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Alberta | My family homestead history is similar the the other Ed's. All of my grandparents and one great homesteaded in Alberta in about 1910. Three of my grandparents and the great were from the US. North Dakota and Minnesota. They settled in the arid prairie and became its first permanent human residents. We still wonder today how they survived. They probably wondered themselves. No trees for shelter or fuel. Most had to haul lumber from the railheads to build their homestead shacks. I still see trails on the prairie that likely were used to bring coal from river valleys. Many grasped what a dire situation they had encountered and pulled up stakes early on. Others left in the droughts of the 20's and 30's. For some reason my families hung on and survived mainly by raising livestock. Early on with draft horses and later with cattle. By the time I came along in 1950 my Dad was putting together a fair amount of grazing land that had been abandoned. The people who left it had invested all their capital, mainly youth and energy, and then walked away with dirt in their pockets. In my time things have been better. We got rural electrification, better roads and in time all of the modern conveniences. It still isn't an easy country but if you can keep the cows alive they have a calf every year and that's what keeps us going.
Edited by Cured 12/21/2025 13:16
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How did the pioneers make it work?
