If you grew up on a farm prior to the
1960s, chances are you attended a one
room schoolhouse.
Sometimes just getting there could be
an adventure. In nice weather most kids
walked or rode bikes. It could be quite
a distance, sometimes as much as three
kilometres.
Usually you had company - brothers
and sisters or neighbours. That helped
pass the time.
You could get sidetracked, stopping to check out what looked like a fresh badger hole, or to watch a family of ducklings on the slough, or fox kits (pups) gamboling in the grass, with mumma hunting gophers for supper nearby.
I’ve never forgotten finding a tiny fawn nestled close by the trail. We took a quick look and let it be.
A few lucky kids might ride a pony.
It wasn’t so bad having to make that trip every day - in the summer.
In the winter, or on really stormy days,
families would car pool. By actual car
if the roads were clear, by horse and sleigh if not.
If you lived within reach of a town or
village there might even be a more for
mal transportation arrangement. The
first school vans were sleighs with an
improvised roof and even a small wood
stove, pulled by a team of horses. They
didn’t necessarily follow roads though,
as they went from farm to farm, over
snow, across fields, through pastures,
zigzagging their way.
One village school that set up such a transportation system was Fairfax. But a few years after World War II one of the drivers, Mr. McFadden, had a better idea.
He bought a surplus army vehicle and rigged it up to pull the covered sleigh.
Built by Studebaker, it was designed to move soldiers quickly over the snow. It had caterpillar tracks and room for six adults.
It could go 50 kms an hour. Crazy fast for those days! It could go through reedy marshes and steep ditches, over drifts like small mountains - places you’d never take the horses.
It was a clumsy looking contraption but a memorable ride. Talk about an All Terrain Vehicle!
Sources:
David Neufeld Weasel, Horse or Beater. A Vantage Points Flashback radio (CJRB) story by David M Neufeld based on interviews with Ken Sparrow and Keith Tufts
M29 Weasel: US Army Special Operations Command History Office
Go Devil Memories: Linda (Lowe) Ford and Vern Lowe. Photo: Jan McClelland
