Why We Have Guns Out Here

People in the city often are ignorant of the need for firearms out here on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.  2011 was unusual for us because it is the first full year in memory that we have not seen bears in our backyard, although we did have one pile of droppings early in the summer so we know they're around.  Consider this story dated Sept. 20, 2010:  "These two gentlemen were calling elk in the Saddle Hills south of Woking, Alberta, when this big grizzly slipped in on the caller. The shooter spotted the bear about 8 yards from the caller, and dropped him with 5 shots from his .338 Winchester Magnum.  Farmers in the area knew about the bear but weren’t able to track it, even after it had killed 3 horses, 5 cows, 13 sheep, and a pen full of chickens on several different homesteads in the area.  Fish and Wildlife officers had bear traps set up in the area but noticed on surveillance videos that whenever he would enter a trap, his hump would hit the top of the culvert, slowing him enough that the trap door would whack him on the head before he was all the way in.  This bear weighed in just under 1300 pounds, and would have stood almost 12 feet tall on its hind legs."  A bear that kills horses, and too big for a bear trap!  The picture shows his "island-sized" paw.

And Now For a Change of Tune ...

Tim Hus could be Canada's Dwight Yoakim. But that's not fair to Tim; it could be that Dwight Yoakim is America's Tim Hus. Last night was a musical milestone for Stella's and for us - the first time we've tapped our toes in a long while until we just had to get up and dance. Tim's music just won't let you sit there. Ably backed up by his fine band, The Rocky Mountain Two, Tim's unique voice and solid stage presence show a professionalism rarely seen in more well-known acts and venues. Close your eyes and there was enough Texas Swing to take you back anywhere you wanted to go. A little Merle Haggard, a little Buck Owens, and a whole lot of Tim - one of Canada's best young song writers. Catch these guys if they're in your neighbourhood, and don't forget your dancin' boots!  Follow this link for more.

No, Those Are Not MY Hay Bales

Lethbridge's Red Lights, Part 3

"The first Lethbridge brothels were the teepees the Indians pitched on the Belly River Flats 300 feet below the flatland on which the city itself was eventually located.  However, as the Galt mansion and the rather elaborate houses of the mine manager and the foremen were also built on the flats, the Mounties tended to run the Indians off into adjacent coulees and away from the settlement.  The first permanent brothels were built in the coulees on the west side of the river by women who came in from Medicine Hat and Great Falls with the railway.  As employment in the mines expanded, Lethbridge, except for the prostitutes, grew almost as a town without women.  While a few of the European miners brought wives and children with them, most of the first settlers were single.  The result, according to legend, was that the river-bottom brothels did a roaring business until the coal company began opening up its pits on the area above the river valley...When the coal company built a huge bunkhouse on the flats above the river to serve its single miners, the other miners gradually moved into lodgings close to the upper pit heads.  As their clients moved away, the madams also moved to the top of the hill and established an enclave of brothels on a triangular spit of land on the extreme west side of the settlement.  It was flanked on the north by a huge coulee that extended from the river clear up to the back door of the Lethbridge Hotel on Round Street, which later became 5th Street South.  On the south another deep coulee extended from the river almost to 4th Street.  The widest point pf this triangle was at 2nd Street between 3rd and 4th avenues...By 1890 there were six brothels and the coal company dormitory within the triangle which was famous throughout southern Alberta as "The Point".

Lethbridge's Red Lights, Part 2

"As a long-retired cow hand recalled it: 'When I was a boy growing up in Lethbridge, this was the cattle shipping point for the last great open range that extended from Macleod to Maple Creek.  The spring round-ups would extend for hundreds of miles.  When the round-up was over the cowboys would be paid off and they went looking for entertainment with pockets full of money.  Cow hands are not like miners.  If you have ever been in a mining town on pay day you've seen miners rushing for the whorehouses like an army on the attack.  You could often see them lined up outside the front door waiting their turns and they'd be in and out of the joint in a matter of minutes.  The cowboys were different.  After weeks or months of nothing but cows, horses and other riders for company, they wanted to enjoy the pleasure of female companionship, to sit and relax and have a drink and listen to talk.  Most of all they wanted to take their time doing everything, to string out the enjoyment of whatever they were doing.  Because they were never tight with their money the cow hands were given special treatment, and the Lethbridge places that catered to them seemed to be able to attract higher class girls than those at Macleod, or in the Crowsnest Pass, for example." (from Red Lights on the Prairies by James H. Gray)

Lethbridge's Red Lights

     "Isolated as Lethbridge and Drumheller were in remote corners of the Alberta boondocks, it was inevitable that their brothels would develop lifestyles of their own, in legend if not in fact.  What other community, for example, could claim that its gaggle of whorehouses doubled as cultural centres, as Lethbridge's did during the expiring years of Victoria's reign?  There, after savouring the primary pleasures of the joints, a young cow hand ... could relax with a good book and, if necessary, be taught to read by a former schoolteacher turned prostitute.  Or he could lean back and enjoy a piano solo by one of the talented bawds, or learn the latest dance steps from a new girl from Wichita via Great Falls, Montana.  He might even be instructed in how to spot a crooked card dealer in a poker game, by a girl who had been a faro dealer in Fort Benton.  And after a cowboy had blown what was left of his wad in a Round [5th] Street gambling joint he might seek shelter from the weather in a bagnio on "The Point" and not be turned away."  (from Red Lights on the Prairies by James H. Gray)

Cattle Branding Out Here

 When did regulated cattle branding get underway in Western Canada?  As a consequence of the end of the fur trade about 1845, formerly busy trading posts either closed or became notorious as whiskey outlets.  Federal governments on both sides of the 49th parallel set about securing their lawless western territories by encouraging settlement and commerce.  "Starting in the early 1870s, a number of men in the southern North-West Territories of Canada kept a few head of cattle for their own meat and dairy supplies and, from 1874, for trade with the North-West Mounted Police and the native population ... In the 1880s they began recording their brands with their stock associations, and the police acted as hide inspectors when cattle were being sold or shipped to market.  However, a lot of the cattlemen - in particular those who were not members of associations and could not register brands - did not properly mark their animals ... It was not until the North-West Council 'hide ordinance' of 1898 that all brands could be properly registered."  This initial ordinance, as it turned out, was full of legal loopholes, and in 1900 a new one had to be enacted.  "The first brand book appeared as early as 1888 and new ones were issued from time to time.  However, there apparently were few copies and they were poorly updated and distributed.  That changed as a result of pressure from the Western Stock Growers Association.  By 1907 the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were publishing their own brand books."   I was happy to discover the other day that a very old leather-bound brand book has survived in the possession of a close friend of mine.  I look forward to perusing it.  (Quotes herein are from Cowboys, Gentlemen & Cattle Thieves by Warren M. Elofson.)