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THIS homestead business is a
very expensive one, and no one should try it unless they have from £500 to
£600 to start with, and even then they would find it very uphill work.
Of course there are a lot of
opportunities out here that one has not got at home; but then it is like
everything else, you need capital to be able to take advantage of these
opportunities.
As for the climate, so far we
have found it agreeable, the summer was very hot, but the fall was lovely;
now the day before yesterday the thermometer stood at 40° below zero, but
really I did not feel it much colder than on a cold day at home.
One has to take great care
not to get frost-bitten. I was down at the river with some horses the other
day, when a perfect stranger passing me took off his glove, and suddenly
seizing my nose rubbed it vigorously: it had begun to freeze without my
having felt it at all. Another time I had a very nasty experience, the Boss
(my employer) had sent me alone with a wagon and a couple of bronchos
(half-broken-in horses) to the bush 25 miles off, to get wood. When I had
got my load and was hauling out, the wagon broke down, and I was dragged
some distance before I could stop the horses. I left one horse at a ranch
about 20 miles out, but I had to ride the other one into Saskatoon, where I
arrived nearly frozen, and much exhausted, at past midnight, with a
temperature at nearly 40° below zero. After this I was ill, and the doctor
insisted on my not running any more such risks; as my employer would not
allow me to take a man out with me, but required me to go twice a week to
the bush alone, I let another man take my place. I was sorry to give up my
work, but I had my wife and child to consider, and so when I was well again
I tried to find something else to do, but only got one job to help store
ice, and as the man I did this for is an agent for the sale of implements, I
shall take my money out in something useful.
Down West there is very
little ready money and trade is mostly done on the exchange system, or on
the time system with heavy interest attached. One half the stores even pay
their men in kind. We none of us refuse any kind of work offered, and I
often think that many people's relations would open their eyes very wide, if
they could see what some have to do at times. |
