In old newspapers we see references to Canada being a sub-continent, of a size too large to be called merely a country, taking up a whole section of a continent as it does. And within Canada's immensity there is the Prairie region, that immense area between the Canadian Shield of Ontario and the majestic Rockies, and also a northern region, what was sometimes called the Great Northland. Edmonton was regarded as an important place in both of those regions. Edmonton has always been a magnet for travellers of all types, as a hub of trails or roads or rail-lines that draws travellers to it. In 1898 Edmonton was the destination of one of the epic journeys of North America. A ship's officer travelled 5000 kilometres, most of it on foot through the depths of northern winter, to get to Edmonton. He was appropriately named Charles Walker and his ship was among a fleet of whalers that was nipped in ice off the Arctic coast in September 1895. The 300 men on the ships had few provisions (and did not know how to live off the land). Walker left the ship on November 1 to send for help. Buying a dogsled from Inuit he chanced to meet, he mushed thousands of kilometres until five months later, he arrived at the Saddle Lake Reserve (east of Edmonton), which had an office on the first telegraph line he came to in his southward journey. He then went on to Edmonton and boarded a southbound train at South Edmonton, as Strathcona was known at that time, and went on to speak directly to his employers at San Francisco. Twenty-five years later, another interesting fellow came out of the Great Northland to Edmonton. Joseph Hodgson was interviewed in Edmonton in 1921 when he emerged from a 48-year career as fur-buyer in the Barren Lands. Since his move to the Far North, electricity and telephones, streetcars and automobiles had come into general use. He had seen almost none of them in his life. You can imagine his amazement at the modern world. Through Edmonton's history we see many ended their travelling by settling in Edmonton. The city is full of people of that type - if such a varied and colourful group can be described as being of a single type. Each has brought aspects of his or her background and heritage to this city. We see James East as belonging to that category. Born in Ontario in 1870 he travelled through the U.S. Dakotas and to the west coast, and on to Australia. Returning to Canada about the turn of the century, he came to Edmonton to join his younger brother Elisha. The two later served on the city council - the only time two brothers served on council together. During James' time in that chamber, the city enjoyed its one experience of fair, balanced elections. Each of the two political parties of the time was assured its fair share of seats, and a high proportion of voters saw their vote used to elect someone. Perhaps the council's acceptance of the new way was in part due to James' travels. Part of Australia had been using proportional representation back when James had been there. Edmonton city councils of the 1920s were entirely made up of people-from-away like James. It was not until 1933 that a person born in Edmonton was elected to council. At that time there were men born in Edmonton who had grown old here. But it was Margaret Crang, a woman of just 23 years of age who made that mark for "local product." It was not until 40 years later that the first person born in Edmonton was elected to the mayor's chair. This was Cecil Purves, elected in 1977. Most of our city politicians through history have been newcomers from elsewhere, and many still today belong to families who only relatively settled here. I hope they feel free to work for social change that is based on the successful advances already achieved elsewhere. Other viewpoints are sometimes extremely important. Newcomers sometimes find their old skills again in demand. One was W.H. Hunter, formerly a successful hunter in the Algoma district of northern Ontario. Living peaceably in Edmonton in 1907, he took on the task of ending the career of a huge wolf preying on family farms in the Elm Park area, about 129 Avenue and 116 Street. After a hard-fought duel of instinct versus reason, he brought down the offender. Amazingly, the wolf weighed in at 400 pounds (200 kgs). And Edmonton has produced its own travellers as well. Some of its young and its adventurous have ventured off to exotic locations. The Owen Beatty-John Geiger forays into the North that yielded secrets of the fate of the Franklin expedition began in Edmonton. Edmontonian Austin Mardon went to the other polar region, to the continent of Antarctica in the 1980s. One day there he was trekking across the ice and snow, and he looked back a ways just in time to see his footsteps and the snow around them fall away into a deep chasm. After his return to Edmonton Austin was an advocate for mental health. He was named to the Order of Canada for his efforts in that regard. During the Boer war (1899-1902), young men of the local Jamieson, Turnbull and Wilkins families went off to join the Imperial fight. Charles Lewis Shaw, said to be one of Canada finest "literary workers" at the time, was there with them although not as a soldier. He was a war correspondent for a large Toronto newspaper. He had lived in Edmonton in the 1880s when it was a pioneer hamlet just broadening out from being strictly a fur-trading post. He spent an evening with the Edmonton volunteers on the eve of battle under a star-studded African sky. They regaled each other with reminiscences of old Edmonton, of the scones and shortbread served up at the little bakery/candy store run by little Mrs. Lauder, and of the way she had been a mother to the young Scot lads who had made the long winding way to the little settlement along the mighty Saskatchewan. May someone like her take care of all the wandering folk this Christmas -- and all those who stay home too. Happy holidays. sources: Walker: Edmonton Bulletin, April 14, 1898 Hodgson: Edmonton Bulletin, July 25, 1921 Hunter: Edmonton Bulletin, Oct. 30, 1907 Shaw: Edmonton Daily Capital, Jan. 31, 1910
originally published in Millwoods Mosaic Dec 2022
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