My great-grandparents, Emil and Julia Erickson, homesteaded on the NW ¼ of section 19, township 22, range 22, west of the 3rd meridian, and if I have a spiritual home on this earth, that is its physical address. The explorer John Palliser traversed this country while leading the British North American Exploring Expedition in the late 1850s and concluded that the land was too arid for farming. Generations of farmers have proven him wrong, but ghost towns and abandoned farms show that the farmer’s battle with nature is always a close affair. Today, if I were to tell someone how to find that address I would tell them to turn north off Saskatchewan Highway 32 at the first road west of the old white grain elevator that endures at the margin of what was once the vibrant pioneer village of Portreeve. Once turned, I would say go north for exactly four and a half miles, and then turn left. Half a mile west, at the top of a small rise, is a farm yard. That is where Emil and Julia and the first two of their five children would settle. One of those two children was my grandfather, Leslie Erickson.
My grandfather’s older sister, Myrtle, was ten years old in the summer of 1910 when they journeyed from Evansville, Minnesota to their new home in southwest Saskatchewan. In writing of the homesteading history of the Erickson’s, my great aunt Myrtle describes hardship and crop failures from 1910 to 1913, but a change of fortune in 1914. The war years brought demand for North American wheat, and Mother Nature obliged, blessing the dry prairies with enough moisture to produce luxurious, bountiful crops. In 1915, the Dominion Department of Agriculture wrote, “If the Garden of Eden looked as enticing as did Saskatchewan this past summer, it is difficult to understand why the Garden of Eden was forsaken so soon.”
The high yields and high prices lent the Erickson’s a sense of accomplishment and security to such an extent that Myrtle wrote that “the harvest of 1914 was a turning point, a time when we felt our pioneering days were over, and we felt secure in our home and our vocation.” To signify their change in status, Emil and Julia took the proceeds from their hard work and good luck and invested in a two-story house, which was a major upgrade from the small wooden shack they had been living in, and a huge wooden barn. Memories vary as to which was built first, the house or the barn, but both were started and completed in the time frame between 1915 and 1917.
The barn became a landmark. In my childhood years in the 60’s and 70’s, on any approach to the Erickson farm from the south, east, or north, the giant, brown, weathered barn was what you saw first. Its most distinguishing feature was a prominent sag in the roofline caused by the weight of a hay sling that was used regularly during its early decades. The top of it looked like a giant saddle. In the mid 1970’s, after sixty years, with animal husbandry long since replaced by tractor maintenance, my uncles dismantled the barn to make room for modern, metal granaries. And though the old, swaybacked giant may have looked feeble and unsafe, reports from its deconstruction indicated a generally sound structure that could have endured for many more years.
Though it will never dominate the horizon the way the barn did, the tidy, two story house is now the cornerstone of the Erickson farm. Sturdy and simple, with a windowed, second story dormer facing east to welcome the rising sun, it was the home of three generations, and the host to five. During the summers of my childhood I remember waking up in the second floor bedroom with the south-facing window, gauzy curtains waving gently in sun-warmed breezes. Lying still, with the heated earth smell of the prairie and the sweet yodel of meadowlarks sifting through the curtains, I listened for the clinking of plates and silverware to rise through the vents from the kitchen—evidence my grandmother was fixing coffee and laying out provisions for breakfast. Rising, I would make my way down the creaking wooden stairway past the looming head of a bull moose that, in the darkness of night, regularly struck fear into my heart. Morning light streamed into the kitchen through an east-facing window and I would sit at the table in the center of the bright kitchen and there I would wait for my grandfather to come in with a pail of fresh raspberries. Sometimes there was fresh cream from a farmer down the road. Later, as a teenager and young adult, I remember Thanksgiving dinners with 20 people crowded around two or three tables, and my father tapping on the door of the same south bedroom at 5 a.m. to wake me up for goose hunting. In the late 1990s I took my wife, south-Louisiana born and raised, to the farm for the first time. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and we flew into Calgary and started the four and a half hour drive at mid-afternoon. Darkness settled as we approached from the west, and my wife marveled as I turned the car right and left on unmarked dirt roads apparently in the middle of nowhere. “How do you know,” she asked, as the headlights stabbed ahead at nothing. Our two boys, a part of the fifth generation, have slept in the south bedroom and eaten breakfast in the sunny kitchen. The house endures, but today, after more than a century standing, it stands empty.
Erickson farm house in 2018
I have always been proud of the Erickson house and the yard that surrounds it. A Google Earth image illustrates that Evansville, Minnesota is right at the eastern edge of the Great Plains, and certainly more verdant than southwest Saskatchewan. I think the homesteading Erickson’s, and primarily my grandfather, must have been trying to recreate that environment, because he planted more trees than anyone else. Row after row of windbreak shelters the house from the coldest winds out of the north and west. Birds and forest animals dwell in the quiet groves, and from a distance the trees loom like the walls of a fortress. To me, the oasis of greenery, with the original house at its center, has always seemed evidence of prosperity and solidity—a place more firmly rooted than most, a place I could always come home to. Throughout the 20th century, and well into the 21st, the energy and endurance of successive generations bolstered that feeling.
Red X in the northwest is the Erickson farm, red X in the southeast is Evansville, MN. Notice how much greener Evansville is—on average it gets more than twice as much rain per year.
Kit homes, or mail-order homes made by companies like Eaton’s were popular across North America in the early 20th century, and given their general characteristics of modest cost and good quality, would have been an excellent choice for the housing needs of Emil and Julia. Had they done so, it would be interesting to study old catalogs or brochures to find the model they chose, but all indications are the house was constructed by local builders without any mail-order assistance. The front door faces east, and leads directly into the southeast corner of a large, open kitchen. Standing by the front door, there are three openings that lead out of the kitchen. The opening to the right leads to a hall that contains the staircase. The opening to the left leads to another hall that started as a washing and cooking alcove, and now hosts a laundry area and a bathroom. There is also a small bedroom off that hall. The opening in the middle leads to a living room about the same size as the kitchen. On the second floor, a small landing at the top of the stairs has doors at each point of the compass. The north, south, and west doors lead to bedrooms, and the east door opens to a closet that fills the east facing dormer at the front of the house.
The house has been changed over the years, but never radically. It was lifted off its foundation in the 1950’s in order to excavate a complete basement that became host to a central furnace that pushed ducted heat to the first floor. The current kitchen took shape around 1960 with the building of cabinets in what had been a multi-use, dining and living area. The installation of plumbing and wiring took place about the same time and allowed for the removal of a manual water pump that was connected to a cistern on the south side of the house. A rickety wooden porch that was tacked to the front of the house was taken off in the 1970’s, and the outhouse fell out of use that decade as well, as the wash-up area at the end of the hall was converted to a modern bathroom. Cabinets were painted and appliances switched out over the years, and the 70’s and 80’s saw a flurry of cosmetic and functional improvements including new, white, exterior siding, new windows, a lighted drop ceiling in the kitchen, some sheetrock and paint, and new carpets and flooring. The upstairs bedrooms stopped seeing regular use about 50 years ago, and are the only part of the house that show some clear signs of neglect. Out of sight and out of mind, the old wallpaper is faded and peeling. On a recent tour of the house I ran my hand down the wall of the south bedroom I have slept in so many times and peeled some of the old wallpaper back to reveal the original shiplap. One wonders what some of the current design gurus on the various home shows could do with that.
Many of the old, south Saskatchewan farm houses have been abandoned. Their ruins stand, weathered and gray, inside spare rows of trees that are often as bent and gnarled as ancient bristlecone pines. Sometimes the trees themselves are the only reminder that a pioneer, perhaps with a young family like Emil and Julia Erickson, staked their claim to an arid piece of prairie and tried to realize a dream of ownership, self-sufficiency, and prosperity. The vagaries of climate and markets ended some of those dreams. Others were overwhelmed by the difficulty of the task they had taken on, and some surely discovered that they just didn’t like it. Even among families that made it—those who got over the hump of the first few years and survived the dust and drought of the 1930s—one finds houses and dreams abandoned as one generation grows old and the next finds their calling in the dynamism of cities and other industries. The physical evidence of their pioneer history—buildings and old machinery—is slowly reclaimed by the same earth that was instrumental in its creation. Dust to dust.
As my grandfather’s health began to fail in the 1970s, one can easily imagine such a fate imposing itself on the Erickson house, but a couple of circumstances ensured its continuance as a vibrant center to the life of the farm. One was the relative youth of my grandmother. Born Elizabeth Powell on a nearby farm nearly 20 years after my grandfather, Betty Erickson was only in her 60s when my grandfather began to face his most serious difficulties. She had the youth and energy to carry on in a home she had already lived in for 40 years. Another was the decision of both of my uncles to become farmers. Uncle Del built a house in a grove of trees just 100 yards north of the house he grew up in, and Uncle Dwight built on the corner half a mile east. The proximity of their families, combined with frequent visits by our family, ensured that the house entered the golden age of grandchildren. I am the oldest of Les and Betty’s ten grandchildren, and we filled the house for Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas mornings. At more pedestrian, work-a-day times of the year, my grandmother attended Christmas concerts, science fairs, volleyball and hockey games. The comforting closeness of her sons and their families gave her safety, convenience, and companionship.
This symbiotic relationship endured past the death of my grandfather in 1994 and for nearly twenty years into the rise of a fifth generation. Although the beds in the upstairs bedrooms got lumpier and the wallpaper continued to fade and peel, the kitchen remained bright and the gentle morning sounds of the house continued as they were in my boyhood.
My grandmother passed on December 28th, 2012 after living in the Erickson house for more than 60 years. Six months later, in June 2013, the extended Erickson family gathered at the farm for a celebration of her life, and of the 104th anniversary of the original homestead agreement filed by Emil Erickson. It was a very wet spring; all the sloughs were full, and the explosion of new life seemed as though all the care and nurture that Betty Erickson had once bestowed on her family and friends was now turned, full force, on the natural world that had surrounded and sustained her for all her years. But sadly, after nearly a century, the Erickson house was quiet, with no one planning to return.
Over the past ten years we have continued to make our Thanksgiving trips to the farm—not every year, but as often as we can. We stay at my Uncle Dwight’s house, and he and my Aunt Mary are wonderful hosts. Our family rituals on that weekend are largely the same as they have been for nearly 50 years. We don’t wake up early to go goose hunting anymore, but we still attend the Chokecherry Festival in Lancer, shoot clay targets in the field, visit the little cemetery in Portreeve where several generations of Erickson’s and Powell’s are laid to rest, eat a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday afternoon, and eat brunch at Uncle Del’s house on Monday morning. Though empty, the Erickson house still stands at the top of the yard, white siding crisp against the backdrop of gray-green conifers and blue sky, not obviously any worse for wear despite ten years without an occupant. Inside, the disconnect between present and past is even more jarring. The kitchen is bright and clean, and the round table is covered by a crocheted tablecloth. Four chairs are arranged neatly around the table and a white vase sits in the center. There are books and magazines on the side table below the window, and a Keurig coffee machine rests on the counter. The den is quiet and serene, as it has always been when waiting for a crowd of grandchildren or great grandchildren to arrive. The house seems to be patiently waiting for an old friend to step into the kitchen, flip a light switch, and begin the quiet, practiced motions of making coffee and setting dishes and stores for breakfast. It’s heartbreaking.
The kitchen and the east facing window in 2018
Uncle Del has recently retired and sold his farming operation to two of my cousins. It’s a transaction that keeps the farm in the family and brings the promise of renewal, but nonetheless feels like loss as the familiar people and institutions and structures that have backstopped all my decades are inexorably changed.
I could let the house go. Surrender it, finally, like so many others, to John Palliser’s 19th century conclusion that this land is too dry, too cold, too windy, and too hot for humans to occupy for very long. But a line from Dylan Thomas comes to me: “do not go gentle into that good night.” So I dream of its renewal and continuance as a lodestar for myself and all the members of my family. I want to halt the expansion of time and distance and change that threatens to sever me from this place that has always been and will always be with me.
Most likely, the house will continue to wait. One of the cousins has explored the idea of moving the house to a new location in a nearby town and then renovating it for his family. Another relative whose defining characteristic is rational practicality said he should take a picture of it and build a copy from scratch. Whatever happens, it is obvious that Emil and Julia’s creation is endowed with the same endurance that they brought to their remote homestead. It will stand in the yard for a good while yet, perhaps long enough for someone to open the door, not to cast a melancholy gaze on the past, but to look forward, wipe the dust from the counter, make coffee, and begin anew.
Your story reminds me of my grandparents home in St. Francisville that has been in our family since before the civil war. My time growing up there, running around the yard, hunting, fishing, and eating! Thank you for sharing.