Days Gone By – People/Events

Days Gone By

Rising up in Canada

by Dan Van Koughnet of Dryden, ON

I’m writing a narrative for the Small Farmer’s Journal journal about myself. I’ve written tales about different folks previously.

I used to be born in 1956 in a log cabin means again within the woods. After I was younger, we moved to my grandmother’s farm. My father by no means had a tractor, all of the work was finished by horse and mule energy. I by no means went very far in class and I by no means had many buddies my very own age. I had older males for buddies largely. There have been 5 sorts of older males that I related to, farmers, trappers, lumberjacks, prospectors and muleskinners.

I used to sit down in entrance of the radio on Saturday night time and hearken to Roy Acuff, Invoice Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and all outdated fashion nation singers. I liked to hearken to Invoice Monroe sing Mule Skinner Blues. The radio station performed that tune day-after-day, three or 4 occasions a day on the radio. That was my favourite tune as a result of we had mules on our farm and I knew all of the outdated muleskinners.

I used to be introduced up in a unique world than different children had been introduced up in. I spent a number of time with my father, uncles and retired males in the remaining residence or senior citizen residence. From them I discovered all about outdated fashion farming, trapping animals, slicing wooden, panning for gold and mules. I went trapping with the outdated males, fishing, and looking. I had a number of enjoyable, however there was no faculty. We had been on the farm and most of the outdated males helped out on the farm as a result of they only needed one thing to do. I discovered learn how to plow a discipline with mules, disc, harrow, seed a crop and different farm work. I discovered learn how to physician mules and remedy mules of all types of various diseases with residence cures. Many of those cures had been bygone cures that farmers used again within the early a part of the century and lots of younger folks didn’t know this stuff. Lots of the issues I discovered from these outdated males had been being forgot and misplaced in time. I knew all about trapping and outdated fashion farming strategies. I discovered learn how to plant a crop by animal energy and mule drawn tools. Tips on how to drive mules and deal with them, shoe and harness them and remedy them of sickness. I discovered learn how to jog within the brush with animals.

I used to hearken to the outdated males and their tales concerning the outdated days and driving the mule groups and trapping within the forest. The outdated jackass prospectors would speak about discovering gold. The superb tales they might inform about wolves, bears, Indians, buffalo herds, cattle stampedes and the massive cattle drives, chilly winters, after they reduce the massive timber, constructing the freeway, trapping journeys and opening up the nation for settlement. None of those outdated timers informed a whopper of a story. They didn’t exaggerate, they informed the reality.

I began trapping and I purchased a workforce of mules once I was 10 years outdated and began working for various farmers and loggers. After I was 17 I acquired a job on highway development on the muleskinner line. The highway board solely had a lot cash to take care of the highway so that they employed all these outdated males to restore the highway. “Good morning Captain, Good morning shine, Do you want one other muleskinner in your muleskinner line” was a tune Invoice Monroe sang and that was precisely what we had been doing; driving mules identical to the tune Invoice sang on the radio. The outdated males simply liked it working with mules once more, like they did years in the past. We had been repairing a highway and the outdated males thought that it was simply nice. They had been reliving the previous, doing one thing that was a factor of the previous.

Most of those males had nothing to do all day lengthy and had been misplaced in a world of loneliness and had been mainly forgotten males who society had simply pushed apart. Many had been sitting in a room by themselves spending a lot of the day by themselves and doing nothing. To have one thing to do meant a lot to them. It made them so comfortable. Lots of the outdated males couldn’t run fashionable equipment however they might drive mules and wagons. It was a lot enjoyable working with the outdated males and it was a paid vacation. I used to be an actual muleskinner, it was enjoyable; nevertheless it was work and it was not a comfortable job both. We labored 10 hours a day within the sizzling solar on a dusty highway, 5 days every week. The outdated males by no means complained it was precisely what they needed to do they usually loved it, and so did I. We labored for a month and completed the job.

I went again to the farm and began slicing grain with three mules and a binder. All of the outdated males confirmed as much as shock grain after which when the beating machine got here, all of them confirmed as much as thrash land and plow the sector. We should have had thirty groups of mules plowing the sector with an outdated man strolling behind the plow. In at some point we had the sector plowed after which everybody went residence. Nobody took a cent. Folks helped different folks again then and had been prepared to do an individual a favor for nothing. They anticipated nothing in return; it was simply the concept of serving to somebody. However there have been guidelines too when one man did somebody a favor normally folks helped him too, when he wanted assist. Nobody was alone of their troubles in these days. He may all the time get assist someplace. One other factor, folks fed folks again within the early days so nobody went hungry. In the event you wanted sneakers somebody can be there with a pair.

We had a gathering at our farm. Folks used to return to the farm and produce musical devices and meals and we might have a dance and sing songs within the barn. Johnny Money used to sing a tune, you would hear us singing a rustic mile, and that was the way in which it was across the Van Koughnet Farm. There was a number of exercise and many enjoyable too! The work was arduous however the enjoyable made up for it. Folks used to drop in on the way in which residence from city and go to for some time. In these days we had a barn dance each 2nd Saturday night time in the summertime.

Children from the orphanage in Winnipeg used to return and keep for every week or two in the summertime and expertise farm life. The orphans actually preferred it and had a number of enjoyable doing various things like milking cows, driving horses and mules, accumulating eggs within the hen home, fishing, swimming, looking rabbits and grouse and squirrels. Within the fall, we used to arrange deer and moose looking journeys and in a while when it acquired cooler, fur trapping journeys within the forest.

Within the winter, we might can meat from our fall looking. We might can up about 600 jars of meals like beans, peas, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and blackberries. Additionally, we might make rosebud jam from boiled rosebuds picked within the fall. We used to choose the leaves off a tree and dry the leaves, put them in sacks and use it for what we name Indian Tea within the chilly winter. Syrup was made out of corn or birch timber, identical to the maple syrup you purchase within the retailer right this moment. We had a root cellar underneath the home to maintain greens in for the winter. Grain or wheat was all the time saved and made into flour. We purchased little or no on the retailer.

We weren’t making some huge cash off the farm so when additional jobs got here alongside my father took them. There was a mechanical job fixing bulldozers, farm tractors and different farm equipment and highway development.

Within the fall, I used to go trapping for just a few months. After I was 19 I met an outdated trapper and he requested me if I needed to go trapping. His title was Lorne Weaver. He was knowledgeable trapper and woodsman. We went trapping. October sixth we went into the comb and took an outdated truck and went north of our farm about 100 miles. He had a cabin. After we acquired there we reduce 50 cords of wooden in two days. The following day we went moose looking. Lorne shot a moose, so we reduce it up and packed it again to camp, that was our meat. I discovered lots from Lorne; concerning the brush, animals, looking, trapping and survival.

We had been again within the brush till the tip of February then we shoveled a highway to the principle highway about 500 ft. The paper firm plowed the principle highway to a logging camp 10 miles farther down the highway. We loaded up all of the fur and traps and headed to city. We bought all of the fur for $50,000; that was $25,000 every! I went again to the farm.

The remainder of the winter I labored across the farm. In spring I began plowing the sector with the mules once more. I caught across the farm one other eight years, then I left, I used to be twenty-seven.

There was no cash to be made on a small farm, so I left and headed to the town for just a few months. These days had been unhappy and lonely, I longed for all times on the farm. I returned residence in 1983 and began trapping once more. Oh the ‘Good Ole Days!’