There are countless humbling moments in my life where I realize I may not be as intelligent as I believe. None more so than when I buy something and I look at these pieces to think, “is this alien technology?” Putting a chair together is a chore, I meticulously read the instructions over and over and properly separate my items to ensure I don’t mix anything up.
Luckily now-a-days my lovely partner Hope will typically burden putting these things together. This may seem like a random tangent, but it was brought up as I was reading through more history of this beautiful border city. I haven’t even scratched the surface yet, oh the detailed and interesting history that Lloydminster has left behind.
I talked about the early days of Lloydminster and how the Barr Colonists arrived from the British Empire, and I glanced over a fact I found very interesting. These individuals that came here had no idea how to farm.
I was reading a history book recently and I found an excerpt that made me think about my own plight of not understanding how to put stuff together or do tasks. In Saskatoon, according to the Saskatoon Phoenix, 500 new wagons, 800 ploughs, 150 mowers, 51 binders and 1,000 horses had been sold, an unprecedented burst of business. Many colonists had no experience as farmers or how to use the items they purchased, except maybe the horses.
This got me thinking, imagine landing in foreign land with a promise of adventure and this beautiful new city, to be tasked with ploughing a large field, building your house and providing for yourself from the land. I don’t know about you, but I would be screwed. I would probably journal away my sorrows before I’m finally swallowed by the harsh Canadian winter. Or I would join the rest of the people that also didn’t get their houses built in time or simply didn’t know how to, in a communal tent.
These days you can hire someone to do anything but back in those days you had to just – figure it out.
Read more: Opinion: History in the making
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