Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look back at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list ...
For more than a century, a piece of prairie near Assiniboia has been home to generations of the Bakkestad family.
Tollef and Bergit Bakkestad homesteaded the land in 1909. Their son Elling and his wife, Jean, later farmed it for about 60 years, raising their four daughters there.
Read more:
- Saskatchewan marks 120 years with lessons from its history
- The surprising Saskatchewan origin of Girl Guide cookies
- Planes, trains and automobiles: The remarkable life of Bill Noble
Today, a memorial bench marks the family’s connection to the land. For a time, the bench was gone.
The family put out a public appeal seeking its return, asking anyone who had seen it to come forward.
Eventually, the bench was returned to the memorial site. For Victoria “Vicky” Stueck, the return was deeply meaningful.
“Pretty amazing,” Stueck said. “Very grateful that it’s there.”
The bench now offers a place to sit and take in the prairie, much as generations of the family have done.
“You can sit there and listen to the birds and the wind,” Stueck said. “It’s a special spot.”
There are few trees in sight. “But that’s prairie.”
(Vicky Stueck/Submitted)
A new life on the prairie
Tollef Bakkestad was born in Norway in 1896. Around 1900, he immigrated to the United States, where he eventually homesteaded near Esmond, N.D., and worked as a blacksmith.
Bergit, who was also from Norway, later immigrated to the United States and homesteaded near her brother. The two met in North Dakota and married in 1903. Their children were Hilda, Carrie, Gunda, Elling and Anne.
Tollef eventually heard about the opportunities available to homesteaders in Canada. Land was becoming more difficult to obtain in the United States, while Canada offered larger parcels.
He and his brother Sven came north and homesteaded in the Assiniboia area. Tollef established his homestead in 1909, and Bergit and the children followed.
The journey north was not simple.
Bergit and the three oldest girls travelled by train to Moose Jaw. Tollef went to meet them, and according to the family story, he rode a bicycle from Assiniboia to Moose Jaw.
From there, the family continued toward the homestead by horse and wagon, bringing a few cows and chickens with them.
There was no town waiting for them. Bergit also could not speak English.
Stueck remembers a story her father, Elling, told about his mother feeling lonely on the homestead. Bergit told Tollef how isolated she felt.
He reassured her that things would be better when the railway came through. Her response captured just how remote their new home felt. “How will they ever find us?”
Life on the homestead
The family’s early years on the prairie were difficult. They lived in a sod house before Tollef arranged for lumber and built a small shack.
The structure had two rooms, with little insulation. It was made from shiplap and covered with tar paper.
It became home for the growing family. Elling was born on the homestead in 1913, followed by his sister Anne in 1918.
Water was another challenge.
The family sometimes collected water from sloughs in the spring, straining it through cheesecloth before using it. Stueck remembers hearing about children suffering from what was called “summer complaint,” which may have been a stomach illness associated with the water.
Her grandmother also remembered the dangers of prairie storms.
During one severe storm, the family story goes, the top of the sod house was blown off and Bergit sheltered the girls beneath a table.
Those stories became part of the family history passed from one generation to the next.
(Vicky Stueck/Submitted)
Growing up on the farm
Elling eventually married Jean, and the couple continued farming the land. Their daughters, Sharon, Carol, Victoria and Patricia, were all raised on the farm.
By the time Stueck was growing up, it was a mixed farming operation. The family raised grain as well as cattle, pigs, chickens and geese.
Horses were no longer central to the farm’s daily work, but they still played an important role in the children’s lives. Stueck and her sisters rode them to school.
The local school was a one-room schoolhouse where students in Grades 1 through 8 learned together with one teacher.
There were never many students. Stueck remembers there being as many as 12 at one time and only one other student in her grade.
She remembers Christmas concerts, Valentine’s skating parties and Halloween parties. She also remembers seeing the school bus heading into town while she was riding her horse to school.
She sometimes thought it would be nice to have a bicycle.
“I never had a bike,” she said. “But I did have the horse to take me to school.”
(Vicky Stueck/Submitted)
The work of farm life
The farm provided much of what the family needed. They milked three cows, primarily for their own use.
Milk was separated into cream and skim milk. The skim milk went to the pigs, while the cream was either made into butter or sold in town.
Stueck remembers a childhood game of teaching the cats to open their mouths so she could squirt milk into them while milking.
The family also butchered its own cattle, pigs and chickens.
Some farm work was more dangerous. Stueck recalls a story about her father becoming caught in an uncovered auger while working in the granary.
Elling was hauling grain and wearing a new pair of GWG coveralls. He knew the auger was dangerous but was caught by the machinery.
The auger began pulling at his clothing as he tried to get himself away.
He called out to his young daughters, who were playing outside, but they misunderstood him and ran away, thinking he was angry with them.
The machinery eventually ripped his coveralls off.
Elling managed to escape the auger, badly shaken and wearing little more than his underwear.
According to the family story, Jean laughed when she saw him. He was lucky to have survived.
Elling also enjoyed hunting and would go after antelope, moose and deer.
(Vicky Stueck/Submitted)
The routines of home
Farm life also meant hard work inside the house.
Stueck remembers stories about her grandmother’s monthly wash days. In winter, snow had to be hauled in and melted to provide enough water.
By the time Stueck was growing up, Jean washed clothes once a week with an old ringer washer. The clothes were hung outside in every season. In winter, they simply froze dry.
The family had routines for the rest of the week, too. Washing was followed by ironing, baking and housecleaning.
It was a different pace of life, one shaped by the work that needed to be done on the farm and in the home.
Leaving the farm
After decades on the farm, Elling and Jean moved into a new house in town around 1984 or 1985.
Jean welcomed the move. She was active in community organizations, while Elling was involved with the Shriners.
But moving to town did not mean Elling stopped caring for the farm. He continued to drive out every day to check on it.
The couple were able to enjoy their home in town for about 20 years.
Jean died in 2005. Elling later spent a short time in a nursing home before his death.
Their daughters eventually spread across Western Canada. Sharon became a teacher. Vicky worked as a teacher and later as a school counsellor. Another sister became a nurse, while the youngest became a laboratory technologist.
Although the sisters built lives in different communities, the farm remained a connection between them.
That connection is now represented by the memorial on the prairie.
The bench honours Tollef and Bergit, who came to the area more than a century ago, and Elling and Jean, who continued farming the land for decades.
When the bench disappeared, the family lost something that represented generations of memories.
When it returned, they got that piece of their history back. Stueck hopes the bench remains at the memorial site and that others will visit it.
The setting is simple. There are no trees nearby, just open prairie. But there is the sound of birds and wind, and there is a story attached to the land.
Stueck hopes other families in the area will share their own stories of homesteading and farm life.
For her family, the story began with Tollef and Bergit Bakkestad leaving Norway, travelling west and settling on the prairie.
Their descendants are still connected to the land more than a century later.
And, for Stueck, the bench gives them a place to remember.
Read more:
