Tim O’Callaghan was one of the earliest settlers who homesteaded in the Lake View district. He was on a survey party which surveyed most of the land in the Peace River Block. He did a lot of custom breaking around the district and it was done with oxen. He broke his own land with oxen and also Ben Miller’s! Ben Miller’s first land was broke in June 1916.
Tim O’Callaghan and Gobin had the first crops and it was mostly oats and the first grain was hauled out in 1916 or 1917 to Spirit River, a distance of 75 miles, which took six days to make the round trip. The first grass was western rye and was seeded by A. Crull, Frank Golata and Gobin about 1917.
Tiny Peterson had the first cattle in Lake View. There wasn’t much in the way of gardens then but practically everything in that line is grown now as I myself grow most everything and have ripe tomatoes in my garden and also ripe pumpkins. I find cucumbers very hard to grow and never get more than a half dozen or so. Corn is hard to grow, but we usually have several feeds of a small corn before the frost.
Money could not buy fresh meat as there just wasn’t any. Any fresh meat was mostly rabbit with an odd moose or deer. The early settlers had nothing to hunt with.
Mrs. Gobin died in Nov. 1915 and was buried in Rolla. She was the first person to be buried there from Lake View. There is a small cemetery with a few persons buried in it on the Spildy place which is now the Hoffstrom estate.
Mr. A. Crull was an early pioneer of the Lake View district and is a Senior Citizen now living in Dawson Creek. He came to Lake View in early 1913.
The Lake View School District was formed by taking the northeast portion of West Saskatoon School District in 1934. The Lake View School was built by all volunteer labour in 1934. The Lake View Women’s Institute was a joint Institute with the Farmers Institute in about 1935.
The Lake View Credit Union originated in the Lake View district. It was formed in 1943 with six residents of the district. The Lake View district is only a newly formed district but some of the members are the oldest pioneers of the Peace River district.
Mrs. Ben Miller came in as a war bride in early December of 1922 and came in on a wagon from Spirit River. There had been snow for sleighs but it had all gone and the ground was frozen. It took from Saturday until Tuesday afternoon to make the trip. The lower part of the wagon box had freight for the stores and what furniture they had got from the mail order house was on top.
The stopping houses had poles with hay scattered on them for beds and men came in at all hours of the night and left at all hours as well. They were mostly grain haulers. Mrs. Miller put up a canvas around their bunk for privacy. Homesteading was going to be a new experience for her as she had just arrived from England!