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Abrams Gary William David 1 A HISTORY OF PRINCE ALBERI', SASKATCHEWAN TO 1914 A thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History University of 'Saskatchewan April, 1965 by Gary William David Abrams Saskatoon, Saskatchewan The University of Saskatchewan claims copyright in conjunction with the author. Use shall not be made of the material contained herein without proper acknowledgment. PREFACE This history had its origin in the winter of 1962, when the City of Prince Albert approached Dr. Hilda Neatby, Head of the History Department at the University of Saskatch­ ewan. The work was undertaken in the fall of 1962 as a city centennial project and a thesis in history. The city of Prince Albert provided a scholarship. The writer was also the recipient of a scholarship given by the University of Saskatchewan to encourage advanced study in the humanities and social sciences. For a person who had previously paid but one short visit to Prince Albert, the project was a journey into the unknown. Nevertheless, the history of that city was soon found to hold a peculiar fascination. As many visitors to Prince Albert have suspected, the story is essentially a tragedy. It was not mere fancy that led one citizen to predict, in 1883, that Prince Albert might outstrip even Winnipeg in size. The belief in a grand future was perhaps the most persistent theme in the early history of Prince Albert. It was, indeed, a town that seemed to possess every natural advantage, and a vigorous, intelligent people capable of turning nature's gifts into the ingredients of civic greatness. Instead, Prince Albert's day of glory was brief. The diversion of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the southern Prairies, and the quick relapse into the world­ wide depression which characterized the last quarter of the nineteenth century, turned a bustling centre of civilization into an economic and cultural backwater. The catastrophe of 1883 was not, unfortunately, the last which Prince Albert had to endure. Near the turn of the century began the development which, in barely a decade, converted the half-empty West into a vast agricultural empire. Here, too, because of its position on the fringe of the wheat belt, Prince Albert fared poorly in relation to other towns. In these years, also, the uncertainty of a future based upon the resources of the Northland first became evident. In 1911, driven by a growing awareness of its inferior position, the city embarked on a project which promised to lead it towards a long-sought greatness. The building of a power dam at La Colle Falls is, in itself, a subject of rare interest. It ended, through causes not wholly within the capacity of the citizens to foresee, in one of the greatest financial disasters ever to befall a Western city. The three hectic years from 1910 to 1913 were also a time in which every city of the West strove for urban distinction, if not opulence. In this field, Prince Albert did not fail to keep pace. The city spent extravagantly on services which, even fifty years later, have not all been put to use. The thesis ends on a note of regret and foreboding, as Prince Albert began the long descent towards financial collapse. The city's struggle to bear the massive burden of debt thus incurred forms a principal theme in the second portion of the history. Interwoven with the theme of Prince Albert's search for greatness is the history of the civic government. Here is described the long evolution from the simple, though effective, institutions of the frontier town to the sophisticated administration of 1913. It is rendered, hopefully, with some appreciation of the difficulties faced by those persons whose task it is to govern a community. CONTENTS Acknowledgement . lit • • iI .. • .. ... lit • • • • lit .. i I. A Mission in the Wilderness, 1866-1874 . 1 II. Fastest-Growing Settlement in the North- West, 1874-1881 . 26 III. "The Great City and Railway Centre of the North-West," 1881-1883 ...•.. 54 IV. Roughest Town in the North-West, 1883 75 V. Loyalty in Adversity, 1884 ... 94 VI. The Rebellion and its Aftermath, 1885 116 VII. A Railway at Last, 1886-1890 . 134 VIII. Prosperity Deferred� 1891-1896 160 IX. Discarding the Old Ways, 1897-1901 . 177 x. The Hard Hand of Destiny, 1902-1906 202 XI. Slipping Behind, 1906-1910 . • .. • II oM • " • III 228 XII. The White Coal City, 1910-1913 • • • • • II • • 283 XIII. Disaster Unimagined, 1913-1914 .. .. • • lit III III • 330 . .. 354 Bibliography . • . CHAPTER ONE A MISSION IN THE WILDERNESS, 1866-1874 Until 1862, the future site of Prince Albert was no more than an Indian camp ground. The fur traders remained in the vicinity but a few years, and left only the ruins of three posts on the north bank of the North Saskatchewan. The first of these, Sturgeon Fort, was built by Peter Pond in 1776, one-quarter of a mile below the present mouth of the Sturgeon.l Situated where the plains dipped down to the river, it was intended to be a "Fort des Prairies," a pro- visioning post for brigades. But the trade moved steadily westward. Sturgeon Fort was abandoned in 1780 and burned down by Indians. Rebuilt the same year on a site facing the present Betts Island, it was used once more for only a short time.2 In 1793, a third attempt to establish a post at the Sturgeon was defeated by the severe comp�tion which its independent founder, David Grant, suffered from the Hudson's Bay and North-West companies.3 No remains have been found of a series of posts near the Sturgeon built between 1789 1. A.S. Morton, A History of the Canadian West to 1870-71 (London, n.d.), p.318; O.C. Furniss, "Some Notes on Newly-Discovered Fur Posts on the Saskatchewan River," Canadian Historical Review, Vol. XXIV, No.3 (Sept. 1943), p . 269. 2. Morton, op. cit., p.331. 3. Ibid., pp. 461-62. - 2 - and 1805 by Grant, then of the XY Company, and that group's two major rivals.4 The first man to reside where a city now stands was James Isbister, a half-breed trapper and former interpreter for the Hudson's Bay Company.5 On June 3, 1862, with his Indian wife, Isbister began to live on what became River Lot 62 of Prince Albert Settlement, one mile east of the present 6 penitentiary. There, in what was called Isbister's Settle- ment, a daughter was born to him in December, 1863, and duly baptized by the Church of England missionary at Nepowewin {now Fort a la Corne).7 By 1866 Isbister had moved away, and three families from Red River, two half-breed and one Indian, had taken up farming on the site.8 4. Furniss, op. cit., pp. 271-72. The posts of the Hudson's Bay and North-West Companies were at the mouth of the Sturgeon. Grant's post was two miles above it. 5. Office of the Synod of the Diocese of Saskatchewan, Prince Albert, marriage register and baptismal register of the Rev. Henry Budd. 6. E.K. Matheson, "The Church of England among the English Speaking Settlers in the Diocese of Saskatchewan in the Earlier Years of the Diocese," Rev. Canon E.K. Matheson, D.D., Canadian North-West Historical Society Publications, Vol. I, No.3 (Battleford, 1927), p.38. 7. Baptismal register of the Rev. Henry Budd. 8. The Home and Foreign Record of the Canada Presbyterian Church, December, 1866, pp. 46-47. Extracts from the Record for the period from September, 1866, to January, 1867, are in the Archives of Saskatchewan. All other issues cited are in the United Church Archives, Victoria College, Toronto. - 3 - The founder of Prince Albert Settlement, and the man now honoured as father of the city, the Rev. James Nisbet, was a Scot who came to Canada at an early age, graduated from Knox College, Toronto, and served as Presbyterian minister at Oakville, Ontario. He was called west in 1862 to assist an old classmate, the Rev. John Black, at Red River. There Nisbet married Mary McBeath and began to learn Indian languages in preparation for missionary work on the plains.9 In contrast to a gaunt, rather bleak appearance, Nisbet's character was an epitome of the milder Christian virtues. Gentle, courteous, faithful, and persevering, he never embarked on any task without praying long and earnestly, and he found his greatest joy in patient submission to the divine will. His lettem reveal a keen delight in the beauties of nature and a love of humanity which survived many disappoint- ments. Physically hardy, skilled from his youth in carpentry, and possessing some experience in farming, Nisbet was well fitted to be both pioneer and missionary. Only time and experience were to show that he lacked the imagination and drive so necessary for mission work among scattered, mostly indifferent natives, and to reveal a delicacy of spirit which recoiled before the shocks of unfair criticism. 9. E.H. Oliver, "The Presbyterian Church in Saskatchewan, 1866-1881," Transactions and Proceedings of the of Third Vol. XXVIII Society Canada, Series, (1934Ro�al, Section II, pp. 65-66. - 4 - Nisbet's chance came in 1865 when he was recommended by Black for mission work among the Cree Indians on the Saskatchewan. It was to be truly an expedition into the wilderness. As Nisbet explained, the mission site would be at some point at least three days' journey from any other mission or trading post, and so far removed from them that the party must carry at least one year's supplies and "a good deal of money, perhaps more than our [Foreign Mission] Committee can well spare."lO Advice on the location was sought from the leading authorities on the Saskatchewan district: the Hudson's Bay Company officials, the Church of England, and the Wesleyan missionaries.ll By January, 1866, tentative agree­ ment was reached that it IDB in the vicinity of Fort Pitt,12 some 20 miles north of the present Lloydminster.
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