The old homestead

I haven't done anything over the past few days that I can share with you so I thought I would share some of my family history.

My Dad is from British Columbia in Canada. At some stage in his youth his father located on the last remaining available homestead in their area. Of course, the rules meant building a house on the property and proving up or making it into a workable proposition. After 5 years it would become theirs.

I think the bottom centre picture shows the original homestead which housed the parents and four children as well as the little addition my Dad made for his mother a number of years later. 

The top left photo is of a lake at the edge of the farm or nearby. 

The barn was partially built by my grandfather and then finished by my Dad working on his own.

He cut lodgepole pine in the hill behind and snaked it down with the help of the horse. 

The central beam was raised using his own system and again the horse. He completed all the roofing on his own.

This barn still stands and is protected under heritage laws.

On a trip back to the area a few years ago he was standing at the roadside admiring it when an old local come up and told him with pride that "Donny built that".

My Dad's name is Don.

I think the other log cabin seen in some of the pictures may have been the school.

This all sounds Little House on the Prairie-ish doesn't it? Yet my father was born in 1933 and given that the family moved around a fair bit and Dad still had the homestead when he was 19 I would guess that the occupation of this land didn't take place until after the second world war. 

Strange how close real history can be to us isn't it?