by PAUL RAYNER

Two vanloads of locals took the opportunity to look at some well known and some hidden heritage in the area.

On September 22, the Turtle Mountain-Souris Plains Heritage Association hosted a tour of the Whitewater-Turtle Mountain area. The all-day event included more than a dozen areas, either stops or drive by’s, including trips as far south and west as Lake Metigoshe. TM-SPHA chair David M. Neufeld said the purpose of the tour was to acquaint locals with some of their own history.

“We all studied European history, American history and Canadian history in general in school,” Neufeld explained, “but our group got together because we were concerned that our local history was not known or protected. We thought it would be logical to put together a map of places we knew of, sort of lesser-known places, going from Hartney to Wakopa. We went from there.”

He said they held an earlier tour in June taking in the Deloraine – Waskada area. The second tour was then planned.

“We had no trouble filling two vans. We have people here from as far away as Hartney.”

The tour began at 9 a.m., spending the morning moving south and west. With the committee’s summer student, Teyana Neufeld, taking on the role of tour guide, as well as organizer and researcher, they moved south and west of Boissevain. First on the itinerary was a look at the local site of the old Mandan trail, used and named after the First Nations group that used the path for trade, which stretched from the Mandan’s home territory in the Missouri River area to north of old Fort Brandon. Used by La Verendrye to visit the Mandan in 1738, it is felt to pre-date the fur trading area.

The tour then moved to the old school site at Strathallen, a district first established in 1891 and later kept open due to the influx of Mennonite immigrants. The second school, built in 1944, is still on the site, although shut down in 1966. The vans moved to the site of the old Whitewater Village by the lake, which once included such amenities as a butcher and five grain elevators, before visiting another old school site, Marsden, near the Turtle Mountain Provincial Park.

The morning also moved into the Lake Metigoshe area. The McCharles cabin was built around 1941 north of Lake Dromore, once the home of Roy and Maggie McCharles and the 14 children. They also visited Billy’s Point on Lake Dromore, once the home of Billy Gosselin, at one time the only Metis in the area to play the fiddle. The present day Metis are looking to have the area designated a heritage site.

After lunch at the Turtle Mountain Metis Centre and a trip to the Ducharme property, about eight miles southwest of Boissevain, the home of a Metis family and now owned by the RM of Morton. The tour then crossed Highway #10 for its eastern portion, starting with Skull Swamp.

On different spots along the tour, committee members were aided by the people whose land was hosting the attraction. Skull Swamp is located on land owned by Myna Cryderman. She explained that the swamp contains hot springs, and contains the very beginning of the Pembina River. The area was once used by First Nations people to stampede bison during hunts. Cryderman said experts feel they might have processed the bison on a nearby hill. Named for the many bison skulls found in the waters, a bone was found while the tour was being conducted and Cryderman showed a skull she had collected earlier.

The tour moved to the Wakopa area, including a stop at the old Wakopa/Henderson family cemetery on land now owned by Clara Klassen. There were two Wakopa’s – the first established in 1876 with a store set up by Bernerd B. LaRiviere. The first one faded when the railway went through Killarney, but a few old buildings moved a mile north where the CN and Great Northern came together in 1905. The cemetery, which has a separate component for the Henderson family, gained its first tenant, James Henderson, in 1895.

While in the area, drive-bys took a look at not only the Wakopa sites but also the old Dunseith trail, heavily used by rum runners in the old Prohibition days.

The last stop of the tour was in the Ninga area, where they visited an accurate re-creation of a legendary local railroad. Bill Kentner spent five years building his model Great Northern Railway (longer, he joked, than the two years it took to build the actual railroad in the early 20th century), as well as many years researching. Using all four seasons, the model, housed in an old trailer on the farm, follows through the little towns like Bannerman, Bunclody (including the famous bridge) and Fairburn. It includes the McCabe elevators stationed along the line, and the trailer is also filled with various photographs of the line’s history.

Built by Canadian Jim Hill, the Brandon, Saskatchewan & Hudson’s Bay Railway, as it was designated ran from St. John’s, North Dakota to Brandon, and was built from 1905 to 1907. Although popular with farmers as another destination for their grain, it began losing money by the Great Depression, harmed more by losing the mail contract. It closed in 1936, and the rails were torn up the next year, although many local areas where the rail line ran can still be investigated.

With the completion of the tour, Neufeld said there might be more. For example, he has already had interest from Turtle Mountain School Division to possibly have students take one to see their local history. As well, the massive amount of research done by Teyana Neufeld, which became a tour booklet with information about all of the stops and drive-by’s on the itinerary and more, could see further future use.

“Once the communities see what we’re doing,” Neufeld explained, “to help preserve the heritage and make people interested in it, they are keen to help us. Once it gets known, we can do field trips. We can show the booklet, and maps could follow.”

There were evaluation sheets given out to participants on the tour. The TM-SPHA wants to see what comments come in and plan for the future.

“We have only seen bits of the story here so far, and there is a lot more. Now we will assess what we have done. We have done two tours now, with the second more organized. We will see how popular it was and go from there.”