"The Break with Barr" - Saskatchewan History, 1957 "On arriving in Saskatoon, the colonists, who had found accommodation none too comfortable on the over-crowded Lake Manitoba and on the trains provided, discovered that Barr's plans for their reception had not been carried out. The Department of the Interior had, however, provided a city of tents for their occupancy, in which they lived while procuring the necessities for their trek. Prices became inflated, and many colonists became discouraged by this situation and by the difficulties, which lay ahead. Barr failed to cope with the confusion which existed, but the majority persisted in their plans and set out for Battleford at the end of April." ...more
"Third Column: Colony to City"
"One hundred and fifty-five miles
east of Edmonton on Highway 16 the City of Lloydminster straddles the
Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary. Two years older than either of the
provinces in which it stands, the community had its start in the
colonization drives of the early 1900’s.
They were a byproduct of the railway-building era."...more
The Clutterbuck Story
"James Clutterbuck was born October 5, 1873 in Grantham Lincolnshire,
England. As a Barr Colonist
he came out from England in April 1903 on the S.S. Lake Manitoba. While on the ship they picked their homesteads.
Jim in England was a skilled tradesman in wood and stone
carving, a draftsman and a modeller. He was advised by his London doctor to go to a drier climate
as he had a cough caused by the stone dust on his lungs from working on
old Abbeys in England."...more
Review of the
voyage from England to Lloydminster as remembered by Henrietta K. Butler
who was 8 years old when she came with her parents in 1903.
http://www.whistlerhistory.com/barr2.htm
Brief history of the Whistler family prepared by
Diana Whistler
http://www.whistlerhistory.com/canada.htm
Typescript of a handwritten account by Fred
Hayes. He was born in Bradford, England in 1880 and emigrated to
Canada in 1903 with the Barr Colonists. He wrote his life story in 1959
and completed it just before his death in 1962 at the age of 82.
This account supplied by his great-niece and her husband who reside in
England. Click here (pdf file)
Some notables in Lloydminster's History - click here
For many, the great trek to the middle of the western plains of Canada was an adventure on a par with field service in India or Africa, both of which some of the Colonists had done, for example George Ives.