Neighbors of the High Country
Walter Ross of Ross Lake

Walter Inkerman Ross was born in 1854 in St. Jean Crystosome,
Quebec. He was the eldest of ten children and his father was
a Presbyterian clergyman.

He married Grace Graham of St. Catherines, Ontario. She was
of Scottish descent and her father was in ship building and
lumber dealing. They had three children, Eileen, (who died
in infancy), George, and Jack.

In 1894 Grace passed away, and shortly after Walter left the
little town at Lake of the Woods, with his two small sons.
He settled in the unsheltered plains of the west on the
edge of a fourteen hundred acre lake and built a
house of field stone with walls four feet thick.

This lake was later called Ross Lake, after Walter Ross.
Walter lived in this home and operated a large ranch for
many years. He passed away in 1935 at the age of
eighty-one years.

The shell of the old stone house is still there on the
shore of Ross Lake.

His son Jack was killed in action during the first year
of World War 1 at the age of twenty-two.

George Ross Sr. got his Hydroplane Pilots license No. 50
from Newport News, Virginia on June 7, 1916. He too
joined the services.

He married Rodney Whitson Ogg, from London, England.
They had four children, Grace, who passed away from
scarlet fever at the age of eight years; George, Jack,
and Walter (Stub).

George Ross Sr. passed away in June of 1956 at the age
of sixty-five at Lost River Ranch.

His wife, Rodney, moved to Lethbridge, where she lived
until she passed away a few years later.

Their sons George and Jack, then operated several ranches
on the Milk River, including Lost River and Flying R. Ranches.

George Ross Jr. passed away.

Walter (Stub) owns and operates the Lethbridge Air Services,
and lives in the city with his family.

The large Ross Ranch north of the Milk River was a place
where some early homesteaders worked to supplement
the earnings from their own places.

The Old Ross Rock House

The house built about 1900 was lived in until about 1923,
when Mr. Ross moved to a new location east of what is
now Milk River.

As a youngster of seven or eight, our family along with the
neighbors went with team and wagon or buggy, net fishing
in the Ross Lake. The fish were of the sucker family
called mullet.

The old Rock house was the main attraction for us kids. It
was beginning to fall down at this time, some doors were
gone, some hanging by one hinge. The windows were all
gone except the frames. The window sills were almost as
deep as a chesterfield, set in walls of cement and rock
(mostly rock) at least two feet thick.

The outside entrance under the north end was large enough
to drive in with a load of supplies. Inside it appeared to have
been a storage room and stalls for a four horse team.

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