After leaving Wolseley, we travelled to Qu’Appelle Assiniboia for Karl and Qu’Appelle Saskatchewan for me. Neither one of us planned to stay long in Qu’Appelle. Karl stopped long enough to get this book stamped at the post office, so I intended to do the same.
Qu’Appelle is located about 50km east of Regina and used to be the end of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the hub for distributing grains and other goods. As the primary distribution centre for the North-West Territories, the town was expected to be the headquarters of the Assiniboia District. However, politics changed, and instead, Regina was the territorial capital. Then as the railway extended further west, the significance of Qu’Appelle declined.
Today, Qu’Appelle is a small, quiet town.
I arrived at 4:30 pm on a warm Friday afternoon and went straight to the post office. Seeing the stillness in the town, I expected that the post office would be closed as it seemed businesses were wrapping up for the weekend. But contrary to my assumption, the post office was still open. I shared the purpose of my visit with the postmaster and got my book “stamped”. The postmaster suggested that I go to the Qu’Appelle town office as she thought there might be some historical records about the town in 1899.
At this time, it was 4:45 pm.
The town office, a small nondescript building that looks like it could have been a restaurant or a small library, was located only a few buildings from the post office.
Again, I was pleasantly surprised that the office was open, and there was an administrator behind the desk working away. She shared that there were no apparent historical records or artifacts to speak of but pointed me in the direction of the “big green book”.
The big green book, titled: Qu’Appelle Footprints to Progress, documented the history of Qu’Appelle and the District.
The book captured the history of the first stagecoach in town, who owned the post office, and other stories annotated with quotes and observations. The book documents that Dr Henderson was the first to have a car in Qu’Appelle. Mrs Wylie described it as “... a truly horseless carriage - built like a one seated buggy with wheels just as high or higher. A dull red body, with a black top.” and this caused all sorts of problems for Mrs. Wylie’s horse, Dolly, who was terrified of the car and couldn’t be managed whenever she saw one. She finally had to be sold.”
You get the gist, dear reader, all those milestone events happening in a small Prairie town. I bet you’d think this would include the story about a young man from Nova Scotia who rode his bicycle through the Qu’Appelle while travelling around the world?
You’d be right.
In the index of the book, under the letter “C” lists: Creelman, Carl….Page 38. Notwithstanding the spelling of his first name was incorrect, I was ecstatic. In keeping with stories of the first car in the town, page 38 reads as follows:
In 1895 the first bicycle was brought to Qu’Appelle. As might be expected, it was owned by W. A. Caswell*. The next year ‘bicycle fever’ broke out in Qu’Appelle. Soon these novel means of transportation were seen on any trail that was suitable. W. L. Wait and Bill Caswell often used to take long trips, sometimes to Fort Qu’Appelle and along the valley, or to Regina, and sometimes as far east as Grenfell. Women too attempted to learn to ride these vehicles, many of them going out to the race track to practice.
In 1898 the Council was persuaded to enact a bylaw imposing a $20 fine on cyclists who were caught riding on the sidewalks. It seemed to be a necessary measure, for, in just one year, 1899, $1,500 worth of bicycles had been bought in Qu’Appelle. The bicycle fever of 1896 had become an epidemic in 1899.
In 1899, Mr Carl Creelman passed through Qu’Appelle on his ‘Red Bird’ bicycle. The native of Nova Scotia planned to bicycle ‘around the world’ for four years.
At the end of the day on a Friday afternoon, it’s moments like these, standing in the local town office of a small town with just over 2000 inhabitants that Karl’s presence feels palpable. I’m glad we both took the time to stop in Qu’Appelle.
*W. A. Caswell, was a merchant in Qu’Appelle and owned the general store. So it was expected the individual buying the goods was also the first to own them.
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