If any homesteader had reason to be discouraged with life on the Prairies, it was James McClelland.
Windstorms, rains, droughts, blizzards and fires which would have driven a less determined person from the Plains, were commonplace in his homestead experience.
“If you want a good story of the olden times, go and see Jim McClelland,” people used to say.
James McClelland was born in Owen Sound, Ont., and left there in 1882 to seek his fortune in the opening West. Accompanied by his wife Mary Elizabeth, his brother, and two brothers-in-law Horace and Asahel Hurlburt, he travelled to the Prairies via Duluth, Minn., and Emerson, Man., because there was then no direct rail route from Eastern Canada.
At the end of 1881, construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway had reached Flat Creek (now Oak Lake, Man.) approximately 161 miles west of Winnipeg. Grading had been done for 57 miles beyond the end of track.
Snowfall to the end of February 1882 had been light and the year looked promising for rail construction and speculation and settlement. But at the end of February, the weather changed and heavy snows fell throughout March and April covering the the prairie lands.
With the spring thaw came disastrous flooding. Flood waters of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers covered the CPR line at a number of points between Winnipeg and Brandon.
“We had a very rough time coming to Portage la Prairie, the journey taking us 10 days owing to floods. Railway cars were very crowded, some passengers had to stand in the aisles... and at places the conductor made many of the passengers get off. However, I managed to retain my place on the train.” He was glad his wife had remained behind in Winnipeg to visit friends.
Eventually the train arrived at Portage la Prairie. “Here we found things in terrible condition because of the floods. The sidewalks were so thick with mud we could hardly walk on them.”
After about a year in Portage la Prairie, the McClellands and Hurlburts decided to move on West in their search for good land, and eventually they came to a place called “Moose Jaw-near-the-Dirt-Hills.”
With a team and rig rented for $2 a day, the McClellands and Hurlburts scouted for suitable land in the Dirt Hills area south of Moose Jaw, but finding nothing to their liking they decided to look in the area northwest of Moose Jaw.
While searching for homestead land near Buffalo Pound Lake, they were surprised one morning to find themselves enveloped in a dense fog. They trudged on anyway, but without a compass they kept wandering in circles, always ending up at their campsite of the previous night.
Finally McClelland located land in the Archydal district and built a shack of logs hauled from the Buffalo Pound Lake valley.
“I would go occasionally to the lake for a load of wood which was a distance of 15 miles, and there was only one house between the lake and my place.”
In one extremely hard winter ushered in by a November blizzard, which piled eight feet of snow on the prairie and made travelling almost impossible, he marked the trail to Caron, the nearest settlement, with sticks and branches. This precaution saved his life when a blizzard overtook him during a sortie to Caron for supplies.
Like all settlers, he dreaded the fires which periodically devastated the prairies. After one bad fire “which burned up nearly all the country,” the only untouched spot on the McClelland homestead was a green slough bottom where a cow and calf had been safely pastured.
Then there was the violent windstorm which struck the homestead when Mary McClelland and the children were alone. She heard the storm coming and herded the children into the cellar just seconds before the roof and portions of the walls came crashing down. Her husband managed to get the roof back on but it leaked, and in the rainy season which followed, everyone slept under oilcloths.
During an early building boom in Moose Jaw, McClelland left the homestead to work in Moose Jaw. A plasterer by trade, he helped to construct many of Moose Jaw’s turn-of-the-century buildings.
In 1908, James and Mary McClelland moved in to their new red brick home which still stands at 37 Oxford Street West. Architecturally, the house is an example of pre-First World War cube, also called a “four square house.”
Eight white Corinthian columns which hold up the second floor balcony, is a striking feature of the house.
Along with its outbuildings, including a carriage house, the home has been well maintained, inside and out, for over a century. The house now functions as a bed-and-breakfast.
