months, with his wife and two children from Plymouth. His appointed place was at Union Road, about forty miles from Bedeque. He left his wife and family behind at Bedeque and made the long tramp on foot to the residence of Mr Abbott on Union Road. Friends made the necessary arrangements to bring the family goods to Union Road., and such was the condition of the road that several days were required for the journey. Mr. Wetherall himself returned for the family. When they reached the point of the Malpeque Road about where the Winslow Road begins, there being no cross-roads leading to the Union Road settlements, he and his family proceeded on foot following a blazed trail through the woods, carrying one of the children in his arms. Having missed his way he finally found the residence of Mr. John Bryenton, my grandfather, conducted them by path through the woods to Mr. Abbotts’s home. During the last two mile walk Mrs. Wetheralls’s courage almost broke.

Regular preaching services were established in the house of Mr. Abbott, also Mr. Sanders’s house on Winslow Road. Mr and Mrs. Abbott were local preachers in England. She died a few years after and was the first person buried in the Union Road cemetery. Josiah Ayers and wife rendered valuable help to the infant church. The Esserys were noted for their stability of Christian character, and liberality in sustaining the church; the Bryentons, with all their preaching talent and power; the M. Coubrey’s; the Yeos, and Sanders, Pickards, Turners, Holmans, Cudmores, and Reardons all contributed to the growth of the church.

My father, George Bryenton, lived on the family homestead. Uncle William lived just over the road, East from us. Uncle John lived just West of us. Uncle George Jackson and Aunt Mary were just south at Royalty Junction. Uncle Christmas Bryenton lived in Charlottetown. He was not married. Aunt Harriet was Mrs. Thomas Seller in Charlottetown. Aunt Susan was Mrs. Benjamin Seller. Aunt Jemima was Mrs. Henry Rackham of Charlottetown. Aunt Maria and Aunt Lydia were not married. Louisa was Mr. E. Seller’s first wife. 

September 6, 1946

I have been quite well this summer. I have been able to do the garden work, and keep the laws in good trim, which is quite a chore. But it all helps me to keep in good trim, and it is also interesting work. I have had my little cabin wire with a two way electric bell between Muriel’s house and mine, so if I’m sick I push the button at the head of my bed and it rings in their kitchen. When meals are ready there and it rings in mine. Then I have a very nice combination radio and gramophone, and some good records of the hymns I love to sing, I just love to sing those old hymns along with it.

August 8, 1947

This year has made a great change in my life. I went to Edmonton last November to spend the winter at Wendell’s. I was getting along just fine, but on February 6 I had a very serious accident. I was just turning around to sit at the kitchen table when my slipper caught in a break in the linoleum and threw me down sideways on the floor and broke my hip. They called a doctor and he at once had an ambulance come and take me to the Royal Alexandra Hospital. They x-rayed me and prepared me for an operation. Dr. Anderson and Dr. Lee performed the operation by drilling the bone and pining it with a pin made of a composition that eventually dissolves and becomes a part of the bone and strengthens it. I didn’t feel any pain from the performance and knew nothing of what happened until I woke up in the bedroom again. But they later x-rayed me a good many times which was very hard on my nerves for I could not keep from shaking for them and they had to strap me down. The doctors, nurses, and orderlies were all very good and kind to me. Many friends visited me and brought me beautiful flowers and fruit. Either Wendell or Laura or Joy came to see me every day that I was in the hospital and that cheered me up. I was in the hospital for 94 days and came out on May 10th. After leaving the hospital I had to use crutches for a month. I came home to my little cabin in Stettler on May 24th. My recovery seems slow and it has left me very weak in my back and knees. I am about useless as far as work is concerned, just eat and rest. I take a little walk to supple my joints, and read my bible and other books, and sing some of my nice hymns. I get the daily news on the radio which keeps me in touch with the world. 

Cliff and Jim had a two weeks vacation in July and went for a trip by car to Banff, Lake Louise, Radium and through the States to B.C. Wendell has gone prospecting in Northern Saskatchewan near Channing. Joy has gone to Vancouver. Ralph has gone for a two month’s trip with Mr Porsild from Ottawa to inspect the reindeer herd and the water buffalo herds in Baffin Island. He is taking his movie camera and lots of film.

This is a copy of a very interesting letter that we received from Wendell in 1928 when he made his trip to the Arctic.

Ft McPherson, Peel River, N.W.T.
     August 26, 1928                        

Dear Mother and Dad
It is a long time since I have written any letters, but I have about ten days to wait here for the boat, so I will make use of the time by writing to some of my friends, for I know how hard it will be for me to sit and write after I get outside.

I will start and tell you about my trip from the time I left Menana. When I made up my mind to make this trip I started to get and outfit together. I bought a 300 Savage rifle for $47.00, another blanket, a tarpaulin, a tent axe, cooking outfit, some more clothes, hunting knife, and a lot of other gear I figured I would need on the trip.

When the first boat came in from Dawson, I climbed aboard and went to Ft. Yukon. It took about a week. My hat blew off the first day, and I had to go bareheaded till we got to Tanana where I bought a straw hat. In Ft Yukon I set up my tent and started up batching. I met all the oldtimers and found out all I could about the country. Everyone I talked to advised me to give up on the idea, as Rat River was too dangerous to tackle with a canoe. Oh, I heard some awful stories about the Rat River with its 40 miles of solid rapids, and the boats that had been smashed on it, and the men that had never been heard of again. Besides this the awful tales of mosquitoes that would be a foot thick all over me. All this made me more anxious to try it, and be the first one to go down the Rat River in a canoe.

I found a canoe that I figured would suit me, a 16 ft. Peterborough, and after chewing the fat with the owner for a while, got it with two paddles for $40.00. Then I hired an Indian to take me up to Old Crow in his gas boat, 300 miles. It took us seven days to get to Old Crow.

On the way we stopped at an Indian camp, and my Indian and his brother got some home brew and got pickled to the gills. In fact everyone there was drunk, except the bootlegger’s squaw and myself. One of the young bucks went out to see a fish net in a kayak and stuck his foot through the bottom and upset, and we had quite a time getting him in before he drowned. The next day we managed to get started. We lashed the bootlegger’s boat to ours, and his squaw took the wheel and I looked after the engines. The three bucks finally went to sleep, and all went fine till we ran into a gravel bar, swung around with the current, and put one engine out of commission. We went on with the one engine till we came to a good landing. There the squaw an I hauled the wrecked boat out on skids and found what was the matter. The lazy-lifter was bent in a half circle, the bolt through the universal was broken, and two lag screws were gone from the stuffing box. It took us about ten hours to get it fixed. We filed a pin fro the universal out of a bolt, made a fire and straightened the lazy-lifter and put two new screws in the stuffing box, and went along.

I shot a moose further on, and we cleaned him and gave most of the meat away to some Indians we met. We passed into Canadian territory at Ramport House. There was a police there, but he did not charge me duty on any of my chuck. He asked me if I would go up to Eagle River when I got there, an see if a certain trapper was alright, as they had not heard from him all winter. When we got to Old Crow I met this trapper there. He had had a narrow escape. He was eating wild rhubarb which is plentiful around there, and had got some wild parsnip and nearly poisoned himself. He went unconscious and fell with one of his hands in the campfire. When he cam to one had was burned to a char. He had also lost his memory and it took him two days to get back to his main camp, eight miles, and two weeks to get to Old Crow where he was waiting for someone t take him out.

I did not stay long in Old Crow as I was anxious to get on my way. After I left there I lost all tack of time and date. It was just as bright at midnight as it was in the daytime, and I slept when I was tired and ate when I was hungry. And mosquitoes, well if I tried to describe then, you would say I was crazy. I wore a head net all the time, and ate and slept under a mosquito bar. Sometimes I could not see in front of the canoe for mosquitoes. I sewed up the font and sleeves of my shirt up , and wore gloves all the time. But let us forget them.

From Old Crow I went 110 miles up Porcupine River, the up Bell River 120 miles, then up Little Bell 12 miles, and over a small portage to a small creek an up to Loon Lake. I crossed Loon Lake and over a ½ mile portage to another small lake, then over a short portage to Charlotte Creek, down it about 15 miles to Dismal Creek, Then down 20 miles to Rat River. Just as I hit Rat River I went down over a shoot and half filled the canoe with water and scraped several rocks. It is a very treacherous thing, but I just managed to hit it right. Then followed a series of rapids, most of which I managed to shoot without wading; but often I would have to jump out in the middle of a rapid and let the canoe down easily from rock to rock. Sometimes I would half fill the canoe, and have to get ashore to empty it. I had many narrow escapes there. And often when I would look ahead I would think sue I was a goner as I would be going too fast to stop. But I came through OK with about twenty holes in the canvass of my canoe, all of which I fixed so they were waterproof. There are about forty miles of rapids on Rat River where a fellow goes so fast that he can’t see the trees going past on the shore. Then you come to the McKenzie Delta where the ground is low and the river is os slow that it is aggravating. A fellow almost wishes he was back in the rapids. There is about fifty miles of this slow water, and you come to Peel River which is slow and sluggish. Then down Peel about sixty miles to a branch of McKenzie know as Husky River. Her I met the first person I had seen since leaving Old Crow two weeks before. He was Mr Saunders, that I used to know up on Lake Athabasca, and he was surely surprised to meet me there. About ten miles further down I met another man, Frank McCaulley, whose father used to be mayor of Edmonton. He was getting a raft of firewood. He wanted me to stay with him and give him a hand, and we could split on it. This just suited me, so together we gather eight cords of driftwood and floated it down to Aklavik, where we sold it for $10.00 a cord. When we got to Aklavik everyone was down with the flu. Only three or four people were able to get around at all. People were dying, dogs starving, net rotting in the river. So we got to work at once making soup for the sick and taking from tent to tent., looking after the dogs, burying the dead, etc. Fifteen natives and one white man died in Aklavik. Then I decided to go to Herschel Island with a trader. He offered me $75.00 to make the trip with him. At Shingle Point the Eskimoes all had the flu, and there were five waiting to be buried, one that been dead ten days. We buried them and went on to Herschel Island. Only one had died there yet. We told the police about the conditions at Shingle Point., and they started to take them some medicine. About four miles out they hoisted a distress signal, and we had to go and being them back.. Their engine had broken down. So we turned around and took them back to Shingle Point, about sixty miles across open ocean. We hd a fifty foot schooner,, and it took us 24 hours to get there. The ice was so thick around us that we had to go half speed all the way and went many miles out of our way. We left one Police there, buried three more of the dead, and went back to Herschel. The ships come in to Herschel around by the Bering Sea, and Point Barrow. They got there a few days later by the Bay Chims, (a H.B. boat), the Paterson (owned bya trader from Frisco) and the St Roche, the police boat.

We stayed at Herschel a week, then came back to Aklavik with a load of freight. He gave me $100.00 instead of $75.00 for the trip. I had the best of food and did nothing practically except to steer the schooner. At Herschel I bought a lot of fur clothing, sel skin pants, muckluks, parkas, etc., and have sold some at a good profit. I bought a parka in Menana and sold it in Aklavik and made $25.00 on it. I sold the canoe for $80.00, the rifle foe $50.00 and the bed I bought in Seattle for $20.00. I think I should go into the trading business here.

I am at Ft. McPherson now, and am waiting for the boat. It is due in about a week. It will take me up the McKenzie River to Smith, where I will go across the portage and get another steamer to McMurray. I amy be down to see you sometime this winter, and can tell you better about the trip than I can write. I have a lot of snaps that I have taken that I will send you.

Your ever loving son,                                        
Wendell