But What About The Indians?

My Grandad emigrated to Canada after surviving the meat grinder of WW1. He showed up in Canada in the early 1920s and worked the logging camps with his sons. Alberta was still pretty rough back then and the pics from the era are delightful. Jasper Ave was one long mud strip surrounded by shops and warehouses, and behind those were the shacks most poorer families lived in.

I’m thinking of that as I watch this: 

The soddies were gone long before my time. The last of them probably went at the close of the great depression. But as a kid I had my nose rubbed in the reality of harsh prairie winters - we all did. But our pioneer sodbusting grandparents made sure us kids knew what it was like. How I wish I could talk to them today…

So I’m listening to this - and I get it all. Our old Ukranian, Scandihoovian, Russian and European pioneers knew all about the sodbusting construction methods. What I don’t get is that the narrator seems to think this is the only way to live and survive the lethal winter climate. The indians lived in tents and did just fine.

Ughhhh. My mind is in a fog today. I’d be interested in how the sodbusters kept the bugs out during the summer…