Prairie Dream
by Jim Sauchyn
Title
Prairie Dream
Artist
Jim Sauchyn
Medium
Photograph
Description
An abandoned farmhouse on the east-central Alberta prairies. This one is probably what is called a CPR house. When the western Canadian prairies were being opened up for settlement the Canadian government alloted a certain amount of land to schools, the Hudson's Bay Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway. The CPR would then build these houses on their land for the settlers who rented the land from the CPR. They also dug a well and fenced the land, usually a quarter section, with square cedar fence posts which were imported form BC. Many of these these cedar posts have lasted well over a century and the odd one is still in use. The farmers would also often break these posts up into smaller posts to save costs of fencing. Undoubtedy one or more prairie families lived here and it was their dream of farming and eventually owning land of their own.
Uploaded
August 29th, 2012
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Viewed 736 Times - Last Visitor from Fairfield, CT on 03/10/2024 at 12:24 AM
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Comments (3)
Don Wright
Super good photo and history Jim. I really like the composition and the rusty moss on the buildings. I'm kind of surprised that the windmill head is still there. It seems like around here in Kansas, the blades and heads are gone from places like this. Maybe taken down and used on other frames. Hadn't thought of that. We live in the heart of 'Post Rock County", referring to the thousands of limestone rock fence posts around here. The early settlers had no trees, similar to your notes, but there was an abundance of limestone. Limestone is pretty soft, and can be cut with a saw. Countless numbers of these are still being used after 150 years or so. We also have a really big number of limestone houses and public buildings. An engineer neighbor of ours was telling us that a cubic foot of this stone weighs in at around 100#. For sure a statement of the strength and determination of the early settlers. f/v