- 2 months ago
Two couples assume the lives of early settlers to the West. Using only the resources and tools of the period, they will attempt to build homes, raise livestock, hunt and grow crops.
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00:00Piano music
00:30Living here right now is starting to get a little slow, I think, starting to get boring.
00:43The winter is setting in, it's only the start of January, but it's felt like we've got two
00:48months of winter already.
00:50So I don't know what I'm going to do all winter.
00:53We've got about three months left before we leave and I hope it speeds up a little.
00:58I think I've got to come up with a hobby or something.
01:28When I wake up in the morning, I look outside and if the sun's not shining yet, it's just
01:35I think, well, I wonder how much longer it is before I can get up and get at the day's
01:42activities.
01:43And like Deanna, I really enjoy the chores.
01:50It's something we really look forward to getting up to do and getting out and just having that,
01:57I don't know, whether you could call it comradery with the animals, but the enjoyment that we
02:04have of going out and working with them has really become a part of it.
02:09Christmas is just a memory now.
02:10The early days of the new year have taken on an unbroken rhythm of work and meals and filling
02:16in the time in between.
02:18Tim and Deanna are out the door by 7am and while the days are beginning to get longer,
02:25the homestead is in a deep freeze.
02:26It's 32 below zero.
02:32I think she's in heat.
02:33Watch out, guys.
02:34Like everyone on the homestead, Daisy means the day of the day.
02:35The day of the new year has taken on an unbroken rhythm of work and meals and filling in the
02:37time in between.
02:38Tim and Deanna are out the door by 7am and while the days are beginning to get longer,
02:43the homestead is in a deep freeze.
02:46It's 32 below zero.
02:48I think she's in heat.
02:53Watch out, guys.
02:58Like everyone on the homestead, Daisy needs a break from cabin fever.
03:04More than any of the animals, she's become a part of the family.
03:11The pioneers face one final challenge, making sure everyone survives the toughest season
03:16on the Canadian prairies, the long haul from Christmas to spring.
03:21Frank and Alanna rise later.
03:34They do the evening chores.
03:36Their morning ritual begins with sweeping up the sand they've dug out of a pit out back.
03:41It's homemade kitty litter, which somehow seems to get into everything.
03:46Willow, the kitten, is becoming a cat.
03:58She was a Christmas present given by Frank to Alanna.
04:01Now she's a source of endless entertainment and a welcome distraction from the monotony of the daily routine.
04:07Get the kitty litter out of the bed.
04:14Where does the kitty litter come from?
04:16From Frank's armpit over there where she sleeps.
04:18No, it doesn't come from my armpit.
04:20It comes from the cat.
04:22I think I'm shoving my armpit in the kitty litter or something.
04:26So gross.
04:28As soon as we blow the candle out, you just hear this .
04:33She starts crying and she wanders over and gets in Frank's armpit.
04:36I don't know how she does it.
04:38I don't know how she's going to take the deodorant when I go home.
04:40She may not be able to find it in the dark.
04:43There you go.
04:48Better hook her up there.
04:53Do you know, I really always wanted to be a farmer.
05:04I really did.
05:05And of course, Tim, that was a farthest thing from his mind.
05:08But I always thought I'd love this life and I really do.
05:12I really do.
05:13I can really say that honestly now.
05:15Obviously you probably didn't think I'd say that in the beginning, but I could live on a farm.
05:20What changed?
05:21I don't know.
05:24Time.
05:25You know, good experiences out here.
05:28I don't know.
05:30I don't know.
05:31I guess I'm always committed to whatever I do take, even though as difficult as it was.
05:37And it was difficult.
05:38Very difficult.
05:39I mean, you know I almost wanted to...
05:41I didn't want to quit, but I did want to quit.
05:43But I've come to love this life.
05:46I really have.
05:47And it's going to be very hard for me to leave.
05:50In behind me, you can see the sun dog, which is the kind of a rainbow on a crystal day.
06:00When the crystals are in the air, they give sun dogs on each side of the sun.
06:06There's one here, and then the same distance away from the sun.
06:09On the other side, there's another sun dog.
06:11It's beautiful in the morning.
06:12Nice and crisp.
06:13I've never ever known a January like this for myself anyhow.
06:26It's just beautiful.
06:27Isn't it unreal?
06:28I've never seen it that thick.
06:30I don't know if you're going to get a close-up of that, but it is so thick.
06:35That's a...
06:36Boy, that's a poster picture, I'll tell you.
06:39It's gorgeous.
06:42I've never seen it.
06:44I've never seen it.
06:45While the homestead has never looked better, there's little time to stop and enjoy the view.
06:50In fact, the neighbours are here for a day of wood cutting, because Tim is too weak to do the work.
06:56illness sent him to hospital in November and he's still recovering the problem
07:03that I have is the tissue surrounding my heart became infected and so my heart
07:11doesn't work properly if it if it starts to get strenuous it can't pump properly
07:18medical people would be able to explain it better than I can but that's basically
07:22what I feel is I just don't have the strength and I just run out of steam I
07:25work for 15 20 minutes usually about half an hour I can get out of it and then I
07:30just I'm winded and I'm just tired I can cut firewood but we were using more
07:37firewood than I can cut in a day that's what we would use in in two days and for
07:43me to cut that in two days it doesn't look like much but my wife and I worked
07:47all day for the two of us an eight-hour day before I got sick and we did one one
07:54of these that's in an eight-hour period that's okay no this is just poplar and
07:59so the oak is just so much harder to like it would take us twice as long at
08:06least twice as long to do it and when it came to the big stuff I think I could lift
08:10it I could just...
08:20they'd die simple as that the doctor said if I was living back in 1870s probably he said he gave me
08:29two days and that was kind of a scary thought. Tim's health troubles aren't
08:37over. He's come down with an awful toothache. So who's the dentist here? Oh yeah, you're my
08:44friend. I'll treat you good. The University of Manitoba's mobile dental unit has volunteered
08:51to step back in time to do the drilling. Dr. Doug Brothwell has rummaged through the
08:57University's dental museum and come up with the latest in 19th century technology. It's
09:03a pretty high-tech unit, even today. He says in the 1870s getting a filling would have been
09:09a painful experience, even with this newfangled piece of gear. The slow speed of the handpiece
09:15created a lot of vibration. There was a lot of heat that was built up and because the
09:20anesthetics at the time were, you know, not very good, there was a lot of sensation to
09:27it and a lot, you know, there could have been a lot of pain depending on the tooth. So
09:30they, you know, they weren't the most pleasant way to have your teeth done, but at the time
09:35the only way. So far, Tim isn't volunteering to try it out.
09:39Just step back one step. Okay, I'm not going to poke you there anymore, okay?
09:45Good, because I got you right here.
09:47I hate it. It's too noisy. Too watered. Oh, it's loud and annoying. We're not used to having
10:03that noise here. It's really weird.
10:12For the first time, the big cabin is filled with the sounds of the 21st century. It leaves
10:18everyone imagining what having a toothache would have meant in 1875.
10:23Oh, yeah. Bottle of whiskey, pliers, and hold them down. And they had fun doing it at your
10:33expense. No wonder guys were alcoholics, eh? I'm glad it was done.
10:39Yeah, it's interesting doing laundry in the, uh, wintertime.
10:57I'm not sure whether it's clean or whether this is so filthy that it just kind of stands
11:07up on the zone, eh?
11:19The days of ploughing and planting are long gone. Replaced by another test, there are only
11:25a little more than eight hours of daylight in early January, and Frank and Alana are feeling
11:30the need to get out of the cabin and away from the homestead for a while.
11:34What's going on? Well, we've been doing, uh, walking around the, uh, section we live
11:39on, so sort of a four-mile loop. Just sitting around the site all the time and everything,
11:43just getting out is nice. Has that been hard?
11:47Yeah, I've been getting cabin fever. Not so much, it surprised me, not in our cabin,
11:52but just in the site. Just feeling like I need to get out of the whole 40 acres. I've been
11:56a bit frustrated lately with not, um, I really enjoyed the summer where we saw progress all
12:01the time. We had our jobs and you'd have the satisfaction of seeing them finish. We have
12:05time to enjoy now. We have time off, which is great. Um, we love that, but there's something
12:10missing now, I think.
12:12Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
12:17The Pioneers are on their way to an appointment with the vette. Duke and Diamond live outside,
12:20The Pioneers are on their way to an appointment with the vet.
12:39Duke and Diamond live outside, with only a lean-to for shelter.
12:43The old-timer said that would be good enough.
12:45But the Pioneer team has just endured the coldest December in more than a century.
12:50And the neighbors are worrying.
12:52They've noticed that the horses are losing weight.
13:01First, Dr. Luke Versivel gives Willow her shots.
13:04Thanks, Luke.
13:05He's also had a look at Duke and Diamond.
13:07He has bad news.
13:09The wild hay the Pioneers worked so hard to collect
13:12just doesn't have enough nutritional value for this hard-working team.
13:16In fact, record June rains left a lot of local farmers with the poor hay crop.
13:21It was a quality of food.
13:22Now, as I say, they were a fed-free choice.
13:24There was a large stack of hay.
13:26These animals could eat all they wanted.
13:28They wanted to eat 24 hours a day they could.
13:30However, the nutritional value wasn't there.
13:33I mean, I'm sure these animals would eat to the point where they're full every day,
13:37but they couldn't extract enough nutrient value out of what they ate
13:41to sustain their bodily condition.
13:43Hence, they lost bodily condition.
13:45We truly, we didn't really notice it until we saw the ribs going down
13:49until we could start to see the ribs.
13:51So, and then not knowing exactly what we were supposed to do
13:55we just let them eat more and more hay, which didn't do anything.
13:59So, that's when we had to get other help.
14:03A twitch is something that we use just to help ensure cooperation on the part of the horse.
14:08Okay, lad.
14:11Luke decides to grind down the horse's teeth
14:14so they don't lose any feed while they're chewing.
14:16Well, when they develop these sharp upper edges and lower edges
14:19they get abrasions against the tongue from the lower teeth
14:24and against the cheeks from the upper teeth.
14:26A horse that has sores out of their mouth, I mean, it causes them discomfort all the time.
14:30So, there's that issue.
14:32So, they tend to spill a lot of finer feed out of the mouth.
14:38Plus, they don't do as good of a job of grinding their feed.
14:40If horses can't grind their feed properly, they don't get the most out of the grain.
14:51Filing their teeth is a common practice, usually done once a year.
14:55It doesn't hurt them.
15:00Duke and Diamond's well-being is a priority.
15:03They're lucky.
15:04And so are the pioneers.
15:06In the early days, there was no vet around with 21st century advice.
15:10And often, in lean times, no money to get any help at all.
15:14Good.
15:16We're going to look at the dirty 30s here.
15:18People had no income, no feed for their livestock.
15:21And some of these animals went on to start and die.
15:24That probably did happen.
15:25At least two months of hard winter are left.
15:30Duke and Diamond have already lost 200 pounds fighting the elements.
15:34That's more than 10% of their body weight.
15:37They'll need some special care to get them back into shape.
15:44Lindsey Hamill, a neighbor, will supply the pioneers with a 21st century mixture of high-protein alfalfa and grass.
15:51It will help put some bulk back on the horses.
15:54Today, Lindsey will deliver the feed the old-fashioned way, just for fun.
16:00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:03Go ahead.
16:07Say hey, hi.
16:24You're done.
16:29You know they just slowly lose body condition. You guys see them every day and you don't
16:48see it, but then somebody that doesn't see them all the time.
16:51With a cold December, have I?
16:54Oh, definitely.
16:55A big impact on that?
16:56Definitely. They're outside, they're fighting the almonds all the time.
16:58It's hard on them.
17:03The feed for Duke and Diamond has come from the modern world.
17:07But here in Argyle, draft horse know-how has been passed down from one generation to the
17:12next and the next.
17:14And that's turned out to be a blessing for the pioneers.
17:28I find it amazing that that well has not gone down a bit to speed up since we dug it.
17:45It's nice and clear, nice clear water.
17:50The pioneers take a quiet pride in their wells.
17:54They've designed and built them so they won't freeze, even on the coldest days.
17:59There are endless trips for water.
18:01But each one is a reminder of this success.
18:04They give them about 40 pounds of hay per horse per day.
18:17And they don't quite finish it up, so that's nice.
18:22We know that they're getting enough.
18:27I'm just making dumplings for our chicken stew.
18:34You know, it's amazing.
18:35Our food is pretty much, we don't have a great variety, but enough of a variety.
18:41It's amazing how simple cooking is simple.
18:44I know that sounds stupid, but how simple cooking is really simple and delicious.
18:53Thank you, Father, for this food and for the nice weather.
18:56In Jesus' name, amen.
18:57Lunch is always a big meal.
18:59It's a chance to gather and complain about the weather.
19:02The nice weather is 5 minus 30.
19:05Yeah.
19:06It's sunny.
19:07But it is sunny.
19:08Yeah, we could have a blizzard.
19:09And then debate the dozens of small decisions that are a part of daily life on every farm.
19:13I milked Daisy this morning.
19:16She's getting a thing.
19:17Yes, on which one?
19:19The back left.
19:20The back left.
19:21It's always the one, isn't it?
19:22It's always the size of a pimple.
19:23Well, that whole...
19:24Have you noticed that whole...
19:25Yeah, that whole area.
19:26...corner is all...
19:27Exactly.
19:28It doesn't give as much milkiness.
19:36The only thing that's missing from the pioneers' table is homemade bread.
19:41An expert baker, Heather Lair, has volunteered to show Alana and Deanna how to whip up some traditional loaves from scratch.
19:48Next topic.
19:49Well, we've done buns.
19:50We've each done buns.
19:51Yeah, we've made...
19:52I made whole wheat.
19:53You made white, right?
19:54I made white buns.
19:55And we made cinnamon buns.
19:56Lots of biscuits, but the bread, we've been...
19:59We've just been too busy.
20:01We kept waiting for Heather.
20:02Yes, right.
20:03And the recipes and things, yes.
20:05This is a little dark because I put too much molasses in.
20:07It would be a little bit lighter.
20:09And it's just a basic oatmeal bread leavened with yeast.
20:12And the other one is a rye oatmeal bread.
20:16And it would have been typical of this time, too, in that it's the shape.
20:19It doesn't require a pan, and the type of flour that was used, and the density of the bread.
20:24And there was a time when people had...
20:26If they wanted bread, they had to make bread.
20:28That's what Emily says.
20:29Mommy, that's like your belly.
20:30That's like if you had a kid.
20:32That's my rotten little brat kid that says that.
20:34So salt.
20:35It's like an after-pregnancy stomach.
20:38Yeah, and you don't want too much flour.
20:40Just enough to...
20:41You're going to have to get a sparrow.
20:43And the extra mashed potato.
20:47I thought I didn't know how to do this properly.
20:49It'll come.
20:51Actually, just sort of dump it out.
20:54And you stick your finger in it.
20:55If it stays, it's risen enough.
20:57If it's not ready, it'll pop right back out.
21:00What you do from here is gently push it a little bit.
21:02Don't bang it down.
21:03Like, just divide it.
21:05And now you roll it this way, those edges in.
21:08And then pull it down and turn it.
21:11See, I'm pulling down with your hands here?
21:13I don't know.
21:14I had this feeling that bread was so hard to do,
21:16and that it would take us lots of tries to get it to work.
21:18It's almost embarrassing now,
21:20because it looks like it was actually pretty easy.
21:24Won't the boys be happy at night?
21:28Oh, wow.
21:29You do it with the applique.
21:30It's all applique.
21:31And that's in 1871, too.
21:33While the bread is baking,
21:35Heather has more knowledge to share.
21:37She's an experienced quilter,
21:39and these are designs from the 1870s.
21:42See, this is the quilting.
21:44Oh, that's gorgeous.
21:45Me, too.
21:46The baking and the quilting reveal the truth about pioneer life.
21:52If you wanted a quilt, you had to sew it yourself
21:55or learn the craft from someone else.
21:57A settler's day was filled with tasks like this,
22:01tasks that look simple but take plenty of skill and practice.
22:05I was until today when it seemed technical all of a sudden.
22:12See, that's okay.
22:13Oh.
22:14And what I love it.
22:15I like seeing some finished products.
22:16So with this kind of sewing, you just sort of disregard this.
22:17No, I really like it.
22:18I love being busy, but we have a lot of time to sit right now,
22:22so it's something to do.
22:23Oh, it's great.
22:24Yeah, it makes you feel useful even though you're sitting.
22:27And I think especially for me right now, it's something to take home.
22:30It's kind of a memory from here.
22:33This is the finished thing.
22:34It just needs to be ironed flat.
22:35But it matched up good.
22:36Heather gave us little details of how to match all the seams up
22:39and backstitch and make it good and durable.
22:42So it worked good.
22:44It smells like beer.
22:46It's like a beast.
22:47Yeah.
22:48I know.
22:51Look at this one.
22:52It's like one of those wiener in a bun.
22:54Turtle.
22:55Let's see if you can get one.
23:03Rado, are you a lazy dog?
23:11It's a beautiful winter day.
23:17Finding a good reason to get out of the house has become important,
23:29even on frosty days.
23:31Tim's convinced the others to help him with a winter harvest.
23:35He's spotted willow bushes growing in the ditches,
23:38and it's given him an idea that will keep him busy until spring.
23:48In the olden days, and even now,
23:52boredom is one of the biggest killers, eh?
23:57And if you're...
23:59Piana, maybe just take it at an angle when you're cutting it.
24:05But boredom is...
24:08Big time killer.
24:12I think.
24:13And when you've got something like this to do, especially,
24:15it's, uh...
24:17It gives you a sense of...
24:18Congratulations.
24:20A sense of accomplishment,
24:21which makes you feel better.
24:23It's turned out to be a great way to spend an early February afternoon.
24:28One cold day follows another now.
24:31Tonight, the temperature will fall to 32 below.
24:35Tomorrow, 35 below.
24:38A lot of time will be spent indoors.
24:40I did think that perhaps in January I would be a bit bored,
24:46or get...
24:47If it was going to be extremely cold,
24:50to perhaps get a bit bored.
24:53But January flew by, and February's flying by.
24:55I don't have enough time.
24:57I'm not bored one bit.
25:01Tim gets busy making willow furniture and crafts.
25:05The mud and mosquitoes of summer all but forgotten
25:07in the quiet comfort of the Treadway cabin.
25:16Not bad, eh? Works good.
25:19What you doing?
25:21Building a chair.
25:23Getting better.
25:24Got an outhouse so far.
25:25I'm going to go hard.
25:29What?
25:31What?
25:33Now, what I want you to do,
25:35is to sit in this thing,
25:36and see if it's even got any comfort in it.
25:37It doesn't look comfortable.
25:38Oh, it is.
25:39Is it?
25:40Oh, it is, yeah.
25:41Oh.
25:42Oh, it's so wonderful, isn't it?
25:44Oh, it's wonderful.
25:45It's wonderful.
25:46These could be a bit higher.
25:48Stinky armpit.
25:57Oh, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. These could be a bit higher.
26:11Stinky armpit. Craig! Definitely need deodorant.
26:17Now don't have too much fun or we won't use this.
26:20We need soap for washing dishes, for washing our clothes, having a bath.
26:29Nothing the matter with that.
26:33Well, we made this a couple of days ago.
26:38We rendered down beef fat, some pork, lye, and a little bit of borax in it.
26:46And now we're cutting it up.
26:49The settlers, what they would do is they would, as we were reading up on this,
26:53they would make soap, enough soap, for probably a year at a time.
26:59But also they would cure it.
27:01The best amount of time for curing what we read was five years.
27:05That's a good time to let a soap cure it.
27:07I didn't realize that a soap had to cure.
27:10Well done.
27:11I didn't know what she was licking.
27:14Okay, sorry.
27:16I'm too lazy.
27:17Very friendly cow.
27:22Meanwhile, the pioneers are relieved.
27:25The horses are putting on weight and picking up energy.
27:28And with each passing day, the sun is higher in the sky.
27:32There they go, kicking up their heels.
27:49Everyone is enjoying these afternoons.
27:52Especially Tim, who's finding it's important just to spend some time on the porch.
27:57A little bit of pain in the old body that 50 years of use has to put the body to use.
28:09And it kind of gets tired after a while.
28:12I guess the knees are really taking a killing.
28:16And right now I'm having quite a hard time.
28:20Even just, oh, well it just plain hurts all the time.
28:25And you hate to complain about your health.
28:28But sometimes you just have to admit that you've got something that's bothering you.
28:32And it's been an interesting year with a few pains that I've had.
28:38But I guess when you take a 21st century softy and throw them into the 1870s,
28:45you've got a lot of work that has been put through the year.
28:50And I'm sure that, I know that the settlers, when they came over,
28:55I'm sure some of them never realized the amount of work that they would have to go through.
28:59And the difficulties, the pains in their bodies.
29:05I guess I've never felt so good physically and been to the hospital so often.
29:09Well, it's Valentine's Day, February the 14th.
29:20And I'm busy making Tim something.
29:24Shhh, don't tell him.
29:26And also it's bread making day.
29:28Started making bread this morning.
29:30It's rising over there by the stove.
29:32And by the end of the day we should have two nice loaves of bread.
29:35It's a beautiful day, it's very cold out though.
29:38Probably 20 below Fahrenheit.
29:41And that outhouse was mighty cold this morning.
29:44I think like many settlers, brought their wives over kicking and screaming.
29:52And then the transformation of a lifestyle when the spouse has that attitude change
30:00and she enjoys it and wants to be a part of it,
30:04you really move forward quickly and with tremendous sense of satisfaction
30:08and pleasure working with each other.
30:12Wow, what a lot of work.
30:14Bread with our borscht.
30:16Great, one for Alana and Frank and one for us.
30:21And it's a pin cushion but I was able to cross stitch a little hard on it.
30:25And it's funny because I wouldn't normally think to use one at home
30:28but out here it's so much easier because at night I've got them all in a little tiny wooden box
30:32and I'm always trying to pick them out and I can't see what I'm doing.
30:35So this will be great because we're doing a lot of sewing now and it's easy.
30:39So it's fun and it turned out pretty good.
30:42So it's nice to get little ideas of crafts out here because little things that you can see get done in a day
30:48are kind of encouraging rather than these big projects like quilts that take so long to do.
30:52This morning I came out and it was Valentine's Day and this was my Valentine's present from Alana.
31:01So I did this with beet juice.
31:04So it's kind of a nice surprise.
31:07Alana spends her Valentine's afternoon stoking the stove and making a quilt for her sister, Amy, who will turn 18 in a few weeks.
31:19She'll miss the celebration.
31:22I was going to actually do a few flowers like this and then just kind of frame them and hang them on the wall.
31:28But this flower took me all day. I think it took me about eight hours.
31:31You have to cut out all the little pieces of paper and sew them on paper and then attach them all and it took so long.
31:37So I thought maybe I'll just make her a quilt and then it's something that she can keep forever and it'll remind her of when we were here.
31:43So I did little things. I wrote Miss You Wanted and I have, and then I wrote her nickname here, which you can't really see, Amer, and Sis and little things.
31:52So I'm going to do this quilt and Frank's going to help me attach it, he said.
31:56Frank's discovered the 19th century classics, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Dickens.
32:01Today he's making a valiant last minute attempt at turning some deer hide into a pair of Valentine moccasins for Alana.
32:09I think you're supposed to sew with two needles. Who ever came up with this stitch before?
32:16He's got the guy trying to sew.
32:20Thanks. You didn't even know what a saddle stitch was. Shows you how much you know.
32:27Everything's too big. My dad made me want a pair of these.
32:31Oh, his were too small. You know what? Maybe they'll fit me. In which case, sorry.
32:37You've got nothing.
32:40Kate, I can just imagine what's coming.
32:46Yeah, see that's maybe just right, a little big for you.
32:51Isn't that a coincidence?
32:54So is that it for the Valentine present?
32:56I think so. Yeah, I guess.
32:57She's always telling me I spend too much time reading and not doing crafts, so I try and make her something.
33:04He's good at this kind of stuff though. He does a feeble attempt and he screws it up on purpose. That's his excuse.
33:10See, look, I can't do it.
33:11Look, I've made, I got all these forms, I was measuring her feet, everything was down.
33:19You know, look at this.
33:20Look at how you've been bled all over it.
33:21I cut myself, I was bleeding all over it.
33:23It's early March and sleigh rides have become a pleasure, especially on sunny afternoons traveling down the old settler's trail to Lindsay Hamill's farm.
33:42In fact, the sun is already chasing winter away, and that's turning out to be a problem.
33:49Yeah, we're pretty well down to just the trails like we're on today.
33:52They still have snow.
33:54The roads have all, the snow's melted off of all the roads and gone to gravel.
33:59And so we can't take the sleigh on there.
34:01So we're going to have to be switching to the wagon soon.
34:04But for where our, our places and everything, we have to, we can only get in there with the sleigh.
34:10You know, we need the wagon for the road and the sleigh for the homestead type thing.
34:15Hopefully we don't, you know, if we get a big snow storm, then we're going to have to be switching back to the wagon.
34:20And this thing, this box to change back and forth, I think it takes five or six guys to do so.
34:25No blizzard yet though.
34:26No, no big blizzard yet.
34:28Are we tempting the gods by saying that?
34:30Yeah, I hope we can stay away.
34:32But, you know, but the way our luck is going, we're going to have four feet, probably in April.
34:37There'll be snow till June, I'm sure.
34:45Frank's picking up some high quality grain from the Hamels, something the pioneers have to do to keep the horses in top form.
34:52For a moment, Frank steps into the 21st century, then returns to the past.
35:02For now, Tim's making the most of his free time.
35:15It's unlikely willow furniture would have been a priority in the 1870s, but then these pioneers have no reason to cut next year's firewood or prepare for another crop.
35:28And more and more, it's becoming hard not to think about that.
35:44We know leaving is coming up. We know we've kind of done a lot of the pioneer stuff here.
35:50And so that's what's hard. Once in a while we feel guilty and think we've got to get more in the pioneer mindset and we can't because we're thinking of leaving and what we're going to do later.
35:59And that's so important because we've got the rest of our life ahead of us where before we just wanted to survive and oh geez, I hope we get through the cold and I hope our animals are okay.
36:08And we had enough else to worry about and now we know we've kind of done it and it's going to be okay.
36:12And unless something absolutely tragic happens, we're here and nothing's going to make us leave.
36:17So yeah, it's a bit different that way.
36:20You know, we don't have the same mindset that they did. We don't have the same motivation. You know, we have our minds are now going three months from now where we're going to be going totally different than where they'd be going.
36:31And we've been getting so much sleep that sometimes now we wake up in the middle of the night and just start chatting. We did that again last night.
36:37I got up to stock the stove at two. I was wide awake. It's like I was done sleeping for the night.
36:41So I lay there for about an hour and a half and I'm like, Frank, talk to me. Let's dream.
36:46In the last two weeks, he's been an engineer, a pilot, an RCMP and a plain old millwright.
36:52And I've been a nurse, a stay-at-home mom. We've had kids. We haven't had kids. We've had two. We've had one.
36:58What else have we done? We've moved to the bush. We've moved kind of to the bush.
37:02We've moved to Manitoba. We've said screw it. We've got a condo.
37:04We've moved to Ontario. We've moved to BC.
37:06So there's never a dollar on deer. I'm like tearing the edge here.
37:10I have to sleep exactly like this, otherwise nothing works.
37:13The future will just have to wait.
37:15Frank and Alana must sleep on this straw mattress for a while longer,
37:19with only logs and moss between them and the great outdoors.
37:23We read they used to have holes in them up on the top so that you could move them around.
37:27So that might be something we end up doing.
37:29I think there's a lot of mold on this side. This side, too.
37:32Look at the wall back there. Oh, see, it's, ugh.
37:35It's wet. That's where it's all molding and coming through. It's pretty gross.
37:40In the pioneers' world, the basic comforts are never taken for granted.
37:46Even these ticks, stuffed with straw, need regular maintenance.
37:50Check it out or go. See if you can.
37:54Maybe not.
37:56We'll just plop it down.
37:58The work helps fill the winter afternoons with a sense of purpose and some laughter.
38:04How are we going to sleep on that?
38:14Nice and soft.
38:18Do you think we have too much in?
38:22Maybe not.
38:24The evening chores belong to Alana and Frank.
38:50They punctuate the end of each and every day.
38:53The routine is helping the pioneers face down the winter.
39:04And they've settled on a relationship that makes the two couples more like neighbours than family.
39:09Most nights, Frank and Alana eat alone, the evening meal just a quick stop in their cabin.
39:15Then after supper, it's hay and oats for the horses, barley mash for the cow, eggs to collect, and they're still milking to do.
39:23The sunlight lingers into the evening now, and it's welcome.
39:35The casualty's birthday is back in the summer, which is not very silky, and it's kind of a similar kind.
39:39It's a special of the sea.
39:41It's a special of the sea and a man for the sea.
39:45This is a special of the sea so that the sea has been cooked for us.
39:48It's a special of the sea.
39:50And that's why the sea is laying in the sea.
39:52This is a special of the sea.
39:53The sea was purchased in the sea.
39:54It's done so much.
39:55It's planned for the sea.
39:56It's just been asked for the sea.
39:57So that's it for a nice day.
39:58I'm still feeling like a pioneer.
40:22My mindset is still, I'm still trying to be a pioneer.
40:26Father, we thank you for this food that you've given to us.
40:30In Jesus' name, amen.
40:31I thought about this lately, about, you know, the name of this documentary is Pioneer Quest.
40:38We're trying to be pioneers.
40:40Are we doing that?
40:42Can we do that?
40:44And I think perhaps 95% were there.
40:48Obviously we're not 100% like a pioneer would be living back then with the pressures that
40:53a pioneer would have, thinking about this next year, thinking about what kind of a crop
40:58we're going to be having.
41:00But in the present sense of the word, I think we are living as much of a pioneer life as possible
41:07with just a few bits of the 21st century creeping in.
41:12No, we aren't even, we aren't even talking about what we're going to do when we get out
41:17of here.
41:20It's one thing that we miss out here is music.
41:26I think probably that's the one thing I miss the most is music.
41:31So we've had to make our own.
41:36The song is a gospel ballad sung here in Portuguese.
41:44Tim and Diana learned it doing missionary work abroad.
41:48Faith has sustained them here through illness and hard times as it must have done for pioneers
41:53in an earlier time.
42:15Frank and Alana came here last June with the dream of a pure pioneer experience.
42:21Sometimes the past seemed elusive, but here it's real.
42:26It's been 253 days since they last stepped out of a hot shower.
42:31And there are many more days just like this one to come.
42:45The evening ends with a video diary.
42:55From the beginning, it's been a chance for Frank and Alana to sum up the day's events,
42:59and make some sense of an experience that welds the past and the present together.
43:04And we were talking today, too, about how it's staying lighter, longer, which is so nice
43:08for us, especially doing evening chores.
43:09Yeah, it's really making a difference doing chores that we're not having to do them in
43:12the dark and not having to use a lantern.
43:14And we stay awake past 8 o'clock now, so it's kind of nice.
43:16Yeah, we're staying up late.
43:18Stay up till 10.
43:19The only thing is, then we have to find something to do for that extra hour and we stay up.
43:22Oh, boy.
43:23It's just 100 more pages we'll read of our books.
43:26Another square to quilt.
43:30That's it?
43:31Yeah.
43:36Half the time, like, to us, life out here is just simple and it's nice and quiet and easy.
43:42Where, probably, if you stuck the normal person in the living room out here, right now it would
43:46drive them nuts and they wouldn't know how to handle it.
43:48Normal is keyword.
43:49Yeah, a normal person out here.
43:51You know, the fact that just how we are, you know, staying in front of each other,
43:55going to the washroom or just what you wash in or, you know, just having to, getting
43:59used to going out at minus 30 is just like nothing.
44:02We are losing perspective because I remember when we first applied for this and we heard
44:05that there wouldn't be toilet paper, we thought it was a joke.
44:07I remember thinking, that's crazy.
44:09Why would I do that?
44:11And, you know, this is all stuff we've gotten used to and it's kind of a weird thing because
44:15after this, I think, you could really do absolutely anything crazy and weird in life because
44:20stick somewhere in a situation, if you have to, you'll get used to it.
44:23No matter how extreme it probably is.
44:26She's on your side, Frank.
44:46It's been a good day, haven't you?
44:47Yeah.
44:53Good night.
44:56Good night.
45:02This is just incredible because this is the one potato that we harvested last year from our
45:09potato crop from two 75 pound bags of seed potatoes that we planted.
45:14I kept this one.
45:16I just wanted to keep it because we did have one.
45:18This is the only thing we got out of 70, 150 pounds of potatoes.
45:24Yes.
45:25But isn't this incredible?
45:27Now it's sprouting.
45:28Maybe it'll grow into 150 pounds of potatoes.
45:31There's a real lesson in this, you know, that this thing had to die because it was completely dead.
45:36And here it's sprouting.
45:37Let's take a real close look at it.
45:41Well, it's March 15th today and it's my little sister Amy's birthday today, her 18th birthday.
45:47So I made her quilt and she gets it today and I so badly wish I could see her face and just see
45:53how happy she's when she gets it, hopefully.
45:55So happy birthday, Amy.
45:57She's got a lot of time on her hands.
45:59She's got a lot of time on her hands.
46:02She's got a lot of time on her hands.
46:04So that's about it.
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