Freedom Graphics Press
West Side Stories
by Ross Urquhart
ISBN: 978-0-9812906-6-9
94 pages 6.5 x 9 inches
$ 15.00 CDN
Welcome to the Old West!
Trappers, hunters, prospectors, heroes and homesteaders are all here for us to discover.
A delightful collection of short stories recalling the pioneer days of a still-rugged country, this book makes a welcome addition to the rich history of Lytton and the area around it.
Ross Urquhart wrote these short stories after interviewing many of the elders who lived the adventures he relates. For those that he could not meet in person, he gathered stories, bits and pieces, from the many interviews he had with the people who knew them. Ross was also able to have access to unpublished journals.
We are told of Roger, who, with his wife and two small children, tried to secretly homestead in the Stein in 1912. After a short, somewhat successful, stint of farming and trapping, he disappeared, leaving his wife and children to forage on their own. Ross tells us what happened to the unfortunate Roger, and to his family when he did not return.
What was the mystery of the haunted campsite, where there were voices, but no people?
We are told of the Hicks brothers and their years of trapping and prospecting — the Phillips brothers and their effort to save a bullet. How Adam Klein, a Saskatchewan farm boy became a trapper and Lytton pioneer. He relates the tale of how, in front of a gathering of band members, the Indian Doctors’ personal guardians, an eagle and a marten, sprang to life, fighting almost to the death.
We learn why Frank Gott, a pioneer, hunting guide and the oldest man to serve in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I, was hunted down by a posse and shot, and why the bullet that should have killed him didn’t.
And, we are taken for a quick tour of the Stein River Valley, told of the sasquatch and introduced to another side of the grizzly bear.