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From Broad Axe to Clay Chinking
About June Chamberland
[Links | Home | Homesteads]
A little bit about June
My name is June Chamberland and I am involved with taking photographs of old log buildings that are still standing around the Prince George area. I am also collecting information on the early homesteaders and pioneers to find out how they lived and survived in a harsh, unbroken land of the early 20th century.
I spent the first eighteen years of my life on a farm, in the Interlake area of Manitoba. For the first eleven years, Mom, Dad, my five brothers and sisters and I lived in a small two-room log house with a shanty-style roof. We had no running water, no electricity, and no machinery until Dad got a tractor in the later years. We had a mile and a half to walk to school, wearing rubber boots in the spring and using skis in the wintertime when we made a hard packed trail to glide along. Tasks that befell us children were splitting and carrying wood for the ever-consuming cook stove and carrying round blocks for the big tin heater in the wintertime, carrying water for wash days, and bringing in a well-packed tub of snow for Saturday night bath nights. I milked my first cow when I was five years of age and this became a regular chore. Our herd increased but so did my siblings as milkers. We had to churn cream into butter, using a hand churn and, at special times, Mom would make ice cream in a snow bank. Hay was put up loose in a stack using a horse-drawn mower, rake, brawn and a pitchfork. So if anyone should ask me, “Do you know anything about this era in history?” my answer would be “Yes, I do.”
We all moved to the Prince George area of British Columbia in 1955, and this has become the location of my home, my children’s homes and their families’ homes.
A little more about the Project
My project with Living Landscapes covers a fairly wide area, about thirty to forty miles each way, in each direction from Prince George. At first there didn’t seem to be many old log homesteads left but, as time went on and I talked with more people, I was able to locate more and more buildings, especially those built in the 1930's. I have found that while the barns were often built with round logs and saddle-notched corners, the houses were built more meticulously by squaring the logs with a broad axe and dove-tailing the corners to make a neat, square built log house. Some men even spiked the corners together while others used round wooden pins to fasten the corners securely. However, the majority did neither but just depended on the corners to hold them in place by their intricate dove-tail method. What made many of these houses disappear was fire. The old wood stove and tin pipes sticking out of the roof was often disastrous.
Another problem for old buildings was there was no foundation. They were built directly on the ground and some of these old buildings have gradually slipped into the ground, some as much as three to four feet. The roof is another reason for the collapse of a building. With buildings aligned east and west, the snow on the south side of the roof will melt, while on the north side, it won’t, causing the north side to become much heavier than the south side. This unbalances the roof, which gradually will pull over the building. A leaking roof will cause the sides of the house to rot and once the roof is gone, the rot of the side logs will accelerate. So unless a log building is looked after, its life span is only so long. Most of the old log houses I have found have either been turned into a barn, a shed, or a garage. A big opening for a door has been cut in the side or the front making access easy for an animal or tractor. Some old log houses have been fixed up and are still in use.
The finding and recording of these homesteads has been a “fun” project, combining archive research, and some very enjoyable excursions into the countryside, but perhaps, the most satisfying aspect has been interviewing the pioneers associated with these places, bringing memories of the past alive for them, their children, and their children’s children.
A Letter from June Chamberland
Dear Sirs,
This project has certainly been an experience, learning about the early homesteaders, how they struggled, but managed to survive, the happiness and the sadness that filled their lives. One thing I did detect in most people was a sense of pride, and rightfully so. They should be proud of their accomplishments. They were the foundation blocks of our rich country.
People have been very helpful. Everyone I have interviewed has mentioned someone else I should see, someone who perhaps could give me more information than they could. It has, however, been a challenge as older people are leaving this world, taking their stories with them, just as the buildings are quickly crumbling to the ground or are being destroyed due to their decaying condition. Someone will say to me “Well too bad so-and-so wasn’t here, they could have told you all about that.” That is when you realize the urgency to get these histories recorded.
Many hours have been spent searching for buildings that you have been told are, or were, at a certain place. I have stumbled through tall, dead grass, dry twigs, and deadfalls, on the banks of a creek, looking for a cabin, only to be met with disappointment. Climbing through barb wire fences, climbing up and over big steel gates, your boots sinking in the manure, just to get a photo of an old log barn, or walking down a narrow bush trail, wondering what to do should a bear or cougar appear, your heart in your mouth, curiosity having got the best of you, are things that you are faced with, just to find an old, deserted, log building. Then when you have found it the questions emerge -- who lived there? What did they do? How big was their family, or was it a lone bachelor? Where did they go to? I have walked halfway over a creek, dammed up by beavers, to get a better view for taking a picture of an old place, now half-submerged in water. This can be quite tricky, the place for your foot being about twelve inches wide, one side filled to the brim with about four feet of water, while on the other side, of your narrow path, is a tangled mass of sticks and twigs, all intertwined, and a deep holes you could fall into, and through. So I break off a stick about three or four feet long and gingerly walk across on this narrow path using the stick as sort of a balancing cane, snap a few pictures, then slowly make my way back, wondering all the while why I was so foolish to attempt this. Or you walk down a deserted road, two miles long, and see the tracks of bears and wolves in the wet mud, and although you are not alone, no one has a gun. You have been met at this place by two men with rifles, carrying them on account of the wild animals that abound there, but now they have gone the other way. It gives one a good feeling to get back in your truck and head for home.
The areas that I have covered are Hixon, Woodpecker, Red Rock, Blackburn, and Pineview to the south of Prince George, Willow River, and Foreman Flats to the east, the Blackwater, Beaverley, and Mud River area to the west, and Miworth, Cranbrook Hill, the Chief Lake area and all it’s adjoining roads, Wright Creek Road, Old Summit Road, Salmon Valley and Summit Lake to the north. This area covers quite a large piece of land, the Fraser River being not that far from most of the above-mentioned places.
There has been a sense of satisfaction in getting to know the country, to know where each road heads to, and how one part of the country is connected to another part and is really not half as far as you expected it to be. Where the roads were, when they were changed to their particular location today, is another fascination.
To end this, I must say what an enjoyment this project has been and I wish to thank Living Landscapes and the Royal B.C. Museum for making all this possible.
Yours truly,
June Chamberland.
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