This post and my next post form a letter I wrote to the author.
****
Dear Elinor,
Sometimes I write my review of a book in the form of a letter. It needs to be a special book. I found Finding Flora such a book.
Reading of Flora’s experiences as a young woman homesteading in Alberta in 1905 brought back memories of my grandfather, Carl Selnes, homesteading at Meskanaw in Saskatchewan in 1907.
Flora had been a ladies maid in Scotland. Though uncertain and scared she was determined to make her way in Western Canada.
Grandfather Carl was a fisherman and subsistence farmer in the Lofoten Islands north of the Arctic Circle in Norway. He initially settled and homesteaded in South Dakota and then came north in 1907.
Flora takes the opportunity of buying two quarters, 320 acres of land, from a Boer War nurse who is entitled to scrip (the right to homestead land) as a veteran. As a single woman - she does not reveal her marriage - she would not have been entitled to homestead.
Grandfather Carl, having already farmed in the U.S., knew to focus on the quality of the land rather than having bush and a water supply. Our family quarter at Meskanaw is excellent land.
Flora was in a long queue, almost all men, at the homestead office in Red Deer to file her claim.
Grandfather Carl filed in Melfort. Another man, Sam McCloy filed on the same quarter on the same day in Prince Albert. McCloy had priority by filing in the head office. McCloy said Grandfather Carl had come a long way to find a homestead and graciously relinquished his claim in favour of Grandfather Carl.
I wondered how Flora would start the process of farming with barely any equipment and less knowledge of farming. The assistance of neighbours to her reflects the co-operative spirit of farm life on the prairies in which I grew up two generations later.
While I was growing up at Meskanaw a farmer fell ill one summer and another, a few years later, died in a farm accident. Both years neighbours interrupted their harvests to join together to harvest the fields of the injured and the deceased.
Grandfather Carl had the advantage of having acquired equipment and experience in farming. He brought his equipment and horses north by rail.
It was daunting and lonely for Flora to homestead as a single woman. She had fled from a brief marriage to an abusive husband.
Grandfather Carl had married in South Dakota. His wife, Anna Marie, came with him. Their son, my father Hans, was born in 1911.
As with Flora’s neighbour, Peggy, Grandmother Anna Marie drove her horse, Old Joe, to Kinistino to trade eggs and butter for groceries.
Unfortunately, Grandmother Anna Marie died in 1914 from complications related to childbirth. Grandfather Carl never re-married.
Flora, walking across the prairie, shortly after settling to meet her neighbours was mirrored by Grandfather Carl. To his amazement, when he knocked on the door of his neighbour, he was greeted by Martin Hanberg, a man he had gone to school with in the Lofotens. Neither knew the other had homesteaded in Saskatchewan.
Flora swiftly learned to harvest the wild berries - saskatoons, cranberries, chokecherries, pincherries and strawberries - that abounded. I can remember as a boy going to pick saskatoons. They were bursting with flavour.
Our harsh winters are a shock to most Europeans. The temperature plunging to -40C can only be understood through enduring the cold. There were many settlers like Flora who thought existing settlers were exaggerating the cold they would experience.
Grandfather Carl actually moved north from South Dakota partially because of the weather. Having lived in a cold climate in the Lofotens though the temperatures were not as extreme as Saskatchewan he could handle the minus 40’s of Saskatchewan better than the plus 40’s of South Dakota summers.
I had not thought of how hard it was to navigate in the winter with only barely marked trails. Flora being caught in a winter storm while driving her wagon and horses home was powerfully described. Our family has no comparable stories.
The stories of homesteaders in Flora’s area giving up and moving on resonated with me. Two men had homesteaded before Grandfather Carl on our quarter. The first, a single man, whose family was about 30 miles away was overcome by loneliness and returned home. On the homestead records of our quarter the second said he was surrendering the homestead because all his horses had died of swamp fever.
I admired the incredible efforts Flora made to improve her quarter. I have copies of Grandfather Carl’s homestead documents. They humble me when I see the improvements he made to qualify for the title to his quarter.
In my work as a lawyer I have worked on land claims for indigenous bands. Two of them, Chakastaypasin and Peter Chapman, lost land through fraud orchestrated by officials of the Government of Canada. The wicked Frank Oliver portrayed in the book was just as unscrupulous.
