FREIGHTIN|G (cont) (64 ENG -- 63 fran)

 FREIGHTING (CONTINUED) (No. 64)

             Misfortune fell on the Red River settlement of  "Les Fourches". One year the wild pigeons destroyed the crops. The farmers killed them and salted them for food during the winter. Then there was a grasshopper invasion. The next year the Red River overflowed and the land was flooded. My grandfather Joseph who was then four years old, says he remembers wading in the water,while handing on to othe porch of their home. The family decided to move and remembers the spot they had loved when they were freighting along the Saskatchewan River (Saint Louis).

              The Caravan would be made up of the following families: Jean-Baptiste Boucher, Isidore Boyer, William Bremner, Norbert Fiddler, two McDougal brothers and Joseph Delorme.

              The voyageurs had brought with them buckwheat, wheat, potates, barley and oats to be used for seed. Also mowers, rakes and other tools, with, of course, pots, pans, a cook stove and a heater, were there Brandfather can remember one morning when they went to hitch up the horses and the oxen, the harnesses were covered with wild ducks.

              So, the squeaky wagons rolled acress the prairies to a new home whichthe settlers temporarily called "Boucher Settlement", now Saint-Louis. They had travelled during fifty-six days.

             Life in the new settlement: My great-grandfather had taken land West of Saint-Louis where Laurent Boucher, my father still lives. Granddad<s first house was built where the cemetery now lies. It was made of logs and had a roof of hay.

            The parents slept in the bed and thechildren on the floor. Once the family was all tucked in bed, there ws noroom to walk about.

            My great grand-father's  house was the very first one built and all the other families helped to build it. They had no glass for windows, so they used skin of animals, scraped as this as thin as  possible. Candles lit the house. After a year that first house was enlarged with logs, hauled from the island on the River. All the pioneers were to settle on River lots, to be hear the river.

           The Boyers settled where Emmanuel Daniel now lives. The Fiddlers built a house at Fish Creek. The Delormes moved to Carlton. The Bremmers settled just west of the Boucher. (to be continued)

ref:  from Louise Boucher's dairy (to be continued) - The History of Saint-Louis and surrounding areas.