| Until towards the end of the nineteenth century all of Alberta was wilderness, such as that which is being attempted to be preserved in Elk Island Park. For many thousands of years every Fall the country-side around here was coloured in various shades of yellow and golden by the growths of Aspen, Black Poplar and Birch that covered all of the area in the vicinity for literally thousands of miles, unbroken by the expansion of grain fields, pastures, towns and cities that took the place of much of the wild forests. The only passable roads were rivers like the North Saskatchewan River, along which the fur traders travelled for centuries, until Canada's railroad got constructed and the area around here was opened up by settlers. Roads were built — many thousands of miles of roads, some of which became upgraded into highways. Railroad spur lines were built, and every township (an area six by six miles) had a grain elevator at which railroad cars could be loaded with grain and with cattle produced by the farmers who settled here.
Usually towns sprang up around the grain elevators. Some did well and kept evolving into large prosperous centres of industry and commerce, such as Calgary and Edmonton. Others stagnated and even shrank. Some became ghost towns over time — a process that is inexorably proceeding even today, as farming is increasingly becoming more mechanized and less profitable. Fewer and fewer people remain on the land. Children of farm families find it a hopeless enterprise to take over the farm operations that often as many or more than three generations of families created. These children of farm families are still migrating to the cities, perhaps just on weekends to visit their parents who remain on the land, if those can afford to do that as long as they haven't been forced to sell out. The roads that the children of farm families travel when they make their visits back home still exist, so far. They criss-cross the arable country-side in a checker board pattern, one mile by two miles to each rectangle.The grain elevators that were located every six miles are being shut down, and the railroad lines serving them are being removed. Grain is still being produced and is now being hauled by large trucks to the few large grain elevators (such as that at Star) that replace the many smaller around which so many rural communities had sprung up and to which farmers formerly hauled their grain. The road beds of the highways are slowly deteriorating due to the increased traffic that moved from the railroad system to the highways, and we don't have enough money to keep our roads in good shape anymore — because only an insignificant fraction (about 5 percent) of what is being collected for that through gasoline and fuel taxes is actually being applied for the maintenance and improvement of our road network. About one hundredth of the money that is being reinvested in road construction is being spent on maintaining the road network of federal highways west of the Ontario-Quebec boundary. Ninety-nine percent of it is being spent east of Ontario. (1) No more leisurely trips by horse and wagon into town to deliver grain to the elevators, to pay bills, to have a cup of coffee or glass of beer with the neighbours, and to pick up a few needed groceries for the families. Far fewer people now do the work that was done by many times their number, and those still doing that work have little time left for leisure.The small towns are dying. The schools, of which there were a few within each township within walking distance for the children, have now been replaced by a system of transporting children to a few centralized schools, with perhaps only a single high school remaining in each county. Many children must now leave the house before 7 am to be ready for the school bus when it comes to pick them up.Just as the little one- to four-room schools disappeared from the country-side, so family homes appear to follow them into oblivion. Forty years ago virtually every quarter section of land around our neighbourhood was occupied by a family.
Today our closest two neighbours are located one mile away from our farm. Within a two mile radius from our farm now no more than eight families are still present, and along a stretch of eight miles of highway into Bruderheim, now no more than five family homes can be seen when driving into town.
Have a look at the small red dots still shown on many quarter sections of land depicted on the associated maps. Each of them identifies a family home that was occupied when the map got updated just two years ago (1998). Many of them have since been vacated, and many more will be as the farmers living there die. The average age of Canadian farmers is now more than 62 years. However, think about this and never forget! ALL of what made our way of life possible, the early explorations, the fur trading, the railroad construction, the construction of the country roads that criss-cross the land, the breaking of the land, the growing of crops, the construction of houses, fences, railroad system, schools, grain elevators, towns, network of power lines and the telecommunications network, the digging of wells and the construction of the water lines that in many areas now make local wells unnecessary, the installation of natural gas delivery system, and the boring of natural gas and oil wells for the production of natural gas and oil — all of that was and is still being done by MEN.
If you are interested in what is happening to our families, and if you worry about your and your children's future, or if you are a parent who has been expelled from the lives of his children and you feel powerless to do anything about it, then please visit also the Website of Fathers for Life._____________________ - Source: Gas Tax Honesty Day Report; Canadian Taxpayer Federation
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