| Notes |
- Not sure if this belongs to this James Johnston - from Ancestry. This brief history was written by James Johnston's grandson, J. A. Johnston.
JAMES JOHNSON, in 1879 accepted a government appointment as a farm instructor at Crow Stand, Fort Pelly, in the North West Territory (Saskatchewan). His wife remained at their home in Billings Bridge, Ontario with the younger children and James, accompanied by his two sons, Robert and Adam and daughter Margaret, travelled by rail south of the Great Lakes to St. Paul. There they obtained a wagon, three Red River carts, horses and oxen as well as supplies, and headed north on the Pembina Trail to Winnipeg. There, restocking their supplies with enough salt pork and staples for the trip, they set out once more, northwestward, via the Dawson Trail, eventually intercepting the Pelly Trail and following it northward. Swollen streams hampered their travel - just crossing the Minnedosa River had taken a full day - a raft had to be constructed using the four wheels of the wagon to ferry the supplies across the swirling water. They arrived at Crow Stand thirty-two days later after existing almost entirely on a diet of salt pork and flapjacks. On finally reaching their destination, they constructed a small shack of logs with a pole roof packed with long prairie grass to keep out the rain. Their winter's supply of food was brought in a month after their arrival: 52 sacks of flour, 13 barrels of pork, 3 chests of tea, 3 barrels of granulated sugar, 100 pounds of baking powder, 4 barrels of dried apples, bags of raisins and currants, and boxes of rice and dried vegetables.
There were over two thousand Crees in the Crow Stand vicinity, including three chiefs; "Caty" representing the Presbyterians, "Keys" the Church of England and "Keetchato" the Roman Catholics. The one schoolteacher was "Cub" MacKay. Teaching the Natives to farm, however, was somewhat a dismal success; believing their job was to do the hunting, most of the men refused to do farm labour. The women were left to do the farming as well as their traditional tasks; they threshed grain with flails and cleaned turnips and other vegetables for stews - to which sometimes even entails and rawhide were added. Buffalo were rapidly disappearing, food was a constant concern and even young boys, six to ten years of age were expected to help provide. They'd whittle dozens of willow branches to a sharp point, plant them firmly in the ground with the point slanted in the direction from which the rabbit would approach; then run into the bush barking like a dog, chasing the rabbits along the runs. As many as a dozen rabbits were sometimes pierced and killed in one drive.
Four years after their arrival, James Johnson's teaching assignment came to an end. He and his two sons and daughter packed up their meager belongings, said farewell to their new friends, and left Crow Stand. They retraced their steps southward along the Pelly Trail to the point where it crossed the Boggy Creek, not far from where the creek emptied into the Assiniboine River. Here they stopped, looked around, liked what they saw and decided it was the perfect spot in which to settle and build a home. They set up a camp and James registered for homestead SW 28-26-29 (please note that at the National Archives, Land Records reflect that his name was spelled with a "t": Johnston). Felling logs to build a more permanent home before winter arrived, the three men hitched horses to the logs and pulled and floated them home, some from as far away as the Duck and Riding mountains. Beams and flooring for their house were cut using a sawpit. Logs were laid on a frame above the pit and, with one man above and another below; a saw was pulled up and down on a carefully marked chalk line and thus planks were made. Eventually, the log home was completed and Mrs. Johnson and the younger children arrived from Ontario. By this time the CPR had reached Moosomin; here they disembarked and were transported to their new home in a wagon. Pioneers leaving the end-of-the-line to seek homesteads were always welcomed at the Johnstons. Their home soon became known as a place where overnight accommodation and meals were available. It was referred to as the "Boggy Creek Stopping House".
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Singing Our Family Song
1859 - 1928 (69 years)
