WORK AND PLAY IN THE FAR WEST.
Sra,—Your readers may possibly feel some interest in this little glimpse of settlers' life in the Far West of Canada. I
should say that the " we " of the letter are two lads aged respectively twenty and eighteen, that they went out in the spring of 1886, and after spending about a year with a farmer in Ontario, and another year in " working about " on either side of the Canadian Rockies, took up land (160 acres apiece) under the provisions of the Homestead Act, and pre-empted
as much more. They have built their house, fenced in a good bit of pasture for their horses, of which they have nine, all told, and planted some corn, potatoes, &c., for home use.—I
" We have started putting up our own hay (25 or 30 tons), and everything is going splendidly. We are having grand weather [date of letter, July 22nd] ; no rain at all till last night, when there was a short storm which could do us no harm, as we had stacked all the hay that was raked up. We have ten tons in the stack, and about as much more lying on the ground cut. To-morrow morning I shall hope to cut enough to finish it. After that, I have 25 tons to cut and rake for a neighbour (at 75c. per ton). This will be three days' work. Then we start on a contract we have got for the Ranche, at 82.621 per ton. This we expect will keep us going till the middle of September. After that we come back to our own place, and put up stables, and fix np generally for the winter, beside training Queenie ' for the October races. Since she has been broken in, she has shown a good deal of speed, and two or three fellows have been after her. One man offered me a big mare and a horse for her. We hope she will take the half-mile or three-quarters mile. We expect to clear over $300 on the 200 tons contract. If we do, we shall be able to put in the whole time till next haying on our own place.
" Yesterday, as I was running the mower, driving Vi' and ' Mab," Mob's' colt kept getting in the way, and had one or two near shaves of getting her feet cut off in the knives. So I stopped the machine, and we tried to catch her. As we had no long rope to lasso her in the open, we ran her into the corral, and roped her there. Though only ten weeks old, she fought furiously. I did not think she was strong enough to do any harm, and so was slightly careless how I handled her. She suddenly got up on her hind legs, and hit me on the nose with one of her forefeet, making it bleed and knocking me down. After that I was more careful. Mab ' and ' Dolly' are now broken, and are wonderfully gentle.
" A few days ago we went fishing for two evenings, and caught seventy-four trout, running from half-a-pound to two pounds and a half. The whole outfit weighed seventy-seven pounds. Two rods were going one day and one the next. The baits we used were little gilt minnows and salmon-flies ; also spoon bait of the size used for black bass. For about an hour the first evening, they would get on just as fast as you could throw the minnow in, haul the fish in, and unhook him. One big one got away from D— with a spoon, and another with a minnow, in each case breaking the gimp.
"There is an awful quantity of mosquitoes here now. In the early morning or evening, we cannot do any work without a smoke to work by; and we have to set smudges (smokes) going for the horses.
" On Friday, I came across a piece of ground where one could make a tennis-lawn very easily. It was quite level and very fairly smooth."
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