A Senior’s Story: Davieville – A sandy land survival story
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, March 22, 2017
By Wayne Hildebrand
The Neepawa Press
William (Bill) Davie Sr. was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1890. He was working as an apprentice druggist, but he really wanted to be a farmer. So, at 18 years of age (1908), he immigrated to Canada to start a new life. Little did he know that his adventuresome spirit would take him to the sandhills southeast of Neepawa, an area that would test every ounce of his character. It would be the beginning of a legacy of four generations of Davies to farm in the area.
In 1910, Bill Sr. married May Taylor in Winnipeg. A son, Bill Jr., was born in 1914 and a daughter, Aimee, in 1916. With a desire to become a farmer, Bill Sr. and May had the opportunity to take over May’s father’s (Duff Taylor) farm, 3 ½ miles east of Hallboro. They moved to the farm in 1918. Two more Davie boys were born, Leslie (1920) and Roy (1922).
To fully appreciate how challenging it would be to survive and raise a family east of Hallboro, one has to know a little about Manitoba’s settlement history and the landscape around Neepawa. In the 1870s, once the Hudson Bay Company’s land charter was sold to the Dominion of Canada (1870) and three Treaties were signed with First Nation tribes (1874), homesteaders poured into the County of Beautiful Plains, west of Arden, Manitoba. By the 1880s, most of the expansive grassland plain, with its fertile black soils, was homesteaded.
In the southeast corner of what was to become the Rural Municipality of Langford (1881), was an area of forested sandhills and low fertility sandy prairie soil. The homesteaders passed by this area as they scrambled to stake a claim on the Beautiful Plain. With no settlement in the sandhills, the RM of Langford council wrote to the Federal Minister of Agriculture in 1945 to have over 20,000 acres designated as a Community Pasture. The land was sandy and poor, rather useless for farming (Langford History Book). In 1946, the Langford Community Pasture was established. Bill Davie Sr. started his farming career in 1918, adjacent to the northwest corner of what was to become the Langford Community Pasture. To survive in farming in this area is a testament to the character of the Davie family.
Bill Davie Sr. was a mixed farmer, typical of his time. Their farm was self-sufficient and they mostly lived off the land. They had beef cattle, milk cows, horses, chickens and pigs. The beef cattle were for selling, venison was for eating. In the 1930s and 1940s, Bill bought additional land and moved four times, never more than one mile from where he started.
The Sandhills are about the same today as when the buffalo roamed through them. There are remnants of old homesteads, like old iron stoves and depressions from old foundations, but the homesteads never lasted. The land would not sustain a living for a family. The sandhills have no landmarks, like homes or roads, so it is easy to get lost. Bill Sr. knew his way around-- he had to, because his cattle were free range and he had to find them.
William (Bill) Davie Jr. and Roy Davie took over the farm when Bill Sr. and May moved to Neepawa. Bill Jr. married Eva Lupier from McCreary in 1941. They had three children, Darlene (1942), Leslie (1943) and Murray (1949). Roy married Barbara Fraser in 1956. Along with Barbara’s daughters Margaret and Lyn, from a previous marriage, Charlotte was born in 1957 and Lawson in 1959.
Over the years, Leslie (Les) Davie has seen many changes in the area. As a child, he can recall seeing 30 wild horses coming out of the sandhills to get a drink of water from Boggy Creek. Years ago, during hunting season, there would be a deer hunter on every hill in the Community Pasture. Today, you hardly see a hunter. Farming practices have changed significantly. Herbicides replaced cultivation for weed control, a huge benefit for the light, erosion prone soils.
The expansion of the potato industry has increased demand for the light land. Irrigation water is available from the Assiniboine Delta Aquifer under the sandy soil and water and fertilizer grow excellent potatoes. Les relays that 100 years ago, grandfather Bill Davie Sr. bought some land for $5 dollars a quarter section (160 acres). Today, similar sandy land suitable for growing potatoes has sold for over $400,000 a quarter section. Les said, “Grandpa Bill would never believe it.”
Darlene Gillies (Davie) recollects how family life is very different today. “As children, we all had farm chores. Everyone shared in the work; we did what had to be done. Saying ‘no’ was not an option! We had a lot of responsibility at a young age, like milking the cows every day. We knew the cream money was important to the farm. That said, we had a lot of fun, especially with our classmates and activities at Dumfries School (1884-1966).”
Four generations ago, Bill Davie Sr. emigrated from Scotland to build a better life in Canada. Today, Cory Davie (son of Les and Carole) has chosen to farm in the same area as his great grandfather. Only time will tell if other Davie descendants will take on the challenge of farming in the sandy land southeast of Neepawa. If they do, the odds are very good that they will succeed, just as Bill Davie Sr. did
