Moosomin, Saskatchewan

hoarfrost on church tree

1,218 miles

Jan 26 – As I “drove” around Moosomin using Google Street Views, all I could see were newer homes built at ground level and 3 or 4 stone buildings from a century past.  The only businesses that caught my attention were a septic tank cleaning service and a flood damage cleanup service.  I wondered whether there had been a recent natural disaster here.  And then I found the images.  A 2014 flood inundated the town and broke much of the water-related infrastructure.  Yes, the town has been repaired and scrubbed clean since then.  I’m still puzzled by the ground-level foundations when building in a flood plain.

Metis people with Red River oxcart

The first path between Moosomin and Fort Ellice, Manitoba, was an Indian trail.  It was used by fur traders, and then by Métis settlers transporting household goods on Red River oxcarts (two-wheeled carts that used no metal hardware).   According to the Encyclopedia of French Cultural Heritage in North America, “This cart is the best-known symbol of Métis culture. It is a symbol of the ingenuity, their nomadic way of life, and their trade skills that contributed in the development of the Prairies economy.” 

The transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway was built parallel to this trail in the late 19th century.  Before the Trans-Canada Highway was built in the 1940s, Provincial Highways followed the township road allowances, barbed wire fencing and rail lines.  Because of this, the first highway was designed on 90-degree right angle corners like the surveyed township roads.  Two-horse, then eight-horse, scrapers maintained these early dirt roads.  Now the Trans-Canada Highway sweeps through the landscape like a prairie wind.

cart image: Encyclopedia of French Cultural Heritage in North America:  http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/en/article-59/Red_River_Cart.html