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A History of Pioneering in the Pakan District By Frank E. Mitchell (Used with permission. A copy of this book can be purchased from Harold Mitchell. Call (780) 656-2345.) I saw Pakan for the first time in the year 1899 when I arrived from Regina with my parents and my two brothers, Jimmy and Gordon. It has been my home ever since - 74 years. I was born in Regina where we lived for a year. My father, John A. Mitchell, who was an agent for the Department of Indian Affairs, was then transferred to Winnipeg, where we spent two years. From there we moved to the Muskepetung Indian Reserve in Saskatchewan for three years. When a change in the government occurred, my father was replaced by a Mr. Gooderham. We then decided we would move west to Pakan in the spring, with the intention of opening a store. As a result, in May 1899, we left the Reserve and began our journey west. Alex Gordon was hired to take us on the first leg, which would be as far as Lumsden, Saskatchewan. My two brothers, being older than I, rode in a wagon, piled high with our possessions, drawn by a team of oxen briven by Alex. My mother, father and I were in a horse-drawn democrat which my father drove. It was a great adventure, but you can imagine our discomfort when we found that the horses, one bay and one white, were shedding their winter coats in our direction. Not only that, they were lousy! A great deal of "brushing up" was necessary, therefore, before we could enter our rooms in the hotel that first night. After our night's rest, we continued our journey by train to Saskatoon. With us, but behind our coach in a box car, rode our Gordon Setter, howling his displeasure all the way. The following day, we took the stage-coach to North Battleford. I can remember very well, one of the small rivers we had to cross that day. I had never seen so many snakes. The water was full of them, as the river bank where the coach slithered over dozens of them. I also remember seeing a pit containing hundreds more. Upon reaching North Battleford, we stayed with a family by the name of Johnston. Here we had to wait two days for the arrival of the wagon teams that would take us the rest of the way to Pakan. Once they arrived and we were loaded on, crossing the river was a treacherous undertaking. The wooden bridge had burned the year before, and a temporary ferry about sixteen feet long, run on a two inch rope cable, was in use. The ferry was just big enough to carry one of the wagons at a time, which had to be pushed on by hand. The wagon pole hung over the end, dragging in the water, while the horses swam across - all very exciting to three young boys. Having crossed without incident in the morning, however, we were once again on our way by the afternoon. After about ten miles, we stopped for the night, which was our first experience at camping out. Our journey, across the vast stretch of prairie ahead, continued in this matter for a whole month. Our progress was slow as our caravan had to stop three times a day to let the horses rest and pick grass for feed. We averaged about fifteen or twenty miles a day. While the horses ate, we children had a chance to get off the wagons and play along the trail, throwing puff-balls at each other. Although it was early spring, our travel was blessed with remarkably good weather - hardly a rainy day. Our only discomfort was caused by the hordes of mosquitoes that rose out of the grass toward evening. In all, the journey was a memorable experience for us. The country which seemed to stretch away endlessly, was mostly prairie, dotted with clumps of polar trees, small sloughs ringed with willow and, at intervals, the larger lakes. The very flat stretches were broken here and there by the rolling hills of river beds. It was all very beautiful. We couldn't imagine, though, how anyone could survive the winters on the prairie with the sparse growth of bush offering little shelter from sweeping blizzards. Also, in the fall of the year, the foot-high grasses that could be seen for miles would certainly become a fire hazard. The scarcity of wild life was a surprise to us as we travelled across the prairie. The only wild animal we saw on the whole journey was a black fox. There were no song birds that I can remember - not even any crows. Prairie chickens and ducks, however, were plentiful along the roadside and fortunately so, since, after two weeks of travelling, our food supply was running low. We were forced to rob the prairie chicken nests for our egg supply. A lone rancher we met on the way assisted, also, with his muzzle-loaded shot gun. When we ran out of shot, he made more by melting down our laden tea packages in a frying pan held over the fire. By rolling them around as they cooled, they formed into a very effective substitue for shot. After the third week on the trail, we were approaching our journey's end. On the last leg to Pakan, we saw signs of early settlers as we arrived at Egg Lake, now known as Whitford Lake. At a store owned by Archie Whitford, on the shore of the lake, we were able to replenish our supply of food stuffs, which was now very low. From Egg Lake we continued on to Pakan, arriving in the afternoon of a June day. Here we crossed the North Saskatchewan River by ferry, run at that time by Louis Thompson who was to become my father-in-law some years later, when I married his daughter, Clara Olena. It was obvious to us why the earliest pioneers chose this site for Pakan over other previous sites for the fort. Situated on the high north bank of the river, on a table of land sheltered to the north by another high ridge, the location was not only a practical vantage point but most beautiful. From the ferry landing we went on up the Victoria Trail for the four miles where we stayed until my father's store was ready to open. He eventually purchased and reopened the store the Hudson's Bay Company had operated in 1864. The store had been built for the company by Sam Whitford and Joe Turner for trade with the Indians when the fort was known by its original name, Fort Victoria. It had been closed in 1883. My father's first supply of merchandise for his store was purchased in Edmonton and brought down the river by scow. Beside the scow, transportation on the river, in those days before the advent of the ferry, depended on many crude methods. For example, when the early missionaries, the Reverend George McDougall and Reverend Woolsey, arrived at the settlement, Peter Erasmus assisted them across on a raft he made out of willows and a piece of oilcloth. This was drawn by a horse swimming through the water, led by Peter swimming at its head. The first ferry was a great improvement over this method but it had to be laboriously pushed upstream for half a mile and then rowed across, with the current bringing it back down to the landing grade. Eventually the provincial government installed a cable-operated ferry which crossed at the present gas-well site, and was later moved downstream to its present location. Samuel Whitford was the first ferryman. As I write at this time, 1972, the last ferry has been hauled up the riverbank into "dry-dock" and the crossing permanently discontinued. With the opening of the first post-office in 1887, Fort Victoria, named after the Queen, was renamed Pakan after Chief Pakan of the Saddle Lake Indian Reserve. It was felt the original name would conflict with Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. The Pakan post-office, at that time, received its mail from Fort Saskatchewan, near Edmonton, via the Victoria Trail. When the route was changed later on, the mail was brought from Lamont to Andrew and then to Pakan. It was a distributing point for Pine Creek, Northbank, Smoky Lake, Edwand and Wahstao. The final route used Smoky Lake as a despatch point from the railway. I, personally, hauled the mail on this ten-mile route for thirty-six years on a weekly schedule, using several methods of transportation, in all kinds of weather and road conditions. Besides the mail, the only other communication with the outside was a telegraph line. It originated in Edmonton, came through Andrew to Pakan and on to Saddle Lake. It was operated by Jack Gordon until a telephone line was built from Pakan to Andrew. About the year 1870, a flour mill was built two miles northeast of Pakan on a creek running into the river, known as Mill Creek. The mill was run by a water-will. When the building was torn down, a connecting shaft and two grinding stones were salvaged - this shaft is now on display in the Victoria museum. In 1905 another mill was built by Charles Bonnar on the flat below the fort site. It consisted of four large stones five feet in diameter, which made a coarse flour, a little finer than that made by the Ukrainian hand mills in use at that time. After a number of years, Bonnar sold the mill to my father. My father operated a flour mill and a saw mill until about 1915 when he sold it to "Garrett and Fansher". The stones were removed at that time and modern machinery was installed. They also built a large barn for the convenience of the farmers who came from miles around with their grain for milling. Starting in 1874, the steamboat "Northwest" travelled up the Saskatchewan River to Edmonton, stopping off at points along the way, including Pakan, hauling merchandise for the Hudson's Bay Company and taking back furs on the return trip. In 1917, the steamboat "City of Edmonton" and the "Alberta" made weekly trips from Edmonton as far east as Shandro, making the trip downstream and back in two days. They carried passengers, supplies for the Canadian National Railway Construction gangs and took back wheat and hogs. Prior to this, all such hauling was done by team to Lamont which was a three-day trip. It was a common sight in those days, too, to see smaller scows and boats going downstream carrying families in search of prospective homestead sites. I remember one family by the name of Johnstone stopping at Pakan on their way to join the well-known settlement of Barr Colonists at Lloydminister. It had rained continuously for three days and since they were without shelter of any kind, they were glad to accept my father's invitation to stay in our house. All the food they had in their possession at the time was rolled oats for three meals a day. Travellers, heading west from Pakan by land, used the Victoria Trail which, at that time, extended as far as Fort Saskatchewan. The Trail is now non-existent in many places, being either fenced off as part of a farmer's land, or under cultivation. The longest stretch extends west from pakan for twenty-two miles. To the east of Pakan there remains a broken stretch for ten miles. Buffalo trails beaten into the hillsides along the Victoria Trail can still be seen to the west of Pakan about sixteen miles. In its early days the Victoria Trail crossed six or seven creeks between Pakan and Fort Saskatchewan, seventy miles upstream, which became roaring torrents in the spring. On one such occasion, a man named Pierre was travelling to Edmonton in a Red River cart pulled by an ox. He managed to cross Sucker Creek, now known as Myrtle Creek, but when he came to Sturgeon River it was much to high to ford. He turned around and started back, only to find that Sucker Creek had now become impassable also. Having no choice but to wait till the swollen creed receded, Pierre's supply of rations soon ran out and he was forced to kill his ox for food. Sucker Creek from that time on became known as "Pierre Ate the Ox". Continue to the next part of the book.... Return to the Settlement Menu
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