Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-05-19
CANADIAN LANDS.
Parties Who Have Been Up There
From wausau Return Disgusted.-
What They Say About the
Country.

For a number of years the Canadian
government has been doing persistent
advertising all over the United States
and Europe, in the effort to settle their
great northwestern territory The
| Canadian railroads have aided them in
the way of greatly reduced railroad
rates, and great immigration has
been flowing to this part OF Slng Ed
wards domain. This wave OF people
is at its crest this spring and therefore
any information as to this new Eldorado
is of general interest.
Two weeks ago party of Marathon
county farmers, nearly all from the
town of Easton, returned from pros
pecting trip in Alberta A representa-
tive of the PILOT had long visit last
week with Adolf 2aschke, one of the
party; he is Gel man farmer raised in
town of Easton, close and practical
observer, and in addition, he took pen
ell notes from time to time of things he
saw. We will give his story in nara
tive style, viz We left Wausau the
latter part of April, seven of us, accom-
panied by August Braatz, of this city,
an employee of the Canadian govern
mcnt Office on Third street We went
to Edmonton, Alberta, which is about
942 miles west of Wausau, 5S2 miles
north Here we hired team, paying
$1,000 apiece, and drove west, as miles,
where we were shown land subject to
homestead entry. Our journey was
made over almost impossible roads;
the soil is black, sticky muck and the
wheels go IN to the hubs and come out
solid mass, you can't see spoke, we
got stuck in some mud holes and had
TO get out and push the wagon ahead
with sticks. The country is free from
stone and we talked with settlers who
tell of raising fine crops, of wheat and
oats. The winter wheat is up two
inches now. The country is very
rough and there are lots of lakes or
ponds of water, covering, in some
cases, 25 acres. These ponds dry up
later in the summer.
They must have some great hail
storms there at Stoney PLAIN, west of
Edmonton, a German settler, showed
us his field of oats which was destroyed
by hail last year. The straw was beat
en- down so it was never harvested, the
stones were so big that hors, and all
kinds of stock were killed by them.
The country where we were is a good
deal of it timber land, they call it
brush, the largest trees are kind of
poplar, about foot through. A home
steader does not own the timber on the
land he homesteads; a government
agent marks off strip from which he
can cut building timber, this he is al
lowed to G. ;. Then other settlers
who have no mber of their own, buy
permits from the government and are
allowed to cut from the homesteaders
land 1901 lineal feet of building timber
400 roof poles, 200 fence rails and 30
cords of dry wood. As fast as the tim
Der is removed in this way, the settler
is allowed to clear. Fifteen acres of
land was the largest clearing | saw.
The ground is covered with alkali and
you can't drink well water They sell
six barrels of creek water for 81 90.
The settlers told us the land north of
Edmonton was better than what we
saw, Homesteaders are locating l25
miles away from the railroad.
We had lots of funny experiences
Jim Kemp and | tried to get some
breakfast at one town we stopped at,
it was early and they wanted IS cents
for 3 eggs and cup of coffee They
wouldn't even let us swear about it.;
said we wern't In the states. Then we
wanted some beer and the saloon keep
er said we couldn't get it until after 8
O'Clock. 1t only lacked i've minutes
but we had to wait. 1t 8 we got our
beer, just "schnitZ," but it costs Is
cents glass. For six glasses he gave
me 10 cents change out of 81 90, and
said he would be easy on me because /
was from the states
We all had return tickets except Bur-
gOine, ours cost us about SS OO for the
return from Edmonton to the boundary,
but it cost him about $1,000. None Of
US took any land To go from Mara
thon county to Canada, is like going
out of nice feather bed to sleep in a
horse blanket.