Cattle Drives, Moose Hunts, Blizzards, and Such: A Northern Canadian Cowboy

By Lloyd Byra

Lloyd’s daughters used to ask him, “Dad, what was it like when you were growing up?” Usually, the answer was quite extraordinary. Lloyd Byra grew up in a different era and a very different reality from that of most Canadians.

These collected stories are his memories of growing up in a pioneering family, in one of the last homestead areas of the far north: BC’s Peace River Country. From his father’s dream of a better life for his family, through the chilling realities of northern winters, to the hardships of building a ranch on the Umbach Creek (formally Squaw Creek), these stories offer a glimpse into his life.

Share in the dangers of that first moose hunt, the adventures of the cattle drives, and joys and triumphs found along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664110175

Lloyd Byra

Lloyd is a “been there, done that” kind of guy who went from homesteading to various pursuits and eventually returned to the land raising Arabian horses. He tells it like he remembers it, no frilly words, just as he talks. The book describes his immigrant parents’ struggle in northern British Columbia, the good and bad of growing up there, and his knowledge/love of animals. There are the challenging cattle drives, breathtaking moose hunts, and endearing family encounters. Worried that his stories would be lost and his grandchildren would never know this part of their heritage, Lloyd has put pen to paper in order to enrich the lives of his descendants. He acknowledges the people who helped shape his life and who played an intricate part in his development as a cowboy and businessperson.

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Copyright © 2021 by Lloyd Byra.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/12/2021

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

The Grub Steak

Homesteading

North Pine School Days

Christmas Memories and Traditions

First Moose Hunt

Trailing Cattle and Horses

Frank and Alice Attachie

Lost In A Blizzard

The Radio

Calving

Second Moose

Banner

Swimming Cattle

Chinooks

Branding

Neighbors At Last

Grinding Grain and Marketing Animals

Calling Moose

Semi Wild Horses

The Scattered Herd

In the Dark of Night

About the Author

PREFACE

I N 1995 MY eldest daughter, Deborah, asked me to write about the early days so the grandchildren could know about their heritage. The chapters have been forming over the years.

She was so right. Gone are all those days and ways. Life today just cannot compare to what our parents and us kids went through back then. Technology has whisked us into the unknown.

My story starts with the homesteading of my parents in 1929 and goes through my childhood to adolescence. The chapters are filled with pioneering in the area and my development during this time. In 1967 when father retired, I took over the land for a period. Economics and finance forced me to give up on farming, but I retained the land. The book tells only of my experiences at the farm.

Onward I went through a welding career working for others, then myself, going to college midlife, and creating a business in several different locations. Finally in 2003 after ten years of business in Calgary, AB, my wife Iris and I reestablished a residence in the original area where my father started fifty years previous in the North Peace River Country.

Many of the original pioneers who started moving there in the early ’60s have since passed away, moved, or simply retired. It was wonderful to move back and find our dear friends John and Kathy Giesbrecht still around to rekindle a friendship. Others who contributed to the memories were Peggy and Eleanor Blanchet and Stan and Faye Hetman. What fun we had sitting around the table swapping stories and getting informed as to who went where and why.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F IRST AND FOREMOST, my wife, Iris Byra, who helped with the grammar and punctuations.

Secondly, an equally important is our daughter, Laurie Borle, who did the majority of the preliminary editing. Our other daughter, Deborah McKinnon, contributed her educated professional experience and help.

Among the many others that helped and added their experience were my sister Julie Gibson, who has written about the book, Susan Stasiuk and others that have helped.

THE GRUB STEAK

M Y FATHER, FRANK Byra, arrived in Fort St. John, British Columbia, during the summer of 1929. Mother said that this all took place during the latter part of the 1920s to early 1930s. There are several historical details that have suffered the consequence of time and are not necessarily in the correct order, so I do apologize. It is quite difficult to write about events that took place even before I was born: harder still to find anyone still alive who can assist with the details of the pioneering days.

Dad met up with Uncle Mike, Uncle Joe, and another guy called Little Joe in Edmonton, Alberta. Uncle Mike had been working for a farmer in Saskatchewan and learned about homesteads in the Peace River Block area. He had an old model A Ford car, and this was their mode of transportation to Fort St. John. Someplace along the way, the car broke down while navigating the deep ruts and mud holes and was abandoned. When they arrived in Fort St. John, they immediately started looking for land to start their homesteads. They acquired a map of the general area and were directed to Cecil Lake which was about 12 miles to the east of Fort St. John. This was all to no avail as the better parcels of land had already been staked. They proceeded to go west across the Beaton River. By studying their map, they were able to find a 160-acre homestead for each of them. Uncle Joe had returned to Manitoba to find some work, so they had some resources to get started.

They acquired building tools, and as a joint effort, they built Uncle Joe’s house first. That first winter they lived in the dugout cellar with a roof plunked on top. Mom; her husband, Bill Stasiuk; her daughter, Josephine; and Uncle Joe arrived the following spring in March 1930. They stayed in the new log house that had just been built. Bill was also building a log house and would leave in morning, walking to the site. On one occasion, someone had walked over to his place to help him only to discover his axe stuck in a log and very little building going on. He had gone visiting until the end of the day. I expect that he must have got a reprimand from the other man because it was not long afterward that he pulled the pin leaving Mom, four months pregnant, abandoned with a very young daughter. Bill was never seen again.

The country was undergoing a major economic upheaval that would have long and far-reaching effects leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Businessmen of many different professions were being forced out of their business, and as a matter of survival, many had taken up farming.

My father could foresee what was happening in the economic world, and like many others, he too took up a homestead at North Pine, BC. A homestead consisted of 160 acres of crown land. The government regulations that were required to take up a homestead meant that you had to (1) build a log house on it, (2) fence the property, and (3) develop raw bush land into cultivated land. Clearing the land of brush was a major project. The telling of how this all came to be is written in the next chapter in detail. This one is to tell how Dad obtained monies to work his own land and start a new future for his family, soon to include nine children.

A lot of bartering took place in those days when Dad took up the homestead. He had no tools, very little money, and no food, so he sought employment with neighbors to trade for these goods.

Well, the house was ready to be lived in, but winter was approaching, and it would be very difficult to find enough work in the wintertime to buy food. There was no choice but to go back to where there was a more populated area to find work. Dad was an exceptional horseman and could handle the wildest of workhorses. He traveled back as far as Taylor Flats to meet up with a farmer named Evert Short who was elderly and in need of a hired hand. This was to drive his horses that pulled a binder machine. It required four horses abreast, was used to cut the grain, tie it in bundles or sheaves, and then dump them in a row to later be picked up and stooked by a person. The man, who had been hired previously to drive the horses with the binder, lost control and the horses bolted away damaging the binder. Dad approached Evert Short, who was very angry about the events at that time, for a job and was promptly told to go to hell! Taken aback by this reply, Dad was ready to persist but noticed Evert was doing something wrong in repairing the binder and showed him how to fix it. Well, this broke the ice slightly, and Dad asked him how the binder got so damaged. Hearing Evert’s explanation, Dad said, I can handle your horses. Evert was not that easily persuaded. The average wage including room and board at that time was $20 per month. Dad said, I will drive your damned horses, but I want $35 per month, and if I can’t handle them and don’t get your grain crop cut, I will not charge you anything.

Dad said the horses had been caught out of a wild herd and were extremely wild. They would spook for any reason and try to run away. It was impossible to try to stop them, so Dad would pull one rein in and get them going in circles until they got dizzy. And then out came the binder whip which was a long bamboo pole with a lash attached to the end and he would prompt them to run more. The horses soon learned who the master was. There were two that were exceptionally good workhorses but outlaws at the same time. One was named Jim who was a man killer and would rear and strike with his front feet with no warning and Buster would kick for no reason at all. On one occasion, Dad was unhooking the horses but was carefully watching Buster at the same time. He saw a muscle flinch in Buster’s hind legs, and Dad quickly dropped to the ground, just in time to have his hat go sailing through the air from Buster’s hind feet. The horses learned more respect, the grain was all cut successfully, and thus started a long friendship.

Dad worked for Evert all that fall of 1929, through the winter, and on until the summer of 1931. The economic depression was getting worse; Evert stated he could not afford to keep Dad any longer plus Dad was overdue on proving up his homestead. As a result of about twenty-one months of work, Dad ended up owning Jim and Buster, complete with harness and a wagon, plus some cash for a grub stake and tools to get started farming.

Focus on that dream.

HOMESTEADING

W HEN THE APPLICATIONS for a homestead were completed, the farmers were allowed to start making the required improvements. At that point of time, there was no heavy equipment in that area, so land clearing had to be done by hand.

Dad had worked in a mine where he learned how to use dynamite. Using the explosives made a big difference, as often the large stumps would have most of the dirt blown away and the remaining stump was split into smaller sections with just a few roots still holding on. Later a team of horses were hooked up to pull these stumps out, and the pieces would get piled together, a very slow process, so generally the farmer would start with a small area that only had bush growing on it. Often there were larger trees growing around the edge of the clearing that would be removed, thus increasing the size that was soon to be plowed up using a breaking plow. Dad made a root harrow using large logs fastened together in an A shape. A hole was drilled every foot or so. Into these holes, a larger piece of square steel was pounded with six to eight inches protruding out the bottom. The new machine, pulled by four horses, would snare the roots, helping to level the ground. The root harrow was flipped over and dragged over the plowed-up dirt, leaving it level. Next stage was the seeding operation. Since there were no seed drills back then, the seeds had to be broadcast by hand. This was done by carrying a small sack of seeds, hung over one shoulder. The farmer would grab a hand full of grain and throwing it outward in a pattern, causing it surprisingly, to be very evenly spread. Dad was very happy to see his first crop green, growing and looking very attractive. Autumn was the time to harvest. And again, with no machinery, he used to cut the grain with a grass scythe. This system of cutting grass or grain is unique and requires a lot of practice and patience. A person would hold the scythe high over the right shoulder, and with a swift sweeping downward motion, the grain was cut close to the ground and left in a small windrow to dry. (These grass-cutting scythes are still available on eBay.) This was later gathered and hauled home for feed during the winter.

Before the grain binder, hay and grain were cut with a hay mower and left to dry. Next stage was raking them together with a dump rake into windrows. These were later picked up in a hay rack that was eight feet wide, fourteen feet long, and five feet high and pulled by two workhorses, then taken home and piled in small stacks so the horses would have feed for the winter.

The dump rake is commonly found decorating rural lawns these days. Just behind the wheels, there is a set of curved teeth, made of spring steel, that reach to the ground. As the rake moves along, it gathers hay with these tines. When it is full (or at a desired interval), the driver presses a lever with his/her foot, allowing the teeth to come up, away from the ground, releasing the hay into a pile without stopping the horses. We were glad to have this piece of machinery in working condition in our collection, we no longer use it regularly.

As time progressed, new machines and techniques became available. First there was a seed drill pulled by four horses. When the crop was grown, the mower was exchanged for a grain binder which was also pulled by four horses.

Grain binders were first made in the late 1880s in different sizes. I have seen them as only seven feet wide, but some were ten feet wide. The binder was powered by what was called a bull wheel which powered the rest of the binder with a drive chain from a sprocket on the side of the bull wheel, then to the main drive chain that powered all the binder’s cutting and tying parts. If the crop was exceptionally thick and tall, the farmer would take a smaller swath by cutting only half the width of the binder. Another factor was the size of the horses. A 1,400- to 1,600-pound horse could walk faster and was easy to feed, but often four of the smaller workhorses would take the place of three heavier horses.

The threshing machine was used to separate the kernels of grain from the chaff and the straw. It came in different sizes: common size being twenty-one inches that required five teams of horses, pulling a hay rack and gathering up the bundles. A larger twenty-eight-inch concave one required ten teams of horses with ten drivers that would gather up the bundles and put them through the threshing machine. Generally, there were two field pitchers to assist a teamster in loading the hay rack. Each one took about 350 bundles, and it was expected to bring in ten loads each day. There were also several spike pitchers that would help unloading the bundles into the threshing machine. This harvest would take four to six weeks, and you can bet there was no excess fat on any of the workers at the end of the season!

Time passed. Dad had purchased some land from Uncle Mike. It was four miles to school, and that was a long way for very young children to travel to school especially during the cold winter, sometimes 40 or 50 below. Because of this, he purchased another 160-acre homestead from John Campbell, which reduced our traveling distance to school by two miles.

In the mid 1940s, Dad hired Al Osbourne who owned a large caterpillar tractor with a V-shaped brush cutter attached to the front it. The shape of its blade slid nicely along on top of the ground, cutting the trees off flat with the ground. When the cutter was removed from the caterpillar, and a brush piler was attached, all the trees and brush were pushed into long windrows. Later this was burnt and then re-piled. Next came the hard work and involvement of many animals; a heavy breaking plow was hooked up behind the eight to ten horses. The number of horses used depended on how many stumps there were. The horse hookup was four or five abreast. Another four or five horses were hooked up in front of them. This was a lot of pulling power, but even so, a very large stump could stop all eight or ten horses. The driver had an axe tied on the plow and would chop roots until the horses were able to plow through the stump.

When the total value of the improvements on the homestead was equal to $10 per acre, the government granted title to the property. This may all seem like a simple operation in today’s day, but it was a totally different world at that time. The log house Dad built was made of poplar logs that were hewed on four sides with a broad axe and dovetailed in the comers. Dovetailing logs was always the better method used when building with logs, as water would drain out of the dovetailed corners, whereas a saddle-type corner would not drain when it rained, causing the corners eventually to rot. The entire house was built without nails; the exception being the shingle nails in the wood-shingle roofing. The gable ends were made of smaller logs with holes drilled in them and wood pegs pounded in to keep them stable and straight. The rafters were hand-hewed planks about three inches thick and 6 inches wide.

This was an extremely intensive hand labor. On a good day, there would be two logs hewed and the corners dovetailed. The planks were much harder to hew as it was difficult to keep them stable during this process. There were no pine trees in the area and very few spruce trees. Poplar logs were plentiful, but they are not straight grained like a pine and with many more limbs and knots. The log house had two bedrooms, a living room, and a combined dining room and kitchen at the front. Before the house was started, a cellar had to be dug by hand with a spade shovel. This was generally three to four feet smaller than the perimeter of the house. The inside of the cellar had to be lined with logs to prevent the dirt from caving in as it dried out.

With the final structure completed, next came the job of furnishing the house. The table, which lasted for many years, was made from smaller hewed logs with four tapered legs. At that time, cupboards were made of planks, but later they were made of apple boxes. Apples used to be bought in a wooden box about 12 wide x 12 high and 2’ long. These boxes were laid on their side and covered with a curtain hung over the front of them. Likewise, beds were made of wood with a straw mattress covered in canvass and then the sheets. The interior doors were just a curtain hung over the entrance to the bedrooms, but the exterior door was made of lumber and later replaced with a regular factory-made door.

Well things must have been looking quite cozy, but what about a stove to cook on? A person certainly could not make that out of wood! There were more neighbors around and a small community center was started, later known as North Pine. This would-be village was four miles from our new house, but there were no stores of any nature close by. As a result, Dad walked to the town of Fort St. John, seventeen miles away, and purchased a small four-lid cast-iron woodstove. This must have weighed at least 100 pounds. The stove was carried by Dad and his friend on their backs, all the way from the city, the short cut was only a walking trail through the bush to the new house. They must have had many rest stops along the way. The next day he went back to get the stove pipes, a round trip totalled thirty-four miles, to have this precious stove.

Another scene that comes to mind was that of the pioneer spirit common in those days: people banding together helping each other in friendship and trust. Most homes were made of logs and heated with an air-tight heater or a wood burner of some nature. The cooking was done on a wood-burning stove. As a result, a large pile of wood blocks had to be stockpiled. I remember my parents going out into the