The Early Days

There has been little permanent settlement in the Fishing Lakes region. This is largely because the main water routes of the Churchill and Saskatchewan Rivers bypass it. However, the area, with its abundant wildlife, has always been a rich source of livelihood for all who used it.

The first records date from the early 1900’s, when as many as twenty families from Fort A La Corne and Little Red River, located on the southern fringes of the forest belt, made annual winter trips up to upper Fishing Lake by horse and travios. Others made their treks from the west, around East Trout Lake and Nipamew Lake.

Such people as Joe and William Head, Sam Brittain and Alex Daniels used the Narrow Hills and Fishing Lakes trails to reach the area. Once there, they camped on the Jack pine ridges to hunt, fish and trap throughout the winter months. They know the Narrow Hills as"Elk Mountain" and it has been said that one hundred and thirty-five Elk were taken in one winter.

These annual treks were continued until 1945. Often the men left their families at Upper Fishing Lake and moved North to trap the Churchill River country, bringing the furs south to sell to the traders at Fort A La Corne. These treks were not without a great price, however. One of these early trappers, a man by the name of Sam Brittain, saw his young children die of pneumonia here. He buried them close to the east shore of Upper Fishing Lake. The graves remained there up until 1974, when new rights of way were cleared to straighten the Hansen Lake road. The Department of Highways moved the graves to Fort A La Corne.

During the great depression, when the lean years hit the prairies, more people headed north to the Narrow Hills area to trap. But even by the early part of the 1920’s, several white trappers had joined the Native Indians in the area.

Among the earliest ones to come to the area was a young Norwegian, Named Olaf Hansen. Hansen arrived via British Columbia and Ontario to trap between White Gull Lake and Candle Lake over the 1919 –1920 winter.

In 1923, he helped build Gilmor Cabin, located on the Torch River, between Snowden and Choiceland. It served as headquarters for the Federal Departments of the Interior through the late 1920’s. This cabin was later destroyed in a fire in 1939.

In the fall of1924, Hansen left the service and settled on the Little Bear Lake. He became the first person to commercially fish the lake. He remained there for several years, trapping and fishing with partners. In 1928, he moved to Big Sandy Lake to pioneer the commercial fishing industry there. He was to move again the following winter to try his luck on Deschambault Lake and Jan Lake.

For many years after this Olaf Hansen worked as a diamond driller out of Flin Flon, Manitoba before his retirement to Prince Albert. It was Hansen who located the route of the road which was to be named after him – the Hansen Lake road.

Frank Clark was another early trapper. Clark and Hansen worked together as what was called then, "Rover Game Guardians" in the early 1920’s. In 1929, Clark also settled on the north shore of Little Bear Lake. He was to live there for the next thirty-three years, until his death in 1962. He died of a heart attack near his cabin.

Clark was remembered as a kind, friendly man who welcomed visitors. He trapped and fished commercially during the winter months while guiding angers and hunters as well as tending to a productive flower and vegetable garden during the summer months.

Frank Clark survived many incidents involving bears and wolves. He is said to have even survived a cougar who appeared on his cabin roof one morning. He always wore a muskrat hat and swore it once saved his hide from an angry mother bear.

Clark’s grave can still be found close to the site of his cabin. Clark Bay, near the second narrows on the Little Bear Lake, was named after him.

In 1930, Edward Beatty moved his family north from Kinistino, Saskatchewan to Caribou Creek. The following year they moved again, this time to the west shore of Big Sandy Lake. It was here they lived until their home was destroyed by a forest fire in the late1940’s. After this, they settled on the north shore of Big Sandy an area still trapped by the Beatty sons, Oliver, Oscar, and John.

Edward Beatty was one tough man. His son, Oliver, recalls his father packing one hundred pounds of flour for several miles, and he would often run for about ten miles behind a dog team without resting.

Another man, who was to figure prominately in the area, arrived in the late1920’s. Born in Quebec, Henry Fournier moved to Saskatchewan in 1917 and began fishing and trapping in the Montreal Lake area in 1920. In 1925, he settled on the West Side of Little Bear Lake. Here he trapped and fished before taking a job as Fire Patrolman during the summer months.

Fournier was well known for raising and training sled dogs, which he supplied to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, among others. His own black lead-dog, "Nipper", was part wolf.

By 1938,Fournier was working seasonally for the department of Highways in the winter and Resources in the summer. This was in addition to his regular trapping. In 1949, he moved to Montreal Lake. Here he started a sawmill and store. Four years later, he sold his trap-line to Bert Lien, finally leaving in 1961 for a sawmill job in Williams Lake, B.C.

In 1920’sand 1930’s saw the coming and going of various partnership combinations. Most of them had moved north to homestead the forest fringes, turning to trapping in order to supplement their meagre incomes.

The roll call presented men like Jack Forrester, Melvin Johnson, Joe Johnson, Garry Parker, Ben Griffiths, Ted Brown, Martin Lumen, Nels Martenson, Mels Perrson, Henry Millar and Ted Updike. These men spent years trapping, hunting, and fishing around the Fishing Lakes with many different partners over the years. Some of these, like Melvin and Joe Johnson, Gary Parker, Ben Griffiths and Ted Updike also worked for the Federal and Provincial Governments as Game Guardians, Forest Rangers or Fire Patrolman.