ALBERTA HISTORY 1918-1921

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1910

(IV)-Marion Elizabeth Salzl is born December 23, 1910 Edmonton, Alberta, daughter (III)-Mathias Salzl born 1885 and (IV)-Gerusha Anne McDougall born 1889.  The Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway had reached the French Catholic town of Morinville.

1910-11 Alberta Penitentiary Staff in Edmonton

John A McDougall (1856 - 1918) with X above 1910-11
Mathew Salzl (1885 - 1962) with X far right of 1910-11

Photo donated to City of Edmonton Archives EA 10 - 2639 by Mr and Mrs Alf Garneau

Mathew SALZL and Jerusha McDougall Salzl

Photo is on a postcard requiring a one cent stamp.

Mathias Salzl (1885 - 1962)

Jerusha Anna McDougall (1889 - 1969)
 
 Photo is taken 1910 in Edmonton, Alberta

 
Arthur Lewis Sifton, Liberal is elected Premier of Alberta 1910-1917.

1910 Michael Stanuslause Gauthier family in Edmonton, Alberta .
Four children died before this picture was taken.
Back row from Left to Right: Horace Gauthier (1880 - 1955) Artem Joseph Gauthier (1883 - 1958) Odilon Gauthier (1875 -) Marie Antionette (Nette) Gauthier (1893 - 1954) Dennie Gauthier (1891 -)
Front Row Left to Right: Marie Alexazina Gauthier (1888 - 1980) Lea Oumelt Gauthier (1850 - 1919) Michael Stanislaus Gauthier (1850 - 1934).  The date of photo and identification is deduced from other photos.  Marie Alexazina Gauthier (1888-1980) married, Edmonton, Alberta, John Marie Garneau (1885-1949).

The Grand Trunk and Great Northern Railway was built 1910 to 1915 through the Yellowhead Pass towards the Pacific.  Babe Coteau smuggled liquor to the construction crews.

Some say the first automobile arrived in High River this year.

1910 Strathcona Garneau Brothers

The Strathcona Garneau thrashing machine is working either at the Garneau Estates in Edmonton or at their holding in and about Saint Paul des Metis, Alberta.  
Larry (Lawrence) Garneau (1878-1918) appears to be the engineer of the operation, his brother Alexander Garneau (1880-1918) is part of the crew as is Horce Gauthier (1880-1955) and Arman Goulette, the others are not known but likely include other Garneau brothers.  It looks like a thrashing crew is about 13 people.

1910 St. Paul des Metis

This year, in St. Paul de Metis, Alberta, Lawrence Garneau (1840-1921) is listed as owning a General Store, Boarding House, Blacksmith shop, Lumber Yard and his son Alexander Garneau (1880-1918) is running an Implement Dealership.  Their home was called the Garneau Village.  Some of the family however still resides in Edmonton which was called the Garneau estates. Later it would be called the Garneau District.  

The Canadian Navy from 1910 to 1972 was given a daily tot of rum in the English Navy tradition.  A tot is a small child and evolved to mean a child's cup, hence a small portion of rum.

April 10:  The following Garneau's filed their homesteads in Saint Paul des Metis:  Laurence, Louis, Alexander, Archange and John. 

1911 

  Robert and Leo Garneau

Leo Garneau (1910-?) and Robert Garneau (1909-1997) sons John Garneau (1885-1949) and Aleazina Gauthier (1888-1980) 

Jules Laboucane married 1911 Isabelle (Bella) Todd and are living NE 2-58-10 W4, S.W. of St. Paul des Metis, their daughter Blanche Laboucane married Louis Garneau.

(II)-Gladys Parker is born May 2, 1911 at Vancouver British Columbia, daughter of (I)-Harry Parker alias Hugh Pimlett and (I)-Margaret O'Neil and will marry, February 11, 1938, Louis Monroe born 1909. 

In 1911 the Saskatchewan legislature prohibited any Japanese, Chinese or other Oriental from employing any white woman or girl, and British Columbia and Ontario soon followed suit.  This year the act was repealed but it was replaced by an act which required Chinese businessmen to obtain a special license to hire a female.

The Kicking Horse Pass Tunnel, in the Canadian Rockies, on the continental divide, on the B.C. Alberta boarder, is completed this year, being first considered as a pass in 1858.  A spiral tunnel reduced the grade from 4.5% to 2.2%. 

The Edson to Grande Prairie, Alberta Trail was in operation 1911 to 1916.

S.S. City of Edmonton in 1911

The S.S. City of Edmonton, a steamboat, was first launched in 1904 with Capt Grant in command.  Abram Pearce who built steamboats only had mates papers but this year he finally received his masters certificate when he became Capt of the S.S. City of Edmonton.  The long delay in receiving command, he considered the greatest humiliation of his life.  He would retire in a few years.  This picture taken in 1911 and is loading at the wharf just below the Low Level Bridge in Edmonton, Alberta on the North Saskatchewan River.

Most of the Counts, Dukes, Sirs and Earls who came to Alberta to create their own empire failed.  Many underestimated the cost of creating their grandiose plans.  Others like Viscount Alphonse de Seyssel and M. Emile Janet planned to manufacture gruyere cheese.  They bought a large herd of cattle, built a factory, installed machinery, imported labor.  They failed to test the milk which was not suitable for this cheese.  Some tried raising sugar beets but failed to check government regulations which prohibited using beets for making alcohol.  Others raised big herds of swine but failed to plant sufficient grain for feed.

April 29:   The United Farmers of Alberta joined the Edmonton Board of Trade to ban settlement of Black people from Oklahoma in the Province.  Three thousand and four hundred righteous souls signed the petition.  The promise of free land had brought one hundred and twenty thousand United States settlers to the Canadian Prairies.  There is lots of room for Anglo-Saxon settlers but no room for Blacks, Jews, Chinese, Mormons, Metis, Indians or Russians.  The Anglo-Saxon Germans are not liked but tolerated for their agricultural skills.  The breaking of the Standard Oil Company (EXXON) monopoly, based on the Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890, occurred this year.

June 1:  The population of the west is:  Saskatchewan 492,432, Manitoba 461,000, B.C. 392,480, Alberta 374,295, NWT 8,512 and Yukon 8,512.

   Lawrence and Eleanor Thomas Garneau at Niagara Falls

The visit to Niagara Falls by Lawrence Garneau and Eleanor Thomas was September 1911  just before the death of Eleanor.  Lawrence held a homestead in Edmonton and another at St. Paul de Metis.  Some suggest he held between 80 and 175 quarter sections of land in Alberta.

   Lawrence and Eleanor Thomas Garneau

Laurence Garneau (1840-1921) and wife
Eleanor Thomas (1852-1912).
This photo is likely taken at Niagara Falls, Ontario.  Look at Eleanor's hat, it looks the same.

September 27: A plebiscite was held on amalgamation of the City of Strathcona with the City of Edmonton.  Edmonton results was 667 for and 96 against.  Strathcona results was 518 for and 178 against amalgamation.  Those in Strathcona who voted no were proven right as the economy of Strathcona stalled.

October:  Louise McKinney one of the infamous Alberta Five women brought the Women's Christian Temperance Union to Alberta.  They were devoted to protecting 'the Home' and strengthen 'Family Life' through eugenics and prohibition.  They pushed for sterilization of visible minorities (Slavic peoples especially), the poor, the sick and those considered feeble-minded.    Louis McKinney, Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung and Henrietta Edwards are criminals guilty of crimes against humanity.  The Nuremberg trials declared sterilization as a crime against humanity.

1912 

(IV)-Eleanor Thomas at age 59 year's, wife Lawrence Garneau, died St. Paul de Metis, Alberta, July 13, 1912.  Eleanor had been visiting Banff with friends and insisted they return to St. Paul where she died.  Her wish was for burial in Edmonton. Robert Garneau, a grandson, contends Eleanor was in Niagara Falls when she became ill. However, the essence of the story is the same.  The family, with horses a wagon and coffin, began the long journey to Edmonton. According to Marie Alexazina Gauthier, (1888-1980) the horses played out every few miles as though death's presence slowed them down.  The newspaper suggest she traveled to Edmonton by train.  The funeral services were held July 16 in Edmonton and the (IV)-Eleanor Thomas-Garneau's grave is at the cemetery on 118th Street and 107 Avenue in Edmonton, Alberta.  She is a descendant of some of the earliest European ancestors to arrive in western Canada.  Her family arrived at Hudson Bay in 1789. All other relatives settled in Eastern Canada or in the United States territory first. Lawrence Garneau is a Liberal in politics but followed the fractional split in the Liberal party that developed during the tenure in office of Premier (II)-A.C. Rutherford (1857-1941).  He became a dissident Liberal supporter of the group that adhered to the Late Honorable Frank Oliver.

 Guy Weadick proposed the first Calgary Stampede to be held this September.

St. Paul de Metis became the village of St. Paul de Metis.  It appears to have retained the de Metis title until the late 1920's.  This assumption has its basis in the reference material of the time.  

This is the year of the Edmonton land boom and bust.  Property on Jasper Avenue sold for two thousand a front foot, site unseen.  Six months later seventy-five thousand lots reverted to the city for taxes. The City of Edmonton absorbed Strathcona this year.

The Toonerville Trolley started up this year with one track and one car running along white avenue until 1947.  It had a colorful history.

The completion of a one hundred and seventy-mile pipeline, from the Bow Island region on the Oldman River, brings natural gas to Calgary.

The concept of picnic and Big Island is lost to future generations.  A picnic requires at least three hundred people.  It starts in the morning, and there must be a three-hour boat ride to get to the picnic ground.  There must be a barrel of beer in the woods, and the picnic dinner must last for two hours.  Then, in the evening, there must be a three hour boat ride home again, time for a full-fledged dance on board.  That was a picnic, the boat being supplied by John Walter, the location being Big Island, sixteen miles up river from Edmonton.  

The population of Edmonton is recorded as 53,611 but it was contested as hundreds of travelers were included in the count as were folks not part of Edmonton proper.  The census was the basis for the voters register.  Sons, Daughters living at home and domestics, servants or boarders were classed as occupants and could not vote nor could visitors, hotel porters, bellboys and potboys.  

The railway came to Trochu, Alberta in the form of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and much of the town site had to relocate to be closer to the railway.

February:  The Provincial legislature decided to extend the franchise to tenants.

February 1:  The city of Strathcona with a population of 3,579 was amalgamated into the city of Edmonton, Alberta with a population of 24,900.. 

June 30:   A tornado hit Regina, cutting a six block wide path of death and destruction.

July 13:  Mrs. Garneau died St. Paul des Metis and the funeral was conducted July 18, 1912 at St. Anthony's Church, Edmonton, Alberta, where mass was held.

July 17:  Building permits in Garneau (Edmonton, Alberta) include:

    N. Brown, lot 12, block 178  $4,000.00
    N. Brown, lot 13, block 178  $4,000.00
    Beaver Securities, lot 29, block 163  $2,000.00 
    Beaver Securities, lot 30, block 163  $2,000.00 

July 18:  Edmonton, Alberta, Mrs Garneau's Funeral; Eleanor Thomas, Metis, (1852-1912).

"Yesterday morning the funeral of Mrs. Garneau was held from Wainright's Undertaking Parlors to St. Anthony's Church where mass was held.  The body was returned to Wainright's Undertaking Parlors from whence the final funeral procession will proceed today to the Roman Catholic Cemetery on the 10th side.  A son is expected from a distance and the burial service is being held over till after his arrival.  In the procession of mourners yesterday morning there were a number of friends of the deceased lady.  Mr. and Mrs. Garneau were old timers in the district having homesteaded what is now valuable Garneau subdivision."  

1913 

Gavrilo Princip, age 19, a Serbian nationalist, kills Archduke Franz Ferdinard and his wife Sophie Von Hohenberg, starting the first world war.

During the scandal-ridden and disputed Provincial elections of 1913, Lawrence Garneau (1840-1921) contested the riding of St. Paul de Metis as an independent or Oliver Liberal.  He failed to achieve a seat.  Some suggest his defeat is because of his failure to stand up to the Roman Catholic Church for the Metis peoples.  Others question why he still held his land in the Metis Reservation.  Some said St. Paul de Metis is a heroic failure to create Father Lacombe's Vision of an ideal community for the Metis, a community where life would evolve in an idealistic Metis manner to be an example for Church, State and other Metis communities.  The Government however is insistent on assimilation or annihilation and the Roman Church ,not willing to risk their position, is focusing on the creation of a number of Western French Catholic communities.

Lawrence Garneau (1840-1921), remembering his flight from Winnipeg, the Ontario English and his Vigilant stands in Edmonton, didn't feel he had to withdraw from St. Paul and the advancing French.  He became Post Master, Timber Limit Owner, Sash and Door Factory Owner, General store owner, trader and rancher.  He also retained his estate in Edmonton next to the university.  His grand children, however, would pay the price for his tenacity.  When the war began, Lawrence Garneau had to shut down the Sash and Door Factory and store his Maxwell Touring car along with two Abbot Detroit cars.

The Garneau Clan

This is the 3rd generation Garneau Clan  in Alberta.

 This photo is the last major family gathering as the American flu of 1918  decimated the family.
 

At this time Cardston erected the only Mormon Temple in Canada to serve the large Mormon settlers in the area despite the continuous objections of the Roman Catholic Church.  The Church had violently objected to allowing these heathen people into Canada but they looked like Anglo-Saxon and are allowed to remain.  This Anglo-Saxon Semblance Policy would remain in effect throughout this century.

Between 1889 and 1913 there was 1,203 oil wells drilled in Alberta.  This year oil production was 1,405,786 barrels.

An interurban railway operated St. Albert to Calder in Edmonton but only lasted until 1914 when a fire destroyed their barn.

Some say the first automobile arrived in Grouard, Alberta this year.

"Get women back in the kitchen where they belong, women have no business running for office'.  So says Alderman Stanley Ramsey, of Calgary, Alberta. 

June 2:  The completion of the High Level bridge in Edmonton finally puts John Walters ferry service out of business.

1914 

John Garneau made an important decision to leave St. Paul de Metis and move to Portland, Oregon.  John Garneau had witnessed the unending waves of Celtic-Anglo-Saxon settlers and the building resentment between Catholic and Protestant, French and English.  His sister Millicent Savard and her daughter Yvonne went with him to meet up with her husband who went out earlier to review job prospects.  This is ironic, the Catholic Church had spent countless resources encouraging United States and French to come to Canada but sustains a policy that drives out French Canadian Metis Catholics. 

Lawrence Garneau, the Ojibwa Metis, married his Metis Cree housekeeper and the family is quick to say it is to help in raising his youngest, Millicent Garneau.  This however couldn't be true as she is married to Oscar Savard and they have a child.  Oscar had moved to Portland, Oregon and Millicent is to follow with her brother, John Garneau, and his family later in the year.  This marriage is a strong message to the family that he is Metis and proud of his Native heritage.  His first wife (IV)-Eleanor Thomas had a strong Swampy Cree heritage despite family denial.  The September 16 and 17 exposition contained the following advertisements:  Garneau and Freres transport des Voyageurs en Auto de Saint Paul a Vegreville, Brady and Savard frost and wood farm machinery: cockshutt plows etc farm lands for sale St. Paul des Metis, Laurence Garneau Mill see the Coureur de Bois of St. Paul (Moulin a scie et cour a bois St. Paul).

Lawrence Garneau related many first-hand stories of the Native and Metis struggles, early buffalo hunts, excursions and travels as one of those real plain's men who contributed to the real democratic opening of the West.  The dynamics are not only in an idealistic sense but also in the hardship and distress of pioneer life and the willingness to endure the sacrifice required of those who build solidly for the future.  Driven by greed and armed with a sense of their own innate superiority, the English marched across the sacred land of the Aboriginal peoples.  Lawrence Garneau devoted his life to resisting this un-accommodating advancement at the Minnesota-Dakota resistance movement of 1862, the Red River resistance movement of 1869, the Edmonton resistance movement of 1882, Metis resistance movement of 1885 and the St. Paul de Metis resistance movement of 1908.  He also related stories of his frustrations with Government and Church but he retained, throughout his life, an open pride in his heritage.  In his last years he lived close to the Metis and Native friends of his earlier years.  It is an end of an era in Metis history and the baton is being passed to a younger generation.

Because the Roman Church had taken away the last of the dignity of being Metis, many Metis parents encouraged their children to marry outside the clan, if not for themselves, at least for the sake of the children.  Metis who married outside the clan denied their own Indian ancestry as a duty to their spouses.  These once proud people have lost their culture, pride and faith.  Many of the Metis males turned back to the Indian culture as there is little hope for them in the white skinned world with the Church, Business and Government against them.  Racial harassment is a daily ordeal at Church, School, Market Place and playground.

Racial discrimination against non-French speaking people in St. Paul de Metis began to intensify.  The French, even to this day, place their language before their religion or country.  The French, at this time, considered the Roman Catholic Faith inseparable from the French language at St. Paul de Metis.  The speaking of English identified with Protestantism.  The Garneau clans' determination to master English had lost them their French by the third generation in Alberta.  The Anglo-Saxon settlers abused the Half-breed children for the color of their skin.  The French settlers abused the Metis children for speaking English.  The Metis children said the situation became an unending ordeal of daily combat.  Pride in being Metis is slowly being replaced by being able to be passed off as being white, but surely not English White Protestant and surely not those not so white French dogs.  The second generation of Alberta Garneau's became the limbo generation.

The real-estate boom in Edmonton bust.  About 70% of Edmonton's real estate was found to have no real value.  Seventy five thousand building lots were suddenly so worthless that men who deemed themselves wealthy on account of them could not finance the taxes on them, and they reverted to the city.  Most of Edmonton's millionaires moved away.

The first World War almost destroyed Trochu, Alberta as most of the young men signed up for the war and few returned after the war.

"I certainly have never yet seen the woman who would be of any use on a police force'. so says Chief Alfred Cuddy of the Calgary police force.

May 14:   A.W. Dingman, of Calgary Petroleum Products Limited (later Royalite Oil), struck oil and gas at Turner Valley, Alberta.  Oil shares jumped from twelve dollars to two hundred dollars per share.    This project was financed by Stewart Herron, A.W. Dingman, James Lougheed, R.P. Bennet and others.  The Turner Valley Oilfield is opened this year near Calgary, marking the beginning of Alberta's Oil Industry.

May 21:   The ship Komagata Maru and 396 Sikh immigrants arrived Vancouver and are turned away under recently enacted Canadian Immigration laws.  The ship was forced out of Vancouver July 23.

August 14, 1914, Canada dutifully entered the Great War along side Britain.

1915

William Garneau, of Munson, Alberta, registered an Alberta horse and cattle brand for the right shoulder consisting of a 'WG' with a bar over top.

Some time during 1912 and 1915 (III)-Mathias Salzl rented a horse and buggy to take a friend out and look at a homestead in the District of Sand Hills across the river from Leduc, Alberta.  The friend decided he didn't want the homestead. However Mathias decided to take it and spent a number of summers improving it by clearing land and building a log home.  It is during this period that Mathias shot a large bird and years later that he discovered that it had been a Whooping Crane.  The family believes he filed on this homestead in the Sand Hills District in 1915.  Some homesteaders however appear to have squatted for a number of years before applying for title.  This item needs more research in order to tie down the actual date.  It is also during this period that his wife (IV)-Jerusha Anna McDougall learned about all the wild Alberta plants that could be eaten.  In later years I would follow her about as she collected her cattail roots, wild mint, Canadian thistle or dandelion leaves as well as many other delicacies that I have long forgotten.  She would use these wild plants to garnish the wild rabbit, partridge, prairie chicken, duck or pheasant that we would bring to her.  We never did discover why she preferred rabbit to any other meat. Maybe it is because of the fur with which she trimmed her home made clothing.

The Edmonton Grads started  to dominate world basketball this year until 1940, when there was no one left to defeat, and they disbanded.  Percy Page, their coach, led them to win five hundred and two games of five hundred and twenty two played.  This year  the Alberta prohibition era began and lasted until 1923.

The manager of John Walters Lumber Mill in what was to become Edmonton stole $50,000.00 and fled the area.  Walters had other mishaps that contributed into causing him to plunged from a millionaire into heavy debt, from which he never recovered. 

Some say the Alberta Railway aka. Great Waterways Line had so many washouts, so many times it took 5 days to go 60 miles.  There wasn't anything to eat.  The passengers complained and the conductor said;  Just you wait in a little while you will have all you want to eat.  In three miles the train stopped beside a blueberry patch.  The conductor said here we are, get out and help yourself.

June 28:  The Saskatchewan River flooded Edmonton leaving two thousand people homeless.  The flood this year swept away fifty homes including the Edmonton Lumber Company, John Walter's Mill and the City Boilers.  Flooding also cut off the electrical supply to the city.  The loss of John Walter's Lumber Mill destroyed him financially and he never recovered. Being old and unused, Fort Edmonton is dismantled this year to be preserved and later restored by the city.  However, this never happens.

1916

 Father Pere Lacombe, born 1827 Quebec, came west in 1849, died 1916 in Calgary, but is buried in Edmonton, Alberta. The Blackfoot called him the man with a good heart. His heart remains in the Blackfoot Country as it was sealed in a container and buried behind the Lacombe Nursing Home in Calgary, Alberta.

Father Lacombe, born 1827, died December 2, 1916 at a home for the aged in Midnapore, Alberta and John McDougall the Methodist died the following January 1917.  Emily Murphy, in Edmonton, became the first woman Magistrate in the British Empire.  A young lawyer challenged her judicial powers claiming under British law "women are persons in matters of pains and penalties but are not persons in matters of rights and privileges".  The young lawyer is absolutely correct according to British Common Law.  It should be noted that Canadian Aboriginal Common Law has included women's voting rights for centuries before the arrival of Europeans.

Prohibition was declared in Alberta from 1916 to 1923.  It is noteworthy that the scientist at this time believed that alcohol and smoking acted as a shield against infection.  When the 1918 flu hit Alberta, many believed the lack of alcohol, resulted in the high mortality rate in Alberta from the disease.

WWI after being rejected for military service in British Columbia, approximately 200 Japanese volunteers travel to Alberta to join Canadian battalions of the British army and are shipped to Europe. 54 are killed and 92 wounded.  

March 14:   Women are allowed to vote in Saskatchewan.  On April 27, 1916, Alberta women regain the right to vote and this follows the Manitoba lead of January 27.  Red-necked British Columbia and Ontario finally follow to allow the female vote on April 4, 1917 and April 12 respectively. 

April:  The Peace River Oil Company hit a gusher of salt water with a minor amount of natural gas at 346 meters (1,136 feet).   The well was located 4-31-85-20W5 about 24 km NE of the town of Peace River on the east bank of the Peace River.   The well spewed 30,000 barrels of salt water and 340,000 cubic feet of natural gas each day, at its peak.  The company attempted to plug the well in June 1917, but they failed.  The well flowed into the Peace River until 1955 when it was finally plugged.   The well again was running wild in 1982.   The well ran wild until 2003 when it was finally capped.

1917 

During the period  1917 to 1921, the prairies suffered a prolonged drought forcing many people from the lands into the growing cities and towns.  Many return to the United States from where they originated.  Farm abandonment reached 80% in some areas. This exceeded the Great Depression.  It is ironic that the region that was well known as the Prairie dry belt (southern Alberta/Saskatchewan) produced a mammoth harvest in 1915-1916.

Charles Stewart, Liberal, is elected Premier of Alberta 1917-1921.  He would be the last Liberal Premier elected in Alberta this century.

Few Canadians realize that a war internment camp was created at Yoho National Park, about 30 kilometers west of Lake Louise, to hold Austro-Hungarian immigrants in Canada where they were forced to do hard labor.   My grandfather was a Austro-Hungarian but fortunately was not interned.  Not learning from this experience, we Canadians  repeated this practice in the second World War against the Japanese Canadians.

The Alberta Provincial Police were established this year and served until 1932.

The Saskatchewan Provincial Police were also formed this year and served until 1928.

June 2:  William Avery (Billy) Bishop (1894-1956 was awarded the Victory Cross.  He was the most successful Canadian airman, eventually shooting down 72 enemy aircraft.  He was described as a terrible pilot but a fantastic shot.

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