Article content continued

It took on average 22 days to travel its length at a rate of about 40 miles per day — but only if the weather cooperated. The trail was also heavily rutted in places from the constant freight traffic and presented something of a nightmare because of the mud holes, some deep enough to swallow a wagon up to its box.

Despite these challenges, the Carlton Trail functioned for several decades as a major transportation artery in the western interior. Indeed, most visitors to the region in the mid-19th century invariably travelled a section of the road by foot, horseback, or cart.

On the other hand, those who depended on the trail for their livelihood quickly learned its ways. Among them was James Clinkskill, a Scottish merchant who set up a general store in Battleford in the early 1880s.

Mail service left Winnipeg for Edmonton every three weeks, and Clinkskill would sometimes tag along with his supplies shipment, even during winter. The fare from Winnipeg to Battleford was $75. But passengers had to feed themselves and be prepared for “a spell” every four hours when the animals were rested and fed and a great kettle of tea was made.

For the uninitiated — in other words, first-time users of the trail — it was a different story.

That included Erastus Lawrence, his wife Lydia and their three children, Susan, Fred, and Fenwick, who travelled the trail in the late spring and summer of 1879.

The Lawrence diary of the trip, available today at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, is full of references to never-ending mud holes, especially one section of trail called “emigrants’ terror.” The frequent thundershowers — what Erastus jokingly called camping “by electric light” — only made matters worse.