Next Year A SEMI-HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE EXPLOITS AND EXPLOITATIONS OF THE FAR-FAMED BARR COLONISTS, WHO, LED BY AN UNSCRUPULOUS CHURCH OF ENGLAND PARSON, ADVENTURED DEEP INTO THE WILDERNESS OF CANADA'S GREAT NORTH-WEST IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY _By_ HARRY PICK (Barr Colonist) THE RYERSON PRESS TORONTO Copyright, Canada, 1928, by HARRY PICK To ALL BARR COLONISTS, PARTICULARLY THOSE WHO AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ARE STILL STAYING WITH OLD BRITANNIA, AND TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE BRAVE SPIRITS WHO HAVE PASSED ON, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED Extract from the Montreal Gazette of April 11th, 1903 "St. John, N.B.--Four special trains, carrying the Barr Colonists, numbering 1,960, left here to-day for the Saskatoon district, where the new Canadians will establish homes and cities. The party, which is declared to be the greatest emigration from England since the departure of William Penn, arrived Saturday morning on the steamship _Lake Manitoba_, whose cargo of humanity was packed like fish in a box. The colonists bring with them half a million pounds sterling. They are probably the finest body of men, women and children that ever landed here. Lawyers, doctors, clergymen, merchants, aristocrats, farmers, clerks, artizans, domestics, tradeswomen and labourers are included, besides babies by the score. On the passage, which occupied eleven days, there was not a death or a case of serious illness on the congested ship. Rev. I. M. Barr, the organizer of the party, is a brisk, business-like man, who is full of enthusiasm over the prospects of his scheme. He says 1,500 more colonists are to follow, and that 10,000 will come next year." CONTENTS CHAPTER Author's Note I. A Fight--Choosing land at Sea II. Two Skeleton Biographies III. Saskatoon--Acquiring Transport IV. Saskatoon--Buying Machinery V. Saskatoon--William Trailey VI. Saskatoon--A Temperance Lecture VII. Saskatoon--Martha Trailey VIII. On to Battleford IX. An Early Morning Shoot X. Indian Freighters--Eagle Creek XI. A May Snow-storm XII. Tragi-Comedy in an Alkali Flat XIII. Battleford XIV. Prairie Fires XV. Black Desolation XVI. The End of the Trek XVII. Land-Hunting XVIII. Wilderness--Planning for Next Year AUTHOR'S NOTE When the S.S. _Lake Manitoba_ carried two thousand all-British Barr Colonists across the Atlantic a quarter of a century ago, she didn't exactly cover herself with glory. Her Board of Trade passenger rating was eight hundred odd. In one cabin for'ard there were packed three hundred human beings--single men; or what practically amounted to the same thing (as a facetious wag whose wife had run off with the milkman put it)--married men travelling without their wives.