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JustaDB said:
With a bent willow branch as a hockey stick & a frozen horse turd for a puck. Dad told us stories of him growing up in Sask.
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My dad grew up in Prince Albert and Shellbrook and told me the same stories
 
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Megar arc 5040dd said:
In Saskatchewan it is only a slough in the spring, summer, and fall. In the winter it is a hockey rink.
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JustaDB said:
With a bent willow branch as a hockey stick & a frozen horse turd for a puck. Dad told us stories of him growing up in Sask.
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When I was a farm boy in Saskatchewan, we didn't even know what hockey was yet. No electricity, no radio, no sports to speak of. The sloughs were mostly a source of ice for the ice hut and a great place to shoot ducks. The ice hut was a low shed that was mostly underground filled with straw and ice blocks cut from the slough. If I have a photo I have no idea where it is. I have very very few photos from the early days on the farm. This one isn't from the farm but it conveys the idea.

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Ours had a wooden roof covered in sod sloping down and away from the door to follow your head as you stepped down into the mostly underground hut. We also had a root cellar built the same way to store food. But the only roots I remember in there were potatoes, radishes, beets, carrots, and parsnip. Mostly it was filled with sausage and canned goods.

We had an ice box in the house too. And a wood stove but we had no wood. Mostly, we collected Cow Patty's and burned that.

I remember the old Soddy House my grandfather and great grandfather built when they first homesteaded too. But like the others, it is long gone now. When I am gone there will be no-one left to even remember it.
 
And I you guys had to walk 10 miles to & from school through the driving snow, uphill both ways?

Or did you not have school and had to read books by fire light, using a burnt stick and a plank to write on?
 
ChazzC said:
And I you guys had to walk 10 miles to & from school through the driving snow, uphill both ways?

Or did you not have school and had to read books by fire light, using a burnt stick and a plank to write on?
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That's a great question and great memories too. In the summer we rode to the one-room school house that was only a few sections away on Daisy - a Belgian workhorse. In the winter we put a "caboose" on the stone boat that was pulled by Daisy. The caboose had slits for the harness reins but Daisy knew the way by heart. There was a lean-to at the school for the horses. I had to endure the legend of my father who breezed through 4 years of school in a few months. For later years, my grandfather paid to send him to Saskatoon to finish elementary school and then high school. They send him to Peterborough to get his degree in theology. When I was finished grade 2 or 3 (I don't remember which) we moved east because my Dad got kicked off the farm after he quit the priesthood to marry my mother. As the oldest grandchild, they put me on the train to Watrous every summer to cut and bale hay and work summerfallow till I was 18.
 
ChazzC said:
Or did you not have school and had to read books by fire light, using a burnt stick and a plank to write on?
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That's an interesting question too. No homework that I remember. Only farm chores. When it got dark, you went to bed. We had oil lamps to settle everyone in and then they were extinguished. If you had to go to the bathroom, you got up in the dark and went out to the crapper - no toilet in the house. All my relatives were terrified of ghosts at night.
 
Susquatch said:
That's an interesting question too. No homework that I remember. Only farm chores. When it got dark, you went to bed. We had oil lamps to settle everyone in and then they were extinguished. If you had to go to the bathroom, you got up in the dark and went out to the crapper - no toilet in the house. All my relatives were terrified of ghosts at night.
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It sounds like you had a good upbringing. You learned to work and the value of things. We had an outhouse for the boys and I guess the girls poop was special as they didn't have to go to the outhouse.
We did have electricity, and that was good.
 
phaxtris said:
I always thought it was spelt slew, but anyways in Manitoba I always knew a slew/slough to be a stagnant pond or swap....lots of both in Manitoba, especially northern

Hard to find any kind of water out here in Alberta, slough or otherwise
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Thyere is an actual "official" way to differentiate a lake from a Slough at Ab. land titles branch and drainage regulations in municipalities....a slough is just a collection point for spring or rain run off water, a lake is fed by continuous running spring water or creek/river.
 
whydontu said:
Go to Enterprise with the police report, photos, and license plate info. Point out the driver claims he wasn’t the one who rented the truck. Unless the renter listed the driver on the rental agreement, the insurance is void and Enterprise might be willing to give you the drivers name.
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I'll take that as pretty good advice and follow up , however , I'm thinkin , this guy is a loser and a creep and doesn't have a pot to piss in .
 
Follow up to my Wrecked Garage incident .

My insurance company has responded and a restoration company has been assigned the job of clean up , shoring up the damaged structure and have put up temporary fencing to secure the site .
That all happened yesterday so after a two day wait following the incident , we are moving forward now .
It will be some time before all is well and repairs are complete.
 
JustaDB said:
No wood? What part of SK did you live in?
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South of Humboldt a bit and north of Watrous. It's odd that you question that. When I was a boy, there was no real wood where we were. Just bushes with small twigs around the sloughs. It burned ok, but didn't last. We only used it for kindling. Today there are small trees with sizable branches, and I'm sure you could truck in some decent firewood or even coal.

I don't really know, but I suppose it's possible that folks had chopped down anything remotely burnable long before I arrived. My great grandfather and his boys (my grandfather) homesteaded there, and raised my dad and his siblings. So basicly a generation lived there before me. I'd ask a relative, but I am now the oldest living person in my entire family tree, so that history is gone. All there is left is what I remember. I do know that they had burned cow-pies long before me.
 
My great grandparents emigrated from Sweden and cleared land just north of Strasbourg Sask. So a little south east of where I think you are Susquatch. it’s still in the family, although I haven’t seen it in years. From what I recall, and old photos showing the area long before I was born, theres a line a little east of there that real trees start to grow extending into big trees in Riding Mtn, and to the west it’s scrub. Doubt that’s entirely human effect?
 
Both of my grandfathers had homesteaded on the prairies , one in Alberta,he passed away when Mom was young, the other Saskatchewan and ended up in BC. But Dad did mention burning cow pies. .
 
JustaDB said:
I guess because the lion's share of SK is wooded.
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I didn't mean it that way. Sorry for expressing it like that.

What I meant is more like:

I was just thinking about why it's so different there now, so it's neat that you just so happened to be asking about it too.
 
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