Lasting First Impressions
of a Prairie Settlement—page 2
We later learned that the aunt loved the sea and hated the
prairie. As a result, she described her journey round the
"British Block," through Jenner, Bindloss, Hilda,
Schuler and back through Medicine Hat as boring, travelling
through flat, uninteresting, countryside. The discrepancy between
what she described and what we saw only became clear as we began
to read more about the prairies.
The two completely contrary views of the prairie were not new.
Indeed, they surfaced as far back as when early Europeans explored
this land. In 1858, Captain John Palliser led an expedition,
officially known as the British North America Exploring
Expedition. Sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society and the
British Government, the Palliser expedition traveled through this
area. The expedition's report, published in 1863, described the
landscape:
The true arid district, which occupies most of the country along
the South Saskatchewan [River]. . . has even early in the season a
dry and parched look. . . the grass is very short on these plains
and forms no turf. . . this district, although there are fertile
spots throughout its extent, can never be of much advantage to us
as a possession.
In contrast, in 1882, John Macoun, a CPR botanist, visited the
area and in his book, Manitoba and the Great North West,
wrote that "the so-called arid country was one of unsurpassed
fertility and was literally the garden of the country."
"Nationalistic boosterism" to persuade people to settle
the land influenced Macoun's assessment, but our first sight of
that land in August 1966 placed us firmly in Macoun's camp. What
we saw that year and again in 1967 was field after field of wheat
yielding 25 and 27 bushels an acre respectively, and, where the
land was not cultivated, green pasture for cattle. It seemed to
us, too, that this was rich farm land. Less favorable years later
were to teach us the danger of basing opinions on snapshots.
The original settlement at Schuler had been established west of
the current highway but the store and the post office had been
moved by horse and wagon in 1923 to the railhead east of the
highway. The settlement was named after Norman Banks Schuler who
settled a homestead in the area in the spring of 1910. In the fall
of that year he was given the Post Office for the district. It had
to have a name and so became Schuler. The hamlet itself acted as a
service centre for people on the surrounding farms, who came to
shop, bank, and visit. Elevators built by the Alberta Wheat Pool
in 1924 and 1928 and by the Pioneer Grain Company in 1928 brought
the farmers from the area to town with their grain and to use
available services. The community grew, fuelling its economy on
spring wheat and natural gas. Schuler reached its peak after the
Second World War, but by the time we arrived, in 1966, several of
the services had already closed.
We had been told our home was to
be a trailer near the school. To us, a trailer meant a small
caravan that could be towed easily behind a small car. You can
imagine our surprise when we saw a trailer 52 feet long by 12 feet
wide with two bedrooms, a full bathroom, a kitchen and a living
room. It had been hauled from Bindloss and parked in the corner of
the school field, but it was harvest time and no one was available
to hook up the water or the sewage.
However, people were ready to help within a day of our arrival. We
were provided with home-baking and with bedding and quickly
absorbed in an apparently self-contained community that came to
represent for us the essence of the small prairie settlement.
But that was 1966 and this is 1998. Sadly, with the disappearance
of the elevators and the rail line the Schuler that became our
Canadian home has become no more than a memory.
Heritage Community Foundation Presents
