WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

The Edmonton Journal regularly set aside the third column on its editorial page for submissions from freelance writers, of which Cruickshank was an occasional contributor over the years. His columns frequently focused on his life growing up as a homesteader with his father and brother who had all immigrated from Scotland in 1905 to Barrhead, Canada along the famed Klondike Trail, just to the northwest of Fort Edmonton.

It’s Wednesday, so here’s another of Cruickshank’s Third Columns—this time Cruickshank tells of his first Christmas homesteading.

The Third Column

by Harold F. Cruickshank • Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Canada • Tuesday, 23 December 1952

Homestead Christmas

MY FIRST Christmas Day in the bush country was intensely cold. But let me begin with Christmas Eve. I had been at the home of our nearest neighbors for a week, doing chores during the absence of the men of the family in Edmonton. My father had joined the party. In fact it a was our team of horses which made that trip, then a long, cold one over inadequate trails—our team, and the neighbors’ sleigh.

I cut firewood, fed and watered the stock. These duties today might sound light, but then, they involved much effort. I had to cut a fresh hole in heavy creek ice each morning, for water for the stock. When the creek suddenly went dry, we had to melt snow for ail the stock, as the supply in the well was only sufficient for household requirements.

* * *

It was a time of homesickness for me; so far away from home, this first Christmas season in the wilds.

In the crisp, early dusk of Christmas Eve, as the skies were changing from their sharp claret, or plum shades to that steel-grayish purple which in winter precedes the cold, metallic blue of night. I had a scarcely finished my evening chores when I heard the musical jangle of sleigh bells and the screech and grind of sleigh runners.

The folk were indeed on schedule, and how I thrilled to it!

After taking over the team for stabling and care, I joined the happy group in the shack, where many gifts were being passed round.

As a boy of only thirteen, I could have been excused a bit of covetousness as I saw those gifts being handed out, with none for me. At last, though, one of the party, a man I had never previously met, a contractor in town who had just come out to be with his wife and daughter, took from his pocket an old dollar watch and gave it to me.

I was speechless. This was my very first watch and my only present on my first wilderness Christmas away from home. How I treasured that worn old timepiece!

Supper over, we were asked to sing some Christmas songs and hymns, and were invited to join our neighbors for Christmas dinner the following day.

Then came the time to hitch up and move back to our own shack.

Never did I see a more uninviting place—a colder shack! I can still remember the sight of its two small south windows, leering at the bush from either side of the wretched door.

A day or so later, I brought in a huge sack of Christmas mail for all the neighbors. and was severely kicked and cut up by the wild bronc I rode.

Out of the batch of mail there was one piece for me—a large and beautiful Christmas card from my mother overseas.

* * *

I was too busy for a time to pay much attention to this card, as I nursed my leg injury, and life indeed seemed very dreary as winter intensified.

Now and then, though, the sun would burst forth for a moment or so, and here and there on hillsides or in valleys one saw many beautiful Christmas cards—patches of sheer beauty: tinseled clumps of handsome birches, flanked by red willows, and backed by the inevitable and grandiose spruce belts. It was a glittering panorama, whose stage appearance was often all too brief.

Still, I treasured that lone Christmas card. A few years later, when the good news came that my mother and the other members of our large family were coming to join us, I hit upon a plan to use the lovely card as a greeting token. I went into a stand of fine, small, silvery dry spruce and selected four slender sticks for legs for a stand for the card. To the four which I had cut to size, or so I thought, I nailed the end of a dried-apple box, but to this, my first creation, my first attempt at carpentry, wobbled. I began to cut this leg and that until my original stand of about three feet in height, measured only about sixteen inches. I decided to call a halt, placing a chip under the too-short leg.

I cannot recall that my mother even noticed the effort on her arrival, but it was an expression of the Christmas spirit . . . a very sorry job indeed, but well intended.

Today in the clamor and glamor of the Christmas season, I often think that somewhere along the way we have slipped away from this spirit which first motivated the celebration and observance of Christmas.

We must, of course, move on with the times and the trends, but still I feel that it might not hurt us if now and then we could return to the humbleness and humility of such a Christmas as I have illustrated above—in thought, at least—for, after all, the very first Christmas was born in humility and humbleness.

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. Rankin and the Box D crew try to jump the Sun Bear Valley settler’s claim on the neighboring valley by moving their cattle in to graze. The Sun Bear Valley crew try to solve their problem without any violence by bringing their sheep into the valley.

From the January 1947 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Stampede Conquest!”

When trouble-makers invade the ranchlands of Sun Bear Valley, Dal Baldwin and his friends are ready for them!

• Download “Stampede Conquest” (January 1947, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Monday when the Baldwins muster their “Frontier Courage!”

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. The Morrison’s young friend Phil Cody arrives with a view to squatting at the new valley Dal had discovered westward through the pass while Quirt Malotte’s brother arrive with two fellow horse thieving owlhoots to get even with Dal once and for all.

From the November 1946 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “The Valley Beyond!”

Dal and Mary Baldwin join other settlers in a finish fight against the horse thieves who invade Sun Bear!

• Download “The Valley Beyond” (November 1946, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Monday when the Baldwins fight back against a “Stampede Conquest!”

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

The Edmonton Journal regularly set aside the third column on its editorial page for submissions from freelance writers, of which Cruickshank was an occasional contributor over the years. His columns frequently focused on his life growing up as a homesteader with his father and brother who had all immigrated from Scotland in 1905 to Barrhead, Canada along the famed Klondike Trail, just to the northwest of Fort Edmonton.

It’s Wednesday, so here’s another of Cruickshank’s Third Columns.

The Third Column

by Harold F. Cruickshank • Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Canada • Monday, 10 March 1952

Yeepek, the Hunter

FROM day to day, in mid-winter, as I watch the capers of the inevitable sparrows—and they are quite amusing, especially when large flocks of chesty waxwings swoop down on their range—I think of another bird—a big bird: “Yeepek, the great American or Bald eagle.

Yeepek, as I knew him in the pioneer days in the wilds, was indeed a king of the skyways—a true monarch of the wilderness.

I have read a great deal about Yeepek and his kind of late. His numbers seem to have dwindled and from most accounts his species have moved on to coastal areas where their diet is chiefly fish.

Copy on the diet of the Bald eagle has been a bit too broadly presented in some of the articles. The impression has been given that everywhere, Yeepek and his kind live chiefly on fish. . . .

* * *

I had much close association with the big eagles in the early part of the century, for they were permanent residents of our frontier district, northwest of Edmonton.

Summer and winter, seldom a day passed that we did not see one or more of the big baldies. Summer and winter, one saw them planing, loafing idly, their white polls flashing in the sunlight against a sharply blue sky main. Then the shrieks, never-to-be-forgotten wild cries, and those sudden, swift plummets earthward.

In the long winters when creeks and lakes were frozen for months on end. I wonder what would have happened to the Bald eagles had their diet consisted of fish. For those long months there were no fish! Nor in springtime, when the suckers and jacks ran the creeks and lakes, did I ever see a Bald eagle fishing.

* * *

An interesting highlight of my association with the baldies occurred in the winter of 1906-07. I helped a professional trapper along his lines. In mid-winter he concentrated on coyotes which he poisoned with strychnine-impregnated bait on the frozen lakes. (The price per pelt then, $2.50.)

Occasionally a settler’s dog picked up a bait, but such occasions were rare. Now and then a fox might carry a bait some distance in its teeth, and drop it. Less crafty, a dog would find it, and—curtains for the dog!

Baits were dropped along a trail across a lake’s neck, or bay. over which trail a freshly-killed rabbit had been drawn. This operation took place in the late afternoon.

The following morning we were out in the dark, and bitterly cold it was, if you can recall that old terror of a winter of 1906-07.

Why all the hurry? YEEPEK!

At the first crack of pale dawn, the big baldies were alert. They would spot a dark object on the lakes—a poisoned coyote, perhaps still warm, and that was it! A swift plummet earthward and the eagles had their targets. Beak and talons gouged out what they could, and Yeepek would go soaring off to enjoy his meal in the sere tamarac cloisters which were his home ground and nesting place.

To give you some idea of the havoc wrought by the big bird kings, my friend and neighbor poisoned in all about one hundred and twenty coyotes during that one winter, but only brought home ninety-two for pelting. Yeepek, his “sisters, and his cousins and his aunts,” had accounted for the rest.

When spring came again we forgot the depredations of the big winged fellows. I recall having seen only one baldie shot. In those days we didn’t shoot at every moving creature, bird or animal. They had their places in the society of the frontier folk.

* * *

Yeepek. as I knew him, lived on rodents—gophers, mice and rabbits, and now and then, when smart enough to outsmart them, a duck, or grouse. More often than not the ducks, prairie chickens, and bush partridge were too clever for him. Never, to my knowledge, and I watched them closely, did the eagles fish.

Yeepek, the great symbol of the United States, was once very plentiful here in our own immediate districts—probably as numerous as on any part of the North American continent . . . a stately, magnificent sky creature who had no peer: a king in his own right—“High aloft, where none else dared follow!”

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. Looking to strengthen his horse breeding stock, Dal goes in search of King, the great wild stallion he had seen when he and Mary had first arrived in the valley, who has been absent from Sun Bear Valley and in the process discovers another valley beyond with close to two hundred and fifty acres of tillable land, and pasture range beyond.

From the August 1946 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Wild Hoof Warfare!”

Dal and Mary Baldwin seek strong stock— which leads Dal to strive for the conquest of the great King Stallion!

• Download “Wild Hoof Warfare” (August 1946, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Friday when the Baldwins explore “The Valley Beyond!”

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. The Sun Bear Valley settlers start to worry about their rights as squatters and plan to get government surveyors in to draw up their claims as a salty outfit of owlhoots lead by a nasty piece of work known as Runkin herding about a hundred head of the mangiest looking cattle heads toward their valley.

From the June 1946 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Squatters’ Law!”

Dal Baldwin and the courageous settlers of Sun Bear Valley battle bravely against Runkin’s outlaw band of pillagers!

• Download “Squatters’ Law” (June 1946, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Monday when the Baldwins find themselves in the midst of “Wild Hoof Warfare!”

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

The Edmonton Journal regularly set aside the third column on its editorial page for submissions from freelance writers, of which Cruickshank was an occasional contributor over the years. His columns frequently focused on his life growing up as a homesteader with his father and brother who had all immigrated from Scotland in 1905 to Barrhead, Canada along the famed Klondike Trail, just to the northwest of Fort Edmonton.

It’s Wednesday, so here’s another of Cruickshank’s Third Columns.

The Third Column

by Harold F. Cruickshank • Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Canada • Tuesday, 28 April 1953

Footprints of the Pathfinders

WHEN early in this century we first set foot on the hinterland sod which was to be our future home, we felt a sharp glow of the warmth which attends justifiable pride in being among the first settlers to enter a new, untamed wilderness.

It was a wild brush-and-timber-studded country, whose first trails we opened up by widening and corduroying the clefts of survey lines. . . . But those clefts, faint slashings through the bush, some of them almost closed by second growth brush, told us the story of the earliest pioneers. They were “the sign” of those unsung heroes of the northwest, the early Dominion Land Surveyors, and their pack animals.

* * *

A highlight of my first glimpse of our wilderness was, however, the standing teepee poles along high creek banks—the mark of the first folk to have set foot upon the wild sod. They told of the nomadic Cree Indian trappers who must have thrived in our country which still, in 1906, abounded in every species of wildlife, furred, feathered and antlered.

Along my own traplines—in timber or by the frozen, or bubbling creeks, and adjacent to the lakes—more than once I came across the sign of the Indian trappers, mouldering old deadfall trap-sets.

In the timbered zones one saw the scar of tree blazes which no doubt, years before, had marked the “trail” in to the carcass of a slain moose. At first, those axe signs startled one, for the forest belts seemed truly virgin and covered with leaf-mould and pine-needle carpets no feet had trod before.

First, then, were the Indian hunters and trappers, and then came those doughty men whom I have dubbed the “unsung heroes of our northwest—the Dominion Land Surveyors.

* * *

I should like to pay tribute to those pioneer surveyors. We followed their surveyed line slashings often, and they meant much to us settlers in orienting ourselves, making it possible for us to establish our boundaries, and to start building the first dim trails.

It must have been a rugged life they led, through swamp and bushland, with many a treacherous creek and river to ford, or lake to circumnavigate, harassed the while by hordes of every known species of pestiferous insect.

On one occasion, while moose hunting, I and my companions had every good reason to remember the great work of the surveyors.

Many miles from our base camp, we were struck by a blizzard, and, without a compass were, technically, lost. The leader of our party decided to head for home but, in my opinion, was heading in an altogether wrong direction. We discussed the matter at some length; then all at once it dawned on me that we had just come across an old survey-line. We back-tracked to the line and followed it until at last we reached the mound and four square holes dug at a section corner by the survey party of years before.

I asked the leader of our party if he knew the approximate legal description of our base camp area. Fortunately, he did know it. On the inside of a cigarette box I drew a miniature of a township, and from a reading of the iron stake the surveyors had driven into the ground at the base of the section corner mound of clay, I was able to determine our position. Although our leader still had doubts, we set out in exactly the opposite direction to the one he had recommended, and in due time arrived at the little creek, close to our base cabin.

I thanked heaven for those old-time dominion land surveyors who had made our return possible.

* * *

In my opinion, an opinion which, I am sure, is shared by many an old-time settler, the Dominion Land Surveyor, his chainman, and his cooks, well deserve a plaque or monument in their honor and memory. Their doughty, skillful, work, under trying conditions, contributed more than any other factor to progress and development here in Alberta in the past half-century or so.

It is true that some adventuresome settlers were in ahead of the surveyors, settling under “squatter’s rights,” but they were comparatively few in number, so to the surveyors must go the honor and acclaim of having made the first pioneer footprints on the land.

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. Doc runs afoul of Malotte the half-breed who has returned to rustle Dal’s horses and another wagon arrives in the valley with more settlers—The Morrisons—Jud and Olga, their eleven year old fraternal twins Martin and Maureen and eldest son Jack who is married to Rhona and has three young kids of his own—little baby Jud, five months; Nell, four, and Ollie, five. With little Jimmy Baldwin a husky four year old now and his recently born younger brother Tenby, looks like Sun Bear Valley will be needing the services of the Morrison’s niece who is a school-marm.

From the April 1946 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Wilderness Justice!”

A feared rustler returns to Sun-Bear Valley and threatens the happiness of Dal and Mary Baldwin in their new home!

• Download “Wilderness Justice” (April 1946, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Friday when the Baldwins establish “Squatters’ Law!”

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. The Sun Bear settlers are menaced by Mishe, the she-grizzly, and Acheeta, the cougar and Dal knew that to grizzly and cougar alike, there was no more succulent food in all the wilds than young horseflesh. In a night, either species of varmint could wipe out the whole of Dal’s horse stock and his cow and her calf as well.

From the February 1946 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Terror Neighbors!”

Dal and Mary Baldwin face the supreme test of their courage when four-footed death comes stealing into Sun-Bear Valley!

• Download “Terror Neighbors” (February 1946, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Monday when the Baldwins seek “Wilderness Justice!”

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

The Edmonton Journal regularly set aside the third column on its editorial page for submissions from freelance writers, of which Cruickshank was an occasional contributor over the years. His columns frequently focused on his life growing up as a homesteader with his father and brother who had all immigrated from Scotland in 1905 to Barrhead, Canada along the famed Klondike Trail, just to the northwest of Fort Edmonton.

It’s Wednesday, so here’s another of Cruickshank’s Third Columns.

The Third Column

by Harold F. Cruickshank • Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Canada • Saturday, 23 May 1953

Bad Seasons and Good

AFTER forty-seven years of residence in these latitudes, I have found that nature balances her seasons fairly well. Over the long term and as a whole, we haven’t suffered too much through weather capers.

I think today, especially, of our first springtime in this country our first spring (question mark) in the hinterland.

We had trekked in, in the summer of 1906, and had somehow thrived as we survived that most terrible winter on record, the winter of 1906-07. We had, by back-breaking toll, with other work accomplished, cleared five acres of heavy willow-studded land. When the snows at last started to melt, we looked eagerly to the firing of the brush piles, the plowing and the sowing of that first patch of “chocolate-loam” soil. (The descriptive phrase is from publicity pamphlets we had read In Britain in 1905.)

We had, in the winter, hauled in seed oats a distance of seventy miles, over drifted trails. We now saw miniature creeks become raging rivers, for the snow had been heavy, and the spring season tardy indeed.

As I remember it, it was the first week in June before we, at last, got our first few bushels of oats harrowed in.

Five acres of oats! How insignificant now, but how important then! We watched for the first green blades to shoot up through the inadequately tilled sod. When we saw them, we were thrilled!

It was a reward, indeed, for those endless days of toil—grubbing out those horrible willow clumps with axe and mattock, or grub-hoe.

* * *

We were informed by more experienced settlers that the crops of 1907 would never ripen. We were more optimistic, especially as we watched the rapid growth of the green oats.

The “more experienced” settlers were right: An early frost struck the ripening grain and all we had for our efforts was feed oats, though that was something. We had a fairly good harvest of feed oats. Our horses would need them, in bundles and as threshed grain. Sadly enough, though, my father, who in his boyhood had herded sheep in the Highlands of Scotland, bought a small band of sheep. He had visions of quick-turn-over—lambs and wool crop. We, his two sons and George, a youth we had brought out with us, had visions of endless sheep-herding in a wild, coyote-infested wilderness. . . .

Our “visions,” pessimistic as they were, bore material fruit. . . .

It might have been better, or not so bad, had it not been for Samantha-Jane, the bell ewe. Samantha-Jane was the homeliest, most exasperating creature I have ever known—a she-devil if there ever was one.

Tall, rich peavine grass grew close to the homestead area, but Samantha-Jane spurned it. She started out at a trot and kept trotting, always for distant pastures. The flock followed, and of course the herder tried to follow, or to swing the flock back. Samantha-Jane led us over, under, or through twisted labyrinths of fallen brush and timber, through mazes of rosebush scrub, alders, and willows, in her ceaseless search for heaven knew what.

A year or so later, we were extremely sorry for a young Scot who bought the sheep band, when he had the misfortune to fall into a swollen creek. We regarded him as our greatest friend, for he was taking Samantha-Jane away. He was rescued, of course; so were the sheep. . . . Needless to say, Samantha-Jane was the first ashore.

I feel reasonably sure that if, today, I could take a trip up to some of those old haunts. I would see her impudent, mottled face leering at me through a port in a rosebush maze, and hear her blatting. . . .

* * *

Up in the wilds, in those early days, we learned to take the bitter with the better. We established a sense of gratitude for the “better,” which helped us to forget the bitter.

Then, there were no drive-in theatres, or local baseball tournaments, or radios, or regular mail service. . . . We were happy enough, after riding through muskeg or circumnavigating swampland, to be able to pick up long overdue mail which might include a seed catalogue, a letter or newspaper from the homefolk, or that always welcome periodical—the fat weekly which came from Montreal.

* * *

Soon, again, June will be “bustin’ out all over,” and we shall be able to forget all about a rather miserable April, as we bounce right into summer.

But, for those readers who cannot agree with me, there is the philosophy of that priceless frontline character, Old Bill: “If you know of a better ’ole, go to it. . .”

After nearly half a century hereabouts, this writer is sticking around. He wants to see what John Ducey’s Eskimos have to offer and what those other Eskimos, in football harness, will have to offer. . .

Old Lady Nature will take care of our crops. . . . Just wait and see!

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. Another family arrives in the valley in the form of Tom and Ella Bruce and their infant daughter. Unfortunately for Dal, they took the advice of that rascally half-breed Quirt Malotte on their way there and their dog and flock of sheep they’ve brought with them arrive first and trample through Dal’s crop and Mary’s garden. The Bruces more than make up for it when lightning touches off a fire in the valley.

From the December 1945 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Red Harvest!”

Dal Baldwin and his wife Mary can even forgive woollies when a sheepman comes to their aid in a time of trial!

• Download “Red Harvest” (December 1945, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Friday when the Baldwins find themselves with “Terror Neighbors!”

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. The Baldwins are settled in to their cabin in Sun Bear Valley, but an old nemesis returns and a new couple arrive in the valley just as Mary is about to give birth.

From the Fall 1945 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Spring Borning!”

New life visits Sun-Bear Valley, but not without bringing back an old terror for courageous Dal Baldwin to battle!

• Download “Spring Borning” (Fall 1945, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Monday when the Baldwins face the terrifying “Red Harvest!”

THIS holiday season, we’re going to celebrate it with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshanks Pioneer Folk stories of young couple of homesteaders trying to establish a life and home for themselves in the wild west from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952).

We’ll be pairing these with Cruickshank’s own recollections of his life as a homesteader in Barrhead, Canada before The Great War that appeared in the Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column feature during the ‘50. The Edmonton Journal regularly set aside the third column on its editorial page for submissions from freelance writers, of which Cruickshank was an occasional contributor over the years. His columns frequently focused on his life growing up as a homesteader with his father and brother who had all immigrated from Scotland in 1905 to Barrhead, Canada along the famed Klondike Trail, just to the northwest of Fort Edmonton.

Let’s get the ball rolling with one of Cruickshank’s Third Columns.

The Third Column

by Harold F. Cruickshank • Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Canada • Tuesday, 8 September 1953

Of Homesteading Days

NOT all tales from the pioneer days were “tall” tales . . . Some extraordinary characters moved in to settle the wild land.

A good example was a lone newcomer who, after introducing himself, vanished into the heavy brush to the south of us. We saw nothing of him for several weeks; we were very busy: he waa very busy.

One night, a friend and I decided to visit some more distant newcomers and had to trek through the bushland of the “mystery” man’s homestead.

We were suddenly startled by weird, banshee-like shrieks or wails which seemed muted by some muffler. We were a bit afraid of the very ground we stood on. But we moved on and in time reached a small clearing and smelled wood-smoke, but there was no shack!

Finally, we came to a flat sod roof, close to the ground, a roof through which protruded a stovepipe and a split-pole ventilator shaft.

Part of the mystery was solved, the newcomer had constructed a dugout-type shack. Neatly cut clay steps led us down to a split-pole door. The caterwauling had ceased, but as we hesitated at the door it broke out again. However, this time it was recognizable as a series of skillfully-lipped scales on a cornet.

Our new neighbor was a professional musician. He made us welcome, and we admired his cosy little dugout. After much persuasion, he treated us to some very fine numbers on his cornet.

Some time later, he packed the instrument and the rest of his belongings and moved silently away. We never saw him again.

* * *

ONE of the earliest settlers to the north of us was a delightful, widely-traveled Irish bachelor I shall call “Doc.”

Doc had tired of circling the globe and decided to try his luck in our wild country. A great horseman, he brought in some excellent saddle stock, among which was a handsome Arabian gelding.

One evening, as he finished his lone supper at his shack, he heard human voices. Since he was about the first settler in his district, his interest was aroused; such sounds were a rarity. Moreover, these were of special interest because they included voices in the feminine register.

Outside, through a light drizzle of rain, he located the wagon outfit, bogged down. Doc could have walked, but he saddled up the Arab steed and galloped down to execute a swashbuckling rescue.

The party, of Scots, included a lovely, titian-haired girl, who at once sent Doc’s heart into a series of cartwheels. . . He commenced to plan.

Doc got the outfit bog-hauled to dry ground and whipped up a supper for them; then, mounting his horse, he piloted them on to their homestead area. He hustled the sons, getting up tents. When all were secure for the night, and Bessie, the cow, was safely tethered. Doc rode away.

He was back the next day. and the next, and the next, always eager to lend a hand. He was welcome, too, until the old skipper suspected that he was paying too much attention to his lovely daughter. Then, Doc got the cold shoulder.

* * *

DOC just stayed away, until one morning, bright and early, he happened to be riding the north line, past the Scottish camp and saw that the party was in despair. The womenfolk hailed him, but he rode on. . .

A “sudden change of heart,” however, halted him. He turned his horse and rode into camp.

Tearfully, the mother told of the disappearance of Bessie, the cow. Doc shook his head sympathetically. Cautioning them to remain in camp, lest they become lost, he promised to hunt through the entire township, and rode on into the bush.

At sunset, it was the lovely red-head who first spotted the weary rider coming up the survey-line. It was Doc, spent from the hunt, but successful. He led the slow-moving Bessie.

Doc was at once proclaimed a hero!

In due time, he and the titian-haired beauty were married.

For the conclusion of this tale, it would be best to quote what Doc said, in the presence of his wife, to my wife and me:

“What the old folks never did know,” he said with a sly chuckle, “was that, the night before all the excitement, I’d sneaked up, untethered Bessie, and trailed her to the bush near my place. There I kept her until the time was ripe for the big show, rescue and restoration and”—he smiled mischievously at his wife—”reward!”

THIS week we have a story from the short-lived Sky Devils magazine by Anthony Field. Anthony Field was a pseudonym used by Anatole Feldman who specialized in gangland fiction—appearing primarily in Harold Hersey’s gang pulps, Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, and Gangland Stories. His best-known creation is Chicago gangster Big Nose Serrano. But he also wrote a number of aviation stories including four stories for Sky Devils featuring Quinn’s Black Sheep Squadron!

Quinn’s Black Sheep is another of those squadrons populated with other squadron’s troublemakers like Rossoff’s Hell-Cats or Keyhoe’s Jailbird Flight or any number of other examples. It seemed every author had a series with a black sheep squadron. But it’s odd to find a WWI series starting in 1938. By then, many of the air war stories were getting away from being set during The Great War as a possible second Great War loomed on the horizon. Additionally, many of the anthology air war titles no longer carried series characters—Dare-Devil Aces final series characters were Hogan’s Red Falcon and Smoke Wade, both of whom moved to G-8 and his Battle Aces in 1938.

Field wrote four stories with Quinn’s Black Sheep. “The Devil Looks After His Own” is the first of those four stories, appearing in the premiere issue of Sky Devils, March 1938.

Captain Jack Quinn is brought in for disciplinary action and manages to convince the General that he could solve a lot of his headaches by hand-picking the problem aces out of other squadrons and forming an essentially independent squadron to take on the Boche. Thus, Quinn’s flight was a crew of hard bitten aces who had been tempered—to a man—in the cauldron of war, having unflinchingly facing Death many times before.

Quinn assembled his squadron with Lieutenants Sam Steele and Jerry Twist from his own 40th pursuit squadron—Steele was thin, wiry, with eyes as hard as the name he bore while Twist was the opposite with laughing eyes and usual good-humored nature. To them he added: Sergeant Abe Solomon from the 64th—a short, swarthy man who weighed no more than a hundred and twenty pounds. His hands were small, his eyes twin coals in his narrow skull and his lips were bitter. He could fight and didn’t take any lip from other mugs just because they had shoulder bars. Major Nordstrom—heavy, thick set, brutal. Lieutenant Murphy, a mad, wild Irishman with a bull voice that put Quinn’s to shame. Captain Percy Dake—aka “Killer Drakę”—from the 12th, ex-ganster, ex-killer. Lieutenant Krueger, man of mystery who never talked and who walked silently like a cat. De la Roche, Captain in the French Army, an oily dandy who would have slit a throat without batting an eye, yet who had twenty planes to his credit. Von Goetz, German born, who had an undying hatred for the Prussian Military Machine. Lieutenant Janko, heavy, stolid, too lazy to move until he was behind the stick of a fighting plane. And lastly, Lieutenant Stephen Arden, a Britisher and a toff. He was reported to have broken a bottle of Scotch over a General’s head, his only regret being that the liquor had flowed away. Record, eighteen German planes, a half dozen machine gun slugs in his body and hard to handle when drunk.

Each man looked at Quinn with red murder in his heart—but Captain Quinn was the devil’s fair-haired boy.

• Download “The Devil Looks After His Own” (March 1938, Sky Devils)

about the author
(mostly stolen from his wikipedia entry)

Anatole France Feldman (1901-1972) is primarily known as a pulp magazine writer from the late-’20s to the late-’30s. He specialized in gangland fiction, appearing primarily in Harold Hersey’s gang pulps, Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, and Gangland Stories. He also appeared in the rival magazines, Gun Molls and The Underworld.

His best-known creation is Chicago gangster Big Nose Serrano. Big Nose began as a pastiche of the 1897 Edmond Rostand play, Cyrano de Bergerac. Serrano’s homely nose made him an unlikely romantic hero who thus composed love poetry for a better-looking associate. The plot and characters of the first Big Nose story, “Serrano of the Stockyards” (Gangster Stories, May 1930), roughly follow the corresponding elements in the play. Serrano’s overwhelming popularity with readers brought him back for further adventures. The stories are unrelentingly violent, and often intentionally amusing, providing a unique fictional take on Chicago’s gangland and the latter years of Prohibition. Feldman ended up publishing twelve of the Serrano adventures from 1930-35 in Gangster Stories, Greater Gangster Stories, and The Gang Magazine. As the series progressed, the Cyrano angle was dropped, and Serrano became an unlikely crusader against the social ills of the Depression, albeit applying the gangster’s methods of violence, kidnapping, and murder to the problems.

He stirred up a lot of controversy with the readers of Gangster Stories, with his novelette “Gangsters vs. Gobs,” a story that improbably pitted the underworld against the Navy. The controversy filled the letters column for several issues.

Feldman also wrote under a number of pennames, including Tony Fields, A.F. Fields, and similar derivations. In 1930-31, he co-edited the short-lived adventure pulp, Far East Adventure Stories. Writing under a Standard Magazines house name, he authored some of the lead novels in The Phantom Detective.

He was married to fellow pulp-writer Hedwig Langer, who published under the names H.C. Langer and Beech Allen. In the 1940s, they co-wrote plays. Feldman’s first performed play had been The Red Thirst in 1920.

In the 1940s, Feldman edited comic books for Hillman, Rocket Comics and Miracle Comics. Later that year he switched to editing true-crime and true confessions magazines for Hillman.

He was later employed at the Thomas Oil Co. in Saratoga, NY. He died in 1972 in Boonton, NJ. Hedwig had passed in 1969 after having been employed at Skidmore College.

FREQUENT visitors to this site know that we’ve been featuring Terry Gilkison’s Famous Sky Fighters feature from the pages of Sky Fighters. Gilkison had a number of these features in various pulp magazines—Clues, Thrilling Adventures, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Western, and Popular Western. Starting in the February 1936 issue of Lone Eagle, Gilkison started the war-air quiz feature Sky Writers. Each month there would be four questions based on the Aces and events of The Great War. If you’ve been following his Famous Sky Fighters, these questions should be a snap!

Here’s the quiz from the April 1936 issue of Lone Eagle.

If you get stumped or just want to check your answers, click here!