DAVIDSON—“Who lived here before Grandma and Grandpa?”
This was a question Joan Soggie said she asked her parents as a child. She was curious to know the story of those who had lived on the land where her parents farmed near Beechy.
She grew up on the edge of the Matador Ranch so she was always aware of the native prairie.
She also knew of teepee rings and buffalo rub stones. She heard stories, so she had to ask about who had lived there before.
“It always bothered me we didn’t know the history of our own land,” she said.
The answers to her questions go back hundreds even thousands of years. Unsatisfied with the answers to the questions she’d received, which only seemed to cover the area’s recent history of European settlement, Soggie completed a life-long quest by writing a book to answer them.
In her book “Looking for Aiktow; Stories Behind the History of the Elbow of the South Saskatchewan River” Soggie takes the reader on a journey not only back in time but also down the South Saskatchewan, a river that was as vital to the land and its people hundreds of years ago as it is today.
“This is like a memoir to the land,” Soggie said. “It gives validation to this part of the world.”
The story is told chronologically. She uses first-hand, documented accounts wherever possible.
The focus of the book is the Elbow and the South Saskatchewan river and its valley.
Readers get to journey down the uncharted river with Peter Fidler in 1800 as the Hudson’s Bay Company’s man navigates through Cree, Blackfoot and Gros Ventre territory. Other adventurers, traders and explorers follow, as do their accounts and interactions with legendary chiefs such as the great Plains Cree Chief Mistickoos.
Soggie takes great care in documenting the first nations peoples who lived and hunted at the Elbow. She details bison hunts as witnessed by explorers of the day. She includes a story of the Elbow massacre as passed down through oral tradition by its lone survivor.
Soggie married and moved to Elbow in 1964 just as plans for the South Saskatchewan River Project were forging ahead.
To read more, please see the Nov. 17, 2014 edition of The Davidson Leader. To subscribe, phone 306-567-2047