By Dorthea H. Calverley  The opening of the Canadian West in the early 1900’s spelled opportunity for many highly skilled Old Country craftsmen and tradesmen. Manitoba’s fertile wheat fields and expanding population demanded a flour milling enterprise which in turn attracted a Scottish master miller named Farney, from Glasgow to Oak Lake. With Mr. and… Read More

By Dorthea CalverleyNearly at the cost of his life he came, and he lived out his life in the district. “The half-breed who is with us,” wrote Tuck in his diary, “says that no man ever before went through the mountains the way we came. I believe he is right. No one else would be… Read More

 By Dorthea Calverley [1973]Only in the grateful memories and occasional reminiscences of the very old people does one find tribute to the Indian women in the area. In nearly every community the white people depended on them for medical care in the earliest days. Such a woman was Mary Whitford of Worsley, Alberta. In the… Read More

By Dorthea Calverley Mr. Harry Garbitt, late of Moberly Lake, might have been able to explain why the ballot box was in the well. In an interview shortly before his death, he was reminiscing about the days when he bought furs for the Bay at Sturgeon Lake. While he was there, the local Indians were to… Read More

 G.R. Clare, 1998In the spring of 1912, part of the Peace River Block near Pouce Coupe was opened for settlement and a minor land-rush began. The rush began slowly, with 38 applications for land made between March and December of that year. Most of these first settlers were already in the area, had picked out… Read More

 By G.R. Clare, 1998  This is “a poor man’s country”, proclaimed James Macoun after passing through the Peace in the unusually wet summer of 1903. He wasn’t being completely negative by saying that about our beloved homeland. Based on what he saw as a trained biologist, he felt that the area would not produce enough… Read More

By G.R. Clare, 1998  It’s one thing to survey a few square miles of empty land and declare it open for settlement, but what if no one comes? What if no one believed promoters like the enthusiastic A.M. Bezanson who proclaimed that the Peace was “the paradise of the Northwest”? What if they discounted George… Read More

By G.R. Clare, 1998 By the early 1930’s, the Peace River area of BC was beyond the rough homesteading phase of settlement and on the way to becoming a well-settled agricultural area, producing both grain and livestock for shipment to markets outside the region. There were roads linking Rolla to Grande Prairie by way of Pouce… Read More

By G.R. Clare, 1998Of course, there are famous farmers. But here in the Peace Country? Absolutely, and their exploits on the land go back a long, long way. Take Herman Trelle of Wembley for example — after he had won more than 600 first and second place prizes at agricultural exhibitions all over North America,… Read More