“In 1856, 30 miles southeast of St. Boniface, on the edge of the immense forest that extends to Lake of the Woods, a few families, almost all of mixed race, had settled on the banks of the Seine River and built a few buildings made of squared timber. Barely had they begun to clear the land. The game forest often served them delicious food. Moose, caribou, beaver and partridge were abundant, and by doing so, attracted the hunter to the prairie.” (translation)

Gilberte Bohémier, Patricia Doyle and Doris Nault, 1975

Source: Bohémier, G., Doyle, P. & Nault, D. (1975). Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes, Travail soumis par Gilberte, Patricia Doyle et Doris Nault. Student project. Provincial Archives of Manitoba 1975-64. Print. Found in collection of the Dawson Trail Museum

    “No one knows the Dawson better than this young-spirited and vigorous old man with a memory of astonishing fidelity. Mr. Desautels talks about how the elders used to get along. Arriving in Sainte-Anne on May 25, 1868, the Desautels family entered their newly-built home on June 19. All the work had been done by volunteers, without a penny in wages. This was the way things were done in those days, and how they helped each other out.

    "What did we eat in those days? Ducks, chickens, pemmican, deer, salted bacon, pea soup when the locusts had not eaten everything, washed corn, wheat or barley soup, a cake made of flour and fat. Sugar was very expensive (25 cents a pound) and was rarely used. The narrator tells how the children of the household had difficulty getting used to the bread when it was introduced instead of the cake. We had stoves and made fireplaces out of mud and straw. We used candlelight. We used to make this candle with water or at least mussels. Mr. Desautels then recounts how the sowing, threshing and general farm work was done. Oxen were used, because the country horse can never learn to pull and was rebellious to the work in the fields. The ploughs were made of wood and the harrows were also made of wood.” (translation)

Eugène Desautels, a community elder in 1940,
speaking about life along the Dawson Trail
at the national commemoration
ceremony picnic in Ste-Anne

Source: La Liberté. (1940, Aug 7). En mémoire de la route Dawson et des pionniers de la région (P.1 et P.5). Dévoilement d’une stèle commémorative à Ste-Anne-de-Chênes – Discours par l’hon Sauveur Marcoux, le professeur MacFarlane, l’abbé d’Eschambault, etc. – Dîner champêtre où des anciens racontent leurs souvenirs : MM. J.-A. Cusson, Francis Falcon, Bruce Maxime Champagne, Eugène Désautels. Peel’s Prairie Provinces : University of Alberta. Document Aroo111. Retrieved June 24, 2020 from http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/newspapers/LLT/1940/08/07/1/Ar00111.html

Photograph of a homesteader breaking sod with a plough pulled by oxen. “Le Canadien français,” Winnipeg, Compagnie française de colonisation au Canada, vol. 2, no 14, juin 1910, cover. From « La colonisation/migrations francophone au Manitoba 1870-1914. Retrieved July 2, 2020 from http://shsb.mb.ca/Canadien-Fran%C3%A7ais_premier_labour

Spinning wheels were a standard piece of equipment in many early settler homes and used for making fiber into yarn. Mrs. Duhamel is demonstrating how to use a spinning wheel at the church in the 1930s. Dawson Trail Museum collection.

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