Chapter Three:
Hungry Hill
From our house on River Street in Prince Albert, it took about 40 minutes to drive to the farm, where my dad’s parents lived. The farm was arrived at by driving out of Prince Albert, heading North, and then taking the exit for highway number three West, to Big River. That same highway would take you past Grandma Lily's house, which was about 10 kilometers outside of Prince Albert, and beyond, through the Rural Municipality of Buckland, and past the radar station, past the turn offs to the tiny hamlets of Crutwell and Biarlea, and onward, through the small town of Holbein till several miles later, we turned North onto the gravel road, to “the farm.”
When we speak of distances in Canada, the farm land is referred to by “Quarter Section.” A Quarter section spans 800x800 meters. The land was surveyed that way. Grandpa and Grandma Hislop owned two quarter sections or “quarters” close to the Shell River. The land was originally purchased by Grandpa Bob’s parents who emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1926. The land consisted of black, rich, fertile soil, and large tracts of old growth spruce forests interspersed with poplar, both white and black, chokecherry, and various other shrubs and plants. There was lots of water. As previously mentioned, a river, the “Shell,” flowed directly through the river quarter of Grandpa’s and it was ideal for pasturing Cattle because of the natural grasses that grew on top of the river hills and down in the valley on the river flat. The flat is probably about 200 meters wide. The river meanders, flowing in its pattern, South across the flat about 150 meters, at the West end of the property, then when it arrives across the flat, swings nearly straight East for maybe 200 Meters, curves North, then swings straight East again then curves South and East again…. Along the river the shore is quite gradual. A few feet from the waterline, willows grow out of the black muddy ground, willows or green grass, or sometimes there are pools created by backcurrents in the water, around which, slough grass and bulrushes grow.
The river is fed water by the sloping land from all directions, by springs that almost mystically originate in various places. One such place is at the far East end of a large spruce bluff that spans, West to East, probably 600 meters from the road, right by the farm house, to its end. From the picture window of the farm house in the “front room” you looked to the South and saw the NorthWest end of that spruce bluff and to the West, the road, running North- South and the galvanized metal culvert that run under the road to funnel the water underneath without eroding the road in the process. That spruce bluff was massive, stretching about 150 meters wide at its narrowest, North to South, and about 600 meters East to West. The Blue Spruce that grew naturally in that area grew to great dimensions, towering up into the air over a hundred feet,... their trunks thick and girthy,....
The trees were over a hundred years old and when logged, produced choice lumber. Father actually logged that bluff and sawed lumber in about 1979 with my Great Uncle Jim, taking only the biggest trees…. He then used the lumber to build the house in Prince Albert in 1985. That was the house that I grew up in.
The Land all around the farmhouse drained to the river, so the spring that bubbled out of the ground in that spruce bluff flowed through the bluff piercing the mossy forest floor, winding like a very curvy snake, in, what is some of the thickest, most interesting terrain I’ve ever seen. The creek snakes North and South as it flows in a Westerly direction- West and a little North through the bush. On the North and South sides of the creek is green sphagnum moss, cool and moist. This is all because the spruce forest created that ecosystem. Shade is the main principle of the Spruce forest. The trees have massive sprawling branches, which block the sun and allow the moss to grow. Willows spring out of the soil immediately beside the water making for difficult walking by the creek. Once you walk to the North or South of the creek a few feet or meters, the willows suddenly cease and the moss also disappears as soon as you reach ground where the sun’s rays touch, and then, immediately, the ground begins to have leaves of poplar on it and small willows, wild raspberry, wild rose bushes, chokecherry, and various other shrubs coming up and then, finally you see poplars. In the shady spruce forest it is darker and there is no undergrowth. I learned over the years, that partridge would seldom, if ever, be spotted sitting on the mossy forest floor near the creek. Only when they were drinking would they venture onto the moss. It took me many years to figure that out.
Grandpa strung a rubber hose (2 inch diameter black hose), hooked to a red colored water pump, that he placed in the “spring” (that's how he referred to the creek) and he irrigated the Farm yard’s lawn with the water. The farm yard was big. From the road that went to the “river gate” (the entry onto the river quarter) the yard was about 100 meters by 100 meters. You would cross the culvert driving in from the South and swing to the right onto the driveway (gravel) that ran East -West in front of the farm house. Behind the house to the North there was a row of big maple trees with lots of branches and thick twisted trunks. The row of maples was planted as a windbreak from the North wind and near the final third of the Easternmost portion of the maples, back when I was a kid, blue spruce stood about 10 feet high. There were maples and spruce in a kind of windbreak on the North perimeter of the yard, whereas to the West of the house, there was the vegetable garden which ran North-South about 50 meters by 30 meters to the East-West. On the West flank of the garden but just on the East side of the road was a row of uniformly spaced Spruce trees. On the South perimeter of the garden was the driveway and over the driveway there was green grass for about 5 meters up to the spruce bluff.
The farmhouse was a simple enough house,... with stucco on the outside, the kind with brown beer bottle glass and white tiny stones as the finish. There was aqua colored paint on the front wood. There was a screen door to the deck on the South side and there were several windows that afforded one multiple views of the yard from inside. The main door to the house was on the East side of the house, and Grandpa's workshop, the “shop,” as we called it, was a kitty corner to the North East of the main door, separated by maybe twenty feet. There was a well dug on the West side of the shop, covered with a galvanized steel lid. Grandpa always said “don’t play around the well.” The house had been built with several large windows including one in the kitchen looking to the East, another in the Kitchen, looking South, then one in the dining area also facing South and a final large “picture window” in the front room that looked out to the South at the immediate lush lawn as well as giving a great vantage point to the Southernmost third of the garden, the yard and driveway and bluff, as well as the road in, and the culvert area and the poplar bush on the West of the road and culvert that everyone referred to as “Campbells.” “Campbells,” because the owner for the longest time was a man named Fred Campbell, who lived in a two story Wooden house about two miles North. You could still see the rotting walls of the house 15 years ago, but I heard they burned it down and cleared the land where the house used to be.
From the driveway, if you headed out of the farmyard back toward the highway to the South, on either side of the road there was bush by the culvert, then on the East side there was open farmland on the left going uphill and on the right was “Campbells.” The road went up Hill then, sloped gently down. At the top of the hill you had a wonderful view to the North, with Potts’ silver granaries shining faintly about 3 miles straight North, and to the South the grid road that allowed access to the river and to the farm house was straight as an arrow. You could almost see the old highway which was almost a mile away, straight South. On either side of the road there were trees and bush.
The road into the farm was a dead end, because people couldn't drive across the Shell River as there was- and still is -no bridge across the river. A sign was posted that read “No Thru Road.” Turning back South at the top of the hill and continuing Southbound you passed the ‘Old Road” on the right, whereas on the left, the farmland stopped and another massive spruce bluff stood tall and ran nearly a mile to the South and half mile or more to the East. The country was expansive. There were mixed forests and different kinds of wetlands, and even grasslands nearby. About a half mile down to the left was the turn to the Knaus farm house. Continuing straight North to the corner of the “old highway” which was a mile from the farm house driveway, there were two farm houses. One was the Kilmer farm, founded by Mel Kilmer in the early 1900s, the other was the Thiel farm founded by Garry Thiel in the 1970s. To get to the “new highway” you simply crossed the old highway and continued South another mile and a half till you came to blacktop highway which was the Big River highway. If you went East you were headed back home to Prince Albert and if you went West you were headed for the town of Shellbrook.
There were all kinds of birds and wildlife at the farm. My favorite was, of course, the Ruffed Grouse, (we call them “partridge”). There were deer, moose, bears, cougars, wolves, and many others. There were garter snakes, rabbits, salamanders, woodchucks and still many more...! The river was a world unto itself with fish, (Pickerel and pike and suckers) as well as otters, beaver, mink and much more (countless varieties of ducks and also many different kinds of birds of prey) living within the marshland/parkland/grassland/boreal forest ecosystems. It was extra-special on our river quarter because we had old growth Northern Boreal forest sections right along the South side of the river bank and Grasslands with Native grassland species of plants including fragrant sage that blooms in June on the top of the river hills on the rockier North side of the river as soon as you climbed up out of the valley. Although they stopped years back, when my father was a kid, he told me, there used to be Sharp Tailed Grouse, commonly referred to as prairie chickens doing their mating dance on the North side of the river on top of those hills in their native grassland habitat. It is rare to have land that is so diverse in so many ways, and the sheer beauty of it all, the wonder and depth of the farm and its surrounding lands,... well I loved it from nearly the first time I ever went there, and, to my delight, we went there often. Even at present day, I still think of it as one of the greatest places on earth. We would go to the farm to visit family, but also because dad had his honey bees out there just 200 meters to the North of the house, on the West side of another spruce bluff directly to the East of the River gate.
When I got older, I would sometimes go and stay out at the farm with my grandparents for the weekend. Grandpa Bob collected hats, baseball style, from all over,... mostly from businesses, but also hats with sayings on the front or funny pictures. There was one hat he had and it was white and it had inscribed on the front in red letters “Hungry Hill Farm.” My highschool chums saw it when they came out to the farm with me and later they remarked on “Hungry Hill,” referencing the cap, and because Grandpa would often be joking around, calling out- literally shouting- to the open prairie sky, some funny saying from his past, (he had served in the Canadian Army as a Mechanic and then after the war found work as shop foreman at a busy Chevrolet Oldsmobile dealership Northway Chev-Olds in Prince Albert). His shout to the prairie sky could include anything from a boisterous “She’s no G-a-w-d d-a-m-n g-o-o-d!!” - in a sort of jocular, half-clown laugh, half-pretend sob/cry (“she” probably referring to a car he was working on) or he might randomly cry out,... “Hungray H-i-l-l!”- most likely referencing the hat– He would pipe up with it in full volume on the first syllable and then let it fade out on the second like “HUNgray HILLLLLLLLLLLL!’ and on many occasions he would belt out a special laugh, too. He had a kind of trademark performance-laugh that he had perfected and often let Ring– much to Grandma’’s chagrin! It sounded something like a “Bah- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha,” and again, it was kind of like a jocular laugh/cry…. It was actually quite funny and he often did it when I had a friend with me at the farm. Everyone, well, almost everyone, got a real kick out of it!...,my Grandpa Bob was a real joker with tremendous energy, seldomly taking anything too seriously. That's how my buddies and I came to refer to the farm, as “Hungry Hill.”
The farm was a place we would go to especially, as a family, on Sunday afternoons. Dad’s four sisters would bring their families and we would all meet there. There were dogs out there, and it was an amazingly warm-welcoming and accepting place. In the summer we would have wonderful feasts of freshly boiled corn on the cob slathered in butter, hamburgers, and fresh garden cucumbers and new garden onions served in white vinegar. The food was amazing, and the atmosphere was charged with an upbeat and positive vitality. My Grandparents were very upbeat, optimistic, and fun-loving people. They had a Honda “tri-moto” all terrain cycle (ATC), like a three wheeled motorcycle, and we, the grandchildren, were allowed to take it for rides! There were about 15 grandkids at the farm on many occasions and all the kids would be busy, having fun, doing something. My Grandpa and Gramma Hislop were very fond of my music, and I was encouraged from a young age to play the violin and later the bagpipes. They would invite me to come and stay with them at the farm many, many times, often picking me up at home in Prince Albert, and I used to sit in school and daydream for hours about the trips that I had scheduled to stay at Hungry Hill. How blessed I was, and what adventures I had as a boy at my grandparents’ farm!