South Peace Historical Society

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  • Table of Contents

    • Part 1: First Nations of the Peace River Region
    • Part 2: The Fur Trade Era
    • Part 3: Transportation and Communication
    • Part 4: Old Timers and the Price of Land
    • Part 5: Dawson Creek: The Story of the Community
    • Part 6: Mysteries, Adventures and Indian Legends
    • Part 7: Arts, Crafts and Recreation
    • Part 8: Agriculture
    • Part 9: Church Histories
    • Part 10: Schools
    • Part 11: Health Care
    • Part 12: Industries and Enterprises
    • Part 13: Policing the Peace
    • Part 14: Pouce Coupe, Rolla, and Other South Peace Communities
    • Part 15: Chetwynd and the Fort St. John Area
    • Part 16: The Alberta Peace
    • Part 17: Natural History of the Peace River Region
    • Part 18: Interviews with Old Timers
    • Part 19: Remembering Our Veterans

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14-015: The Landry District

By Mrs. Ruth Veiner , 1957
When the first settlers came to the Landry district they were many and there was someone on nearly every quarter of land. The following took up homesteads in around 1911 and all had to have 10 acres broke the first year they filed.

Mike O’Rourke Bert Haugen Gus Erikson John Carlson
Arthur Simpson ? Strous ? ? Norburg ? Bill Flett
Stanley Landry Lucien Grossinger D. McKinnan Carl Carlson
Jim McDonald H. Carlon ? ? McCormick Ed Harding
John Harding Lon Harding Jack Bruce B. Coutts
WW Ross F. Seymour T. Loonam J Prudham
? Massey R. Dunsmuir ? Hedberg

Land was worked with horses and a walking plow. John Carlson broke land with a team of oxen and a saddle horse with which he did custom breaking. The taxes were about $6 a quarter section after the land was proved up.

The shorter route into the district was the Edson Trial which settlers used in the winter months but were unable to use in the summer because of the muskegs on it. In the summer the Grouard Trail was used — this took the settlers across the Dunvegan crossing on the Peace River. All the supplies were hauled in from Edmonton.

There were no Doctors or Nurses so “Aunt Kate” or Mrs. Edwards helped anyone who was ill. She was also Doctor for many sick animals in the district for many years.

Stan Landry built coffins and his wife Mrs. Landry was undertaker until the mid-1920’s. There was no graveyard then so the deceased was buried in the spot where his family decided.

The first church for the Landry peoples was the Catholic Church at Pouce Coupe. The first marriage in the district was Babs Sheppard to Howard Atkinson.

The first grain grown by the settlers was wheat and the first grass was timothy. Threshing was done with a flail until 1914 when Tremblay from Pouce Coupe came with a horse-powered separator with hand feed and straw conveyor. In 1915 and 1916 the grain was taken by horses and wagons or sleigh to Spirit River. The only crossing of the Pouce River was at the Tremblay Crossing until 1917 when the Riley Crossing was made thus making it some shorter.

Water was hard to get so some settlers dug big shallow wells which caught some of the spring run-off and water from summer rains. This water was used for drinking and washing purposes. Those closer to the river as made a wooden yoke which carried two big pails and in this manner they hauled water by hand up to their homes.

John Harding and Stanley Landry were the only men with children of school age so in 1917 a school was built. A grant of $150 was given and the remainder was put up by Landry and paid back to him by benefits from dances. Thus the school and the district was named Landry. Peter Pitts was the carpenter with some local help donated. The first children to attend the school were Odie, Nora, Dora, and Ilor Harding; Waldo, Lillian and Stanley Landry and Mary and Emil Leduc who boarded at Landry’s to make enough to open the school. Most of the children rode horses or in winter they came in a toboggan, but the Harding children drove a buggy pulled by a burro.

The gardens consisted of root crops such as carrots, beets, potatoes, and turnips although one bachelor ventured on celery and succeeded.

The first land purchased (that is it was not homesteaded) in the Landry district was bought by Ernest Veiner, he also brought to the district with him a large herd of horses.

The Landry Women’s Institute is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary this year, having been formed in 1937.

« 14-014: The Women’s Institute in the BC Peace

14-016: Narrative of the Clayhurst District »

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