My father was born on 19th September 1914, in Viking, a
small prairie town in eastern Alberta. A month ago I drove there from
Squamish for the centenary with one of sisters, Sally, and my youngest son,
James. Anniversaries often seem rather abstract and contrived to me, but this one made a great excuse for a road trip. We took
six days to complete a big loop, passing Helmcken Falls, Mt Robson, Jasper and
the Miette Hot Springs on the outward journey and Canmore, Lake Louise, Revelstoke and the Okanagan on the return.
Our 2900km round trip - like driving Paris to Moscow
Neither Sally nor I had been to Viking before. Our main motivation for the trip was curiosity about the town and its role in our family's history. Our grandfather, William, moved there from London in 1909, the year the town was established.
Irene, who had relocated to Britain with her sons during the war, moved back to Viking in 1919. William's brother, Reggie, and his wife, accompanied her, and ended up settling in the town for almost two decades. Before the war Reggie had secured a job with a Hong Kong bank, which he had to give up in favour of this alternative, and very different, path. Sadly he died of tuberculosis in 1937. Not in Viking but in Victoria, as conventional medical opinion at the time was that the moister warmer coastal climate was better for lung problems (these days an arid climate would be preferred). However he was succeeded by two sons, and his descendants are now quite numerous across Canada, (with a statistically-implausibly concentration in Barrie, Ontario - click on the image below for a visualisation!).
Irene returned to Britain permanently in 1923, when my father was nine. Throughout his life he retained memories of his Alberta farm years and maintained close contact with his Canadian cousins.
In the late 1920s Reggie arranged the sale of William and Irene's farm to a Scandinavian couple. Astonishingly two of their grandchildren, now in their 60s, still live in Viking. One of them, Bryan, agreed to meet us; a very generous and trusting decision, given that we only managed to contact him a couple of days before we arrived. His local knowledge and recall of his ancestors' experiences really transformed our visit from random tourism to something more focused.
The first place Bryan and his wife took us was the site of our grandparents' old homestead. Though now just a wheat field, the remnants of the house were not removed until the 1980s.
We also discussed at length what had drawn our ancestors to a remote prairie town from Europe? Bryan had a single answer: free land. The Canadian Northern Railway had laid track as far west as Edmonton in 1905 and needed passengers and freight to justify its investment. It (and other railroad firms) advertised heavily in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, selling the dream of fertile empty territory waiting to be claimed. Viking was one of the stops on that new line. The standard measure for land in Alberta in that period was a "quarter": 160 acres. Bryan thought it was likely William would have stepped off the train and "staked" several quarters, so perhaps ending up with six hundred acres or more. We also know that William's father, George, had died young and that he and his brothers were likely to have been under financial pressure. It makes sense that becoming a large landowner, even by then British standards, had a strong appeal.
A strange aspect of this story is that there was a third brother, Percy, who also lived in Viking. Percy was mentally-handicapped in some way, though apparently able to work and look after himself to some extent. We think that he may also have travelled out to Canada in 1909 and probably - helped by William? - staked his own land claim. He remained in Viking until his death in 1962, aged 74. He never married nor had children. We searched the graveyard for his name but with no success. Probably there was no-one to buy him a headstone. It is odd to think that someone could live a reasonably long life leaving so little trace - a massive contrast to our modern hyper-documented InstaFaceTwit world.
The final part of the puzzle for us was what had driven our grandmother to return to Britain in 1923? Sally knew Irene quite well. She was a bohemian woman who never remarried and devoted her life to art. Looking at Viking now - a small and very dull agricultural town - and considering how it might have been in the 1920s - much the same? - it seems very unlikely that she would have fitted in there. The railway line had crossed the Rockies by then. I wonder whether she ever considered moving west to the coast? It is easy to imagine that she could have made a life in Vancouver. Anyway, she did not. My father finished his schooling in Britain then got swept up in another world war (India then Burma then Portsmouth, where he met our mother). He never subsequently lived overseas. But through a quirk of immigration law he is not regarded as having revoked his Canadian nationality when I was born, so, taking the story full circle: I was able to move here already a citizen.
William outside the Viking homestead
He persuaded our grandmother, Irene, also from southern England, to join him. They had two sons in quick succession whilst William established a law business and a farm. We still have a letter from Irene back to her mother in Britain, which suggests that she and William were very happy.
Unfortunately world events intervened in 1914 and William considered it his duty to return to Britain. He served for almost the whole course of World War 1, receiving a Military Cross for bravery in 1917, but was killed in September 1918 by an artillery shell, just a couple of months before fighting ended. He is buried in Tincourt Cemetery, in the Somme region of northern France.
Irene, who had relocated to Britain with her sons during the war, moved back to Viking in 1919. William's brother, Reggie, and his wife, accompanied her, and ended up settling in the town for almost two decades. Before the war Reggie had secured a job with a Hong Kong bank, which he had to give up in favour of this alternative, and very different, path. Sadly he died of tuberculosis in 1937. Not in Viking but in Victoria, as conventional medical opinion at the time was that the moister warmer coastal climate was better for lung problems (these days an arid climate would be preferred). However he was succeeded by two sons, and his descendants are now quite numerous across Canada, (with a statistically-implausibly concentration in Barrie, Ontario - click on the image below for a visualisation!).
Irene returned to Britain permanently in 1923, when my father was nine. Throughout his life he retained memories of his Alberta farm years and maintained close contact with his Canadian cousins.
In the late 1920s Reggie arranged the sale of William and Irene's farm to a Scandinavian couple. Astonishingly two of their grandchildren, now in their 60s, still live in Viking. One of them, Bryan, agreed to meet us; a very generous and trusting decision, given that we only managed to contact him a couple of days before we arrived. His local knowledge and recall of his ancestors' experiences really transformed our visit from random tourism to something more focused.
The first place Bryan and his wife took us was the site of our grandparents' old homestead. Though now just a wheat field, the remnants of the house were not removed until the 1980s.
Alberta is flat! James, Sally and I at the homestead site
He also obtained access to the town museum, which is normally locked out of season. There we found a copy of the local newspaper from October 1914, two weeks after my father's birth. The juxtaposition of an advertisement for William's law business and the newspaper's "Call For More Men" is poignant.
Viking News from October 1914
We also discussed at length what had drawn our ancestors to a remote prairie town from Europe? Bryan had a single answer: free land. The Canadian Northern Railway had laid track as far west as Edmonton in 1905 and needed passengers and freight to justify its investment. It (and other railroad firms) advertised heavily in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, selling the dream of fertile empty territory waiting to be claimed. Viking was one of the stops on that new line. The standard measure for land in Alberta in that period was a "quarter": 160 acres. Bryan thought it was likely William would have stepped off the train and "staked" several quarters, so perhaps ending up with six hundred acres or more. We also know that William's father, George, had died young and that he and his brothers were likely to have been under financial pressure. It makes sense that becoming a large landowner, even by then British standards, had a strong appeal.
the UK Daily Mail promoting western Canadian land in 1904
The final part of the puzzle for us was what had driven our grandmother to return to Britain in 1923? Sally knew Irene quite well. She was a bohemian woman who never remarried and devoted her life to art. Looking at Viking now - a small and very dull agricultural town - and considering how it might have been in the 1920s - much the same? - it seems very unlikely that she would have fitted in there. The railway line had crossed the Rockies by then. I wonder whether she ever considered moving west to the coast? It is easy to imagine that she could have made a life in Vancouver. Anyway, she did not. My father finished his schooling in Britain then got swept up in another world war (India then Burma then Portsmouth, where he met our mother). He never subsequently lived overseas. But through a quirk of immigration law he is not regarded as having revoked his Canadian nationality when I was born, so, taking the story full circle: I was able to move here already a citizen.
