Agriculture and Settlement

Farm Life

I worked that fall (1911) threshing. My job was pitching bundles. We worked from seven in the morning until nine or ten at night. Wages were one dollar a day and I worked for eighty-one days. The last of the threshing was done from stacks. There were not many machines in the country and some of the farmers would put their grain into stacks so it would keep dry. This was threshed later in the fall. Some of the steamers burned straw to heat the boiler. It kept one man working steady putting straw in the firebox. At night bundles were packed in tight to keep a head of steam. Another man and team were kept busy hauling water. They had to have clean soft water. Alkali water would bubble up and come out of the overflow pipe. At harvest time extra workers were brought from Toronto and Montreal. They would stook or drive binders and later work on the threshing machines. I never had a change of clothes all summer. (Athabasca Historical Society, 100-101)

Interview clip with Jettie "Day" Willey, describing early farm life in Athabasca. Athabasca Archives, audio tape #153.

Harvesting near Colinton

Threshing crew near Day's Farm

Day livery farm

Overholt's homestead

Threshing crew

Steam engine used for threshing

Threshing near Athabasca Landing, 1912

Threshing crew

Demonstration Farm

Herding cattle on the East Hill

Interview with J.D. Edwards describing the seeding of the first crop Athabasca Archives, audio tape #7, accession #85.284.