Life North of the 54th

Transcript

• 00:00 - Some Early Memories
• 14:22 - The Best Valley in the North
• 32:31 - Farming is Life
• 45:44 - A Can-do Attitude

00:00 - Some Early Memories

Opening Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff]

Garett:
Welcome back to Life North of the 54th. I'm Garett Brown.

Preston:
I'm Preston Brown. We're grateful to have you join us on our show today. And today we have with us Emma Meservy. And we'll let her introduce herself.

Emma:
So my name is Emma Meservy. That is my maiden name. I am daughter of John and Jane, Meservy. And they are American citizens that had moved to the BC, Alberta area back in '67 and near Taylor. So, yeah, I have lived most of my life north of the 54th.

Garett:
Yeah. Thanks for coming on the show with us. We are really excited to talk to you. We talked to your mother first and also to your younger sister, Jessie. Do you have some early memories of the Peace Country because you were born and raised there?

Emma:
Well, the Peace country. So my earliest memories, of course, are outside of Cleardale, Alberta, which is on highway 64. And that's right near the BC border going towards Dawson Creek and Fort St. John. The closest real town that we had was Fairview, and that was about 45 minutes. But of course, that felt like forever as a drive back when you were a kid.

Preston:
[chuckles]

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
So on the farm there was us five kids and Mum and Dad and I'm in the middle of the kids. So we lived there until I was eleven on that side of the Alberta border in the Peace area. And then after that, my parents split, of course, divorced. And my Dad went north of Fort St John to between Wonowon and Pink Mountain called the Gundy area. Now it's called like the Township road. And then my Mum moved into Fairview. So we actually had split custody between those two. So we got to see each parent for a year at a time on different sides of the border in the Peace area. So we traveled along the Peace all the time. Some of the earliest memories, of course, are at Cleardale. We grew up on the farm and we had cattle. We were the youngest ones. There was us three younger. And then my two older siblings, James and Kim, really helped out on the farm a lot where us kids were pretty little still and not much help. We were pretty good at wrecking stuff and making a mess.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
Our Dad's shop was our favorite play place or the rock piles, which we were not allowed to be in.

Garett:
Obviously, if it's dangerous, it's more exciting

Emma:
And where we spend most of our time.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
Well, weather is always severe out there. We didn't get the graders out as often, probably as closer to town. So when Mum drove bus, but of course she drove to Worsley, probably so she didn't have to take her kids on a daily basis because we were pretty crazy, wild kids. I don't think we wore shoes until school time.

Preston and Garett:
[chuckle]

Emma:
We played outdoors 24/7. We didn't really have a TV. I mean, there maybe was one station on the TV so we didn't watch TV a lot. And Mum and Dad had a record player. Of course, they had different choices of music. So if Mum was there, then it was one type. We loved Abba.

All:
[chuckle]

Emma:
You could see that about Jane.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
And then my Dad, John, loved, of course, country. Old country. He loved Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, The Outlaws, of course, Merle Haggard, and so all those songs. I mean, that's what we grew up with. Sitting around the kitchen table, neighbors. We always, that's what I found, always about the Peace and still today is that we are very neighbourly. So people will come from miles around to visit around a table with a cup of coffee or a drink.

Garett:
Yup.

Emma:
And they would talk weather, they would talk politics, they would talk farming. And they still do that today. And I mean, they did it 40 years ago and they will do it 80 years ago and they'll do it another 80 years from now.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
So the kitchen table was the life of the home. And I found that in every house in the Peace. That's sort of how it works, the neighbors would always gather around the table. And there was quite a few neighbors there in Menno-Simons. We went to a little school that had three classrooms in each grade, so there would be three grades in one classroom.

Garett:
Yup. Yup.

Emma:
I went there until the end of grade five.

Garett:
So you got to transition?

Emma:
Transition?

Garett:
Like, from one classroom to another while you were there.

Emma:
Yes, I did. And I was sort of sad I didn't get to do the next transition.

Preston:
[chuckles]

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
But my teacher when I left at the end of grade five is still my favorite teacher today. She was a true artist when it came to making things come alive for you. So Carol Wookey was also my dance teacher, my Mum's best friend, and she was my grade 4/5 teacher. And she was probably the hardest teacher I'd ever had. I have never had my hand swatted so many times with a stick.

All:
[laugh]

Emma:
But on the other hand, I have never worked so hard to try to please a teacher.

Preston:
Yup.

Emma:
And she made things come alive. She gave me my love of books, which I'd already read everything in the library by the time I finished grade five there, I'm pretty sure. But she could read a book and do every voice. The Hobbit is the thing that sticks in my mind the most.

Preston and Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
And then when I seen the movie, I didn't want to see the movie because I was scared it would disappoint me because it was not Carol.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
And Gollum was her! I, actually on the Christmas letter to her, I told her how much she actually made Gollum come alive because that was who it was. It was amazing. She let us bring the pond into the classroom for science. We had kiddy pools set up, and we would go out to the slews and the dugouts and bring all the stuff in, and we had frogs in there all the time.

Preston and Garett:
[chuckle]

Preston:
Man, your school sounds like a lot of fun.

Emma:
It was a lot of fun! And because you're learning each year, you were learning what the grade sixers were when you were in grade four, but it just rotated around. So when we moved, it was difficult the first time because there's a set curriculum. They didn't have three grades in the classroom, so we were learning things, I think the first year that I had already learned two years before.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
So school was a little boring after that.

Preston:
[chuckles]

Garett:
Yeah. I remember when we lived in Wonowon, that we, well at least my older brother and sister, Travis and Lisa and I attended that school there in Wonowon for a bit. And it was a two room schoolhouse that had K-4. And then in the other room was 5-8. And I remember being there in kindergarten and grade one and listening to the teacher teach the grade three students and the grade two students. It was quite different than when we moved to Grande Prairie where instead of having three grades in one classroom, you have three classrooms for one grade.

Preston:
For one grade.

Emma:
Yes. It's daunting.

Garett:
Yes.

Emma:
And it's a little boring because even if you're younger, you're still learning and picking up the things above you.

Garett:
Yeah, that's cool.

Emma:
When we moved with Dad, we didn't live at the farm full time, at the Ranch. There was no way to get to school. So we lived during school year just outside of Charlie Lake the first year. So we went to Charlie Lake School, which was an adjustment. They had like two classrooms per grade, so it was a lot bigger. We probably would have preferred to stay at the Ranch. What kids want and what parents know we need are two different things as kids would never want to leave the Ranch.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
But I think Dad knew that he was not disciplined enough, or us to do home schooling yet, and we probably wouldn't have done it. We were literally getting wilder every year that we went to the Ranch.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
Left very much up to our own devices a lot. And as adults, we gather a lot and wonder how we actually lived and made it through because we did things that as an adult, we would never think about doing. Even as a 20 year old, I don't think we would have thought about doing some of those things.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
We did the shingle roof on the cabin, and I couldn't tell you what degree that slope is on the cabin, but...

Preston:
It's almost a 12/12 if I remember. It was pretty steep.

Emma:
It was very steep. And we would do it in the wind with no tie offs. We would just climb up on the roof and Dad would be off haying for a couple of days over at Shiloh. And that was our job was to roof.

Preston:
[laughs]

Emma:
I mean, we've probably fallen off a couple of times.

Garett:
Yeah. Are you afraid of heights now?

Emma:
I am afraid of heights!

Garett:
Yeah. I remember even just being on my childhood home outside of Grande Prairie. If I was not on the tin side, which was really shallow, if I was on the other side, it was terrifying because never know. It looks so scary. Even 20 foot drop or so, it's a pretty big drop.

Emma:
It's a long drop. And literally there's no one out there.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
I mean, the one time we probably thought we needed an ambulance. Of course, Dad was not at the farm. The Gannons were over and they had actually bought a quad. And Dad, we have never owned a quad. Never owned a skidoo. And they would always come with their horses and we would always go on horse trips. But they brought two quads this one summer. And the Gannons and Dad went quadding. So that left us kids at home. So we were going to go horse riding. So my horse bit Jessie. Jessie must have been eight or nine, maybe? She bit her so bad right on the arm. We were cinching her up and she just reached around and it wasn't even Jessie cinching her up. It was Joe or me.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
My mare grabbed Jessie by the arm and just lifted her and shook her.

Preston:
Oh!

Garett:
Holy cow!

Emma:
And the fable is, I don't know. But as a kid, we always thought horses wouldn't let go until they touched teeth, teeth to teeth. And so she wouldn't get let go. We finally got her to let go. And like, Jessie's arm was instantly black. And we thought for sure she broke her arm. And so we went looking for Dad. So we "borrowed" Dad's truck and we're driving around all the back logging roads looking for them on their quads. And Dad said he could see us girls flying in like we were doing almost 100 when we pulled through. And we got in a lot of trouble.

All:
[laugh]

Emma:
And her arm ended up being fine. But she still remembers Firefly biting her until we thought her arm was broken.

Garett:
O man.

Emma:
But, I mean, we borrowed the truck several times when Dad would be gone. And the one time we thought we got away with it until it was muddy and we slid off the little creek that ran behind the cabin, had a little culvert.

Garett:
Yes.

Emma:
And so that's our swimming pool creek. We dug it out all the time with shovels. And then it was clay mud and we would make like a clay pool. And that's where we would hang out all summer until it got too warm and there was no water, but there was a little culvert there. And so the truck in the mud slid off and the back tire caught that culvert. And then we couldn't get the truck out of the culvert. And so we finally figured it out. Got it jacked out. We're twelve and ten and seven.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
We're jacking the truck with...

Garett:
[laughs]

Emma:
And Dad always told us that jacks were dangerous, but of course, we never listened. But we got it out of there and got the truck back. But it's like he couldn't see that we had done what we had done when he got there. And the mud tracks are all there. And of course, we had cut up the inside of the tire on that culvert. So we had a flat tire.

Garett:
Yeah.

Preston:
[laughs]

Emma:
But I mean, life on the Gundy was weather extreme all the time. So you've been there when it's rained.

Garett:
Yes.

Emma:
And you got to get out or you're not getting out. And then farming on the Shiloh side, that was even funner over the ridge and down the valley. So Shiloh, if you heard my Mum Jane talk, she talked about Shiloh. So that's an extreme road there. And as soon as the rain would come, it was like you instantly had to get out as soon as you seen rain clouds or you weren't getting out of that valley. So, I mean, we've always grown up sort of by the seat of our pants because you couldn't just plan you're just going to town for the day or you're going out to the field or you're going to Church. It was very weather dependent, whatever you decided to do there.

Garett:
Yeah. I think I only remember going to Shiloh, like over the bridge to Shiloh once, and we drove over like two planks of wood as the bridge because it washed out.

Preston:
Yeah, washed out. Part of the bridge was washed out. And it's just like planks there. The width of the tire, the vehicle.

Garett:
Yeah, it was terrifying! [chuckles]

Emma:
The width of the tires. [chuckles] It is terrifying. And then, of course, we're all piled in the back of the truck.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
In our theory, it was probably so if you went over, you could jump clear. I don't know. We always rode in the back of the truck.

Garett:
[laughs]

Preston:
It wasn't illegal back then.

Emma:
Well, it probably was illegal. It's not just out there. No one notices or cares.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
I mean, when you're that remote, that far out from a main highway and there's no neighbors. I mean, we had one neighbor that lived down the road and then they sold out and they moved a couple of years later and there was no one there. And then Shiloh, they had that one family that was sort of babysitting the property, but otherwise there was no neighbors. Like we consider neighbors Kits down at mile 87.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
And I mean, we're at 121!

Emma and Garett:
[chuckle]

Emma:
That's like a 50 miles neighbor, but that's how it is up there.

Preston:
Yeah.

14:22 - The Best Valley in the North

Preston:
What was it like when you got into high school or a little bit more teenage, like living at the Gundy?

Emma:
Well I didn't, I lived with my Mum until grade ten, so I only lived with Dad for the grade six year. And then I stayed with my Mum for seven, eight and nine. And then at ten, I moved with Dad. But Dad's girlfriend Pat lived just outside of Charlie Lake and she was a teacher at Charlie Lake. So I went to school in town at North Peace Secondary School at Fort St. John. And I mean, it was different because my Mum had just moved to Calgary and I had tried to live in Calgary with my Mum. But going from a 300 max junior high/high school into Diefenbaker, where we have 1000 in each grade, it was not my thing.

All:
[chuckle]

Emma:
I mean, I always thought that sort of what it would be like going to College or University and you're doing like English class with 500 others and you've got four screens on the TV and your professor's up there and you could see everything. But that's what it was like for grade ten. So it was a little, I just didn't care for it. So I moved back to Fort St John from Calgary. So that was my stint living below the 54th and it did not last long.

All:
[chuckle]

Emma:
So high school let me see. It must have been grade ten or eleven was probably the worst winter I had ever been through, for snow. It snowed and snowed and it drifted. That one winter Jessie and Joe were with us, and I remember that we were snowed in for over a week before they could get down our road. And they weren't coming with graders, they came with cats because that's how deep the snow was. The snow was, like the banks when they plowed one square patch right down it were probably almost 16ft deep. I've never seen anything like it. And you see it on TV sometimes or on a Facebook post. But this was the reality that we had lived with outside of the Charlie Lake area near Montney. But we never took the bus because we rode into Charlie Lake and then took the bus from Charlie Lake into Fort St. John. So the bus life was really short for us there. Not like at Cleardale. Like you get on at 6:45 in the morning and didn't get off the bus until 8:30.

Garett:
Yeah. Yeah.

Emma:
And I get car sick. [laughs] So that was like...

Garett:
Oh, no.

Emma:
All the way to grade five was car sick every day to and from.

Preston:
[laughs]

Emma:
So high school was a little different because I lived in town. So I had moved out just after I turned 16 and got my own apartment and I lived in town finishing high school. So I didn't go to the Ranch as much. If I went up to the Ranch, it was on my pleasure time. Like that was me going to see my Dad or help out. And of course, I was always conned into something. It would be like, come out for the weekend, okay, come out. Well, it meant coming out and he wanted me to drive a tractor to town because it was stuck in first year.

Garett:
[laughs]

Emma:
So I drove no brakes and it didn't stop. And if you stopped and got it out of gear, you were never getting in gear again.

Preston:
[laughs]

Emma:
So literally pee breaks on the side of the Alaska Highway was opening the opposite door, trying to steer and hang out over the side to go bathroom because it took 9 hours to drive to town.

Garett:
Oh, man.

Preston:
Did you drive all the way to Fort St. John or Wonowon.

Emma:
Fort St John.

Preston:
Oh, man.

Garett:
[laughs] I'm so sorry.

All:
[laugh]

Emma:
Like I said, the things that you would end up doing. Yeah, but I mean, anything with tractors, with John was always a circus. So when we moved up there, Dad drove and James drove two tractors, each pulling a trailer with all the wooden boards from the shop that they had started to build because that had pre-built a house. They were going to build a house. They laid a concrete foundation before my parents split. So they had started doing these timber framed walls and they did it in sections. So Dad took those sections apart and loaded them on the trailer because he was going to build the shop, build the cabin, he was going to use them there. So they're hauling them and it's wet. It's slimy going down into that Gundy crossing. And that's a steep road on that one! Not quite as steep as like the Joe road going into the Ranch, but this was steep. And then you have to cross a bridge at the bottom and they're all switchbacks. And as a kid, we loved the switchback, but not when it was raining, especially not with a tractor and a trailer. And James was like, I'm not doing it. You can't make me. He refused and Dad got really upset. But Dad went down the hill and of course he slid and Jackknifed lucky he did not die. And so James was like, see, I told you.

All:
[chuckle]

Emma:
So we let them stay there for the day until it solid up enough. And then we could go and bring them in the next day. But I mean, the mud has probably always been the thing that we fought the most up at the gumbo Ranch because the mud is something that rules your life and it ruled what you were doing. Some of the best stories are probably in the mud, of course. And now I still love to mud drive. And of course, no one thinks that we should do that as girls, but we love to do muddin'. And going to the Ranch still every time makes you feel just like a kid again. As soon as you cross that road off the highway, your home.

Preston:
Yeah.

Garett:
Yeah, that's true.

Emma:
And of course, we did have the best valley in the north.

Garett:
Yeah, it's quite beautiful there. Nice sunsets. What transition led you from this sort of, like when you were transitioning out of high school and transitioning from spending time between parents to sort of making your own life?

Emma:
Oh. I don't think I ever really wanted to live anywhere else. I've always wanted to visit places. But the Peace is home. Whether it's on the north or the south side of the Peace. It's because the people are the same. I mean, the country is very varied and very different from the flat grain lands into the ranch lands and then mountainous. I mean, I've lived in Fort Nelson and you could never beat a summer there, but I was never doing another winter there. [chuckles]

Garett:
[laughs]

Emma:
But from Fort Nelson, like you, you can... So of course, I worked up there for my Dad, and then I ended up moving up there and living there two years. And then nothing could beat a summer there. There is dug out pits all along the highway from when they were building the Alaska Highway. And some of them are converted into fish stock pond. Some are where we would go swimming all the time. And then you've got the river, you've got the mountains, beautiful hiking spots. I mean, literally half hour, any direction, you were doing something different. And it was an amazing... And it's really humid in the summers up there. So it was always, except for the bugs. The bugs are bad, but they're not as bad when you're 20, then they don't bother you as much. But yeah, it was a beautiful, fun summers to live up there, but then it's too small. What career was I going to do there? I knew I wanted to go to school sometime, didn't see that as an opportunity there, and so moved back down to Fort St. John and then went straight to Grande Prairie. I didn't even really stop in Fort St. John. My best friend from going to junior high from Fairview was living in Grande Prairie. And I had a couple of friends from Grande Prairie from Fort St John living there. So I thought I would try living in the big city.

Garett:
[chuckles] Yeah.

Emma:
And then I was there for 16 years. So Grande Prairie was a little daunting. Where do you start? Looking for work. You didn't know anyone. No connections. I had worked a golf course during high school during the summer starting from April, right until October. And I really enjoyed that. I really liked the outdoors. That's a way that you could do it. And so I really liked mowing. It's a lot like farming.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
Precise lines. The equipment. It's just a lot smaller.

Preston:
The stress level is way lower too.

Emma and Garett:
Yup.

Emma:
Weather dependent. So I really enjoyed that. And then so when I went to Grande Prairie, I worked restaurants at night. I don't work restaurants. I mean, that's the key thing is getting through as a teenager in to your 20s, it's usually the restaurants. And then I did the golf course usually start at 5:00am, ended about 1:00pm, and then I would go home and nap for a couple of hours and then go to work in a restaurant. So that was pretty much my life for the first little bit there.

Garett:
Yeah. What kind of restaurant was it at first, that you were working at?

Emma:
The first one actually was Humpty's.

Garett:
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Emma:
First off. That's where I drank coffee. So where else would I want to work?

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
I already knew all the people. And, I mean, working in little truck stops does not quite ideal you for the bigger restaurants in Grande Prairie or the chains. So that was a transition. So, yeah, I worked Humpty's for the first bit when I moved there. And then Jolene got a job at The Keg, and I'm too bashful. I'm pretty quiet and shy and she's really outgoing. So I got her a job at the golf course, and then she got me a job at The Keg.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
So I started out as a host at the Keg. She was cocktailing, and then we worked at the golf course together, and we were roommates. So we were busy all the time and we were always gone, but we were usually at the same places.

Garett:
Yeah. Preston got me a job once. He was working in construction, and he was going back to high school, and I was coming and need a job. And the project manager who was going to hire me asked Preston's reference for me as a reference. Preston, he's a pretty good worker. What about his old brother Garett? And the reference was like, it was Rob Blum actually, he's like, well, he's taller.

Preston and Emma:
[laugh]

Garett:
Basically the same. Just taller.

Emma:
Basically the same. Well, usually I find siblings always. Usually have pretty much the same work ethic.

Garett:
Yeah. Usually cut from the same cloth.

Emma:
Cut from the same cloth. And us, we would have all gotten our butts whooped if one of us didn't do something. So you all have to do it.

All:
[laugh]

Garett:
Or if one person doesn't do it, then everyone suffers the same consequence. And so you get beat up or get lots of side eye.

Emma:
Way worse. Well, and siblings are usually meaner. So we used to always get whoopings we were pretty like I said, wild. So we got a lot of them, and we were like, we didn't do it. And they would be like, one of you did it. One of you lied about it and the other one thought about it.

Garett:
[laughs]

Emma:
So between the three of you, you are all guilty.

Garett:
[laughs]

Emma:
So, all three of us always got it.

Preston:
Yeah. I think an advantage of siblings is they don't let you get away with crap.

Emma:
No.

Preston:
You know? All the siblings keep all the other siblings honest. For the most part, it rules out any sort of, like, narcissism pretty fast.

Emma:
Don't you wish us adults in life could exist like that?

Garett:
[chuckles] Yeah. Everybody keeping everyone else honest because you don't want to disappoint them or something.

Emma:
Yeah, you're sort of in it together. I mean, we're still in it together. Us sisters always hanging out some of our funnest things that we like to do. We still scrap. We will still have disagreements about memories because it is amazing. And psychologically, when you think about that, it's amazing because we all have the same memory, but all from three different angles. So they're always altered memories versus, like a story Jessie would say is different than mine and then different than Joe's or different than James's. I do miss that we didn't get to hear those memories from Kim.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
Because especially as we become adults and we have children and our children are growing. There's so many things that, like and James and I don't talk very often. He's down in Mountain View and he's a busy man. He's always got something on the go. But when we talk, we talk for hours and we can just talk about anything. And it's the same with us siblings. When we're together, we can fight and we'll have memories and we make new memories all the time. And so the Ranch is still a very active part of our life. So going to the Ranch for the barn dance every year is the happiest memories. Every year. As soon as I clear that valley and I see it, you just know your home. All your stress leaves you're just happy to be there and just happy to have a nonlife moment. You can just enjoy and be in that second. Because that's what it feels like when we were kids. And that's those memories that always come up when I go to the Ranch. It's all of those memories of all the hard work, because it was a lot of hard work. But like I said, the best memories of skinny dipping in the creek every day. I mean, it was not a warm creek.

Garett:
[chuckles] Nope.

Emma:
There was no reason why kids should have been down there by ourselves or down there without a gun. The wolves and the bears there are atrocious. [chuckles] And I just think about all the time. Yeah. Because we lived, we roamed wild for years in amongst nature. We'd wake up in the morning and moose would be grazing with the cows in the field. That's what we grew up with. Horse logging on the hill and bringing the logs down to build the cabin and work on the shop. I don't know. Peeling the bark off the burnt trees was probably the funniest thing I did that year. I hated it doing it, but it was also one of the funnest memories, especially when that cabin went up and you got to see your hard work.

Garett:
Yeah. There is really something to be said about the feeling of looking back on something completed after a lot of hard work. It's really satisfying. Feel like you created something or feel like you've really beaten nature to put it there or to go back.

Emma:
[chuckles] Beaten...

Garett:
It's different. Yeah. Like you're saying, there's lots of the weather, the rain, all of it. And then you build this, I mean you could say you build this edifice, even though it's just a small, relatively small log house. But once you're inside and you've got the heat on it, it's cozy and it's nice.

Emma:
It was big to us as kids. I mean, we lived in that little twelve foot scamper trailer while we were building it, there was five of us in there at a time sometimes. [laughs] The 24 by 24 cabin felt pretty much like a mansion.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
And it had a loft! But, I mean, that first year was probably the hardest and the scariest. Dad worked out quite a bit trying to make money so we could clear land and build and... So I mean, that first summer, James and us girls lived there, and we had that little scamper up on the hill. We had pulled in a little log cabin that we had made. It was an old bunk house from the farm in Cleardale.

Preston:
[chuckles]

Emma:
But we had chickens in there. We brought chickens. Well, let me tell you, grizzlies have never seen chickens before. Chickens that do not fly. So we had every bear there that you can imagine, and they love them. They thought they were the funnest things. And I remember as a kid, like, being terrified. But now as an adult, some of it's sort of funny, even though it was still scary. Some of it's funny because a bear would almost laugh, like you could hear their humour of finding this little critter that can't get away from them.

Preston and Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
And then, of course, we're supposed to protect them. [laughs] They were all gone within weeks, like there was, like what do you do when there's like four grizzlies chasing chickens around and you're like, no, not leaving the camper. Not leaving the camper. Not going to do it.

Garett:
[laughs] Sometimes I reflect on the wolves from the Pink Mountain area that they took down to Yellowstone to help with the deer problem. And then they got the wolf problem down there.

Garett:
Those are good surviving wolves. They survive well.

Preston:
[chuckles]

Emma:
Well, the wolves have never really had a problem surviving. [laughs] There was just nothing there to compete with.

Garett:
[chuckles] I think you're right. Looking back, it probably would have been pretty entertaining to have a more distant view of watching grizzly bears play with chickens.

Emma:
Oh it was terrifying! We were pretty terrified, though. I mean...

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
That was a little bit more wilder for us than we were used to at that point yet. Of course, it only just got wilder and we became more accustomed to it.

Garett:
You start blending in, matching the wildness.

Emma:
Yeah, mud baths, wild children.

32:31 - Farming is Life

Emma:
We didn't have running water. We didn't have electricity.

Preston:
Yup.

Emma:
So, I mean, we had the wood stove in the cabin when we got the cabin up, and then we ran propane for the stove. We didn't get a fridge until after I was an adult. So, I mean, we had one little propane lamp above the door, and then we converted it to solar panel energy down the road. But we didn't waste a lot of it because we didn't know the next time we were going to town for propane. So, I mean, the stove, we cooked a lot outside. We could cook as a kid anything in a cast iron pot. We made bread all the time in the cast irons on the stove. Of course, our diet was pretty starch heavy. We didn't have a fridge or freezer, so a lot of canned meat.

Preston:
[chuckles]

Emma:
And the garden was a little hard to grow up there. But Dad finally... And Dad really enjoyed gardening once he got a bit older, because his Mum was an amazing gardener. But I mean, milk, even milk we had to buy in the little one liter cartons that were...

Preston:
That had long shelf life.

Emma:
Oh, yeah, long shelf life. We ate a lot of canned goods. But I mean, we always had a lot of fresh deer. Not that people knew it.

Preston: Not in season, right?

Preston and Garett:
[laugh]

Emma:
In season somewhere. Maybe not there.

All:
[chuckle]

Garett:
Just another cow.

Emma:
Well, you never ate cows. Those were worth money.

Garett:
No, that's what I mean. So if somebody came over, it's not a deer, it's a cow. [chuckles]

Emma:
But I mean, we ate a lot of wild meat as a kid. Even in Cleardale, we ate a lot of moose and deer. I don't hardly remember eating a lot of beef as a kid because, I mean, that was where your money was and that's what you would sell for money.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
But I remember at that kitchen table where all the neighbors would gather around. Yeah, neighbors would gather around when you brought a moose home and there is a moose on the table in the kitchen. And Mum and Dad could butcher like nothing. And I was too young to learn much about it. So as an adult trying to learn it, I am a little bit more queasy about it. I'd rather shoot an animal with my camera than with the gun.

Garett:
[chuckles] Yeah.

Emma:
Don't get me wrong, I'll still shoot Coyotes because Coyotes need shot. That's because I still have cows. But yeah, I'm not the big hunter, but I don't remember eating beef until I was much older. But some of the best hunting trips, we never fired a shot. But it was amazing when you got to go hunting with Dad because he usually didn't have the patience for us because we talked too much. Three girls.

All:
[chuckle]

Preston:
Yeah.

Emma:
But then some of the best trips where Dad would take one of us at a time and it was great one on one time with him. And I mean, it can be pouring rain and never get a shot. He probably thought it was the worst trip ever. And then it was my favorite. Just riding in the rain and chatting or just enjoying the silence and the views, riding on the cut lines.

Garett:
I remember him complaining about his glasses and his scope, saying something about him go hunting and he have his glasses on and he couldn't see something and he'd take his glasses off and he couldn't see something else.

Emma:
[laughs] He disliked the getting older and needing the glasses.

Garett:
[chuckles] Yeah, I think so. Were they reading glasses?

Emma:
Yeah, they were reading glasses. And that's probably some of my favorite memories of Dad. It's like sitting at a wood stove in his chair and he would always put his wool socks on that front little piece on the wood stove, like on the damper. And he would sit there and he would read. And so Dad loved to read. And he read most winters, so I mean he has... He actually, one winter, got almost all the way through the dictionary. The encyclopedia set? Yeah, he read, I think, up to P in the encyclopedia set.

Preston:
That's pretty deep. [chuckles]

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
He taught himself how to play guitar when he was about 57, just before he passed. You didn't know that, Garett, did you?

Garett:
I did not know that. I do remember learning some guitar with him. He was trying to teach me different chords. That's my first experience on learning the guitar. And I remember him teaching me how to hold it. And I think looking back, he would use his thumb to get like a G chord.

Emma:
Yup.

Garett:
And thinking about how I play the guitar now, my fingers are long enough that I don't use my thumb to push the top string. Was he self taught then and teaching himself the guitar?

Emma:
Yeah, self taught.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
And he had broken every knuckle and finger so many times that some of his fingers didn't move right.

Garett:
Oh.

Emma:
So he had to make his own way that would work for certain chords, like the G chord.

Garett:
Yeah. Okay. That makes so much more sense because when I started learning the guitar for myself much later when I was in high school, I remembered the G chord and how maybe I put my thumb there, but it would just felt like such an unnatural position. But it make sense now. Thank you.

All:
[chuckle]

Emma:
I remember when I went up on time and he was playing me Bryan Adams. I was blown away. I was like, what? Just because he has always loved music. But he had bought a fiddle once, traded that for a Banjo. My Dad loved to horse trade. So as kids, we lived on a barter system. We would trade things all the time. So, yeah, he had a fiddle, traded it for a banjo, never learned the banjo. And then one day we went up to the Ranch, I was 20, and he played guitar. And that's what he did, taught himself that winter was play guitar. Of course, his wife, Donna at the time, Donna is very musically inclined. And so she probably helped and assisted him, because if you know anything, most of us Meservy's are tone deaf, like, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

All:
[laugh]

Emma:
And we all love music and we all love to sing. You just can't handle hearing us do it. But, yeah, so up there it was pretty remote, but we would spend our time reading a lot, especially in the winter. I mean, it was dark early. And cards. Cards and board games. We played a lot of cards. And coming from the States, I think that and we played a lot of cards that were different than Canadians played. So Pinochle we played all the time. That was something that was just something that we played. And no one heard of it up here, we couldn't play Pinochle with anyone because no one knew how to play it. They played Canasta or they played Rummy or Poker. We learned Poker pretty young, too.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Preston:
Lots of different kinds of Poker.

Emma:
Lots of different kinds of Poker. But, I mean, Pinochle is still our favorite thing to play when we're together. And of course, we can't play with other people. No one knows Pinochle, so we have to wait till the siblings get together before we can play Pinochle or with Grandma Jane.

Garett:
Yes, I definitely remember a lot of card games, too, up in the cabin. Lots of time spending, playing with cards, learning how to shuffle.

Emma:
We were shuffle pros.

All:
Yeah.

Preston:
Learn how to do the bridge.

Emma: Do the bridge back. Yeah.

Garett:
Yeah, but when I was younger, looking back on it now, I could never get the bridge. It's very easy for me now, but looking back, it was probably because I just didn't have the dexterity yet developed in my hands to get the shape or my hands were too small because I was a child.

Emma:
Well, a small and not strong enough to do it. But of course, you can't tell anyone they can't do something.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
Actually, that's probably one thing that we gained is do not ever tell them a Meservy they can't do something because that means we're doing it. [chuckles]

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
Probably our spouses can take advantage of that. [laughs] Yeah, that's the thing is as soon as you tell us we can't do something, we're like, oh, really? We can do whatever we want. And we still do that as adults. I ran restaurants, probably for about 15 years. So at The Keg, I started, of course, as a hostess, and then I moved up into cocktailing and serving, and then I moved into bar manager and then into operations manager with the owner as the general manager there. So I ran that until 2009. And then I got an opportunity to open my own restaurant with some partners and be the operating manager, to be the general manager. So we opened Rick's Grill in 2010. So, of course, not very many women were running restaurants, actually, at The Keg. I remember going to general managers conferences, and there was three of us in 120 stores that were females.

Garett:
Wow.

Emma:
So even though it's heavily female based, stores like restaurants are very female based, usually for servers and hosts. But it's still a man run business. So that was interesting. And so that's what I did was I ran Ric's Grill for a few years. Of course, time moves and time changes. And then I ran another restaurant called Township 71. But of course, the oil field market had dropped out then, and I had just finished a second reno within five years. So our debt load for me and my partner were too high. And we decided before things got worse where we knew it was going to go with the oil field going the way it was in Grande Prairie so we decided to close down. So at that point, I didn't know what I was going to do. I went back to school, started my Bachelor of Arts, Psychology. So I finished my first semester. I started my first semester, and my sister Joe called me, and they had just really gotten her and her husband, Hugh, had gotten really heavy into Angus cows. They'd always had some, but they really went full out. They bought 750 cows. [chuckles]

Garett:
Woah. That's a big herd.

Preston:
That's a lot of beef.

Emma:
They go from 50 to 750 within, I think, a year and a half. So she would be like, oh, we're processing cows today. Could you come help? I was like, yeah, but Joe, you know how long it's been since I've done that? Like, I don't know what I'm doing. Oh, it's easy. Okay. So what started out as, like, going to school full time from home, because I did it all online, and then just going out once in a blue moon, it was going out two days a week, three days a week, five days a week. [laughs]

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
So next thing you know, my school had dropped off, and I was full time working at the farm for Joe and Hugh farming! And I was never the farmer as kids. I was the housekeeper. I cooked and I cleaned and I did the chores for us. I was not, Jolene was the farmer. Jolene was the rancher. I don't even really remember driving a tractor too much as a kid. I remember driving the truck. I was not the farm kid. Even though we were wild, I was not the farm kid. So it's not until in my 40s, now that I have really sort of brought back my childhood. And yeah, my partner Mark and I, we ranch, and it's almost like a back to childhood. And sometimes I catch myself doing Dad things all the time or Mum things. [chuckles]

Garett:
[chuckles] Be a little careful about the Dad things there. [chuckles]

Emma:
[laughs] Yeah, you definitely... We have the traits of our parents, as much as we always say as a child or a teenager that we will never be like them. And then when you start to have kids, like Garett I'm pretty sure you probably caught yourself saying something that your Mum or Dad used to say?

Garett:
Yes, I have.

Emma:
And so, us siblings, when we're together, we'll be like, oh, that was such a Jane comment.

All:
[laugh]

Emma:
Just how we say something. I mean, us three girls are still all living in this area. We've never really gone too far. And I think if we could get James and Debbie to drink more from the Peace, maybe they'll stay because they always say, once you drink from the Peace, you'll never leave. I can swear by that, because I never go too far from it. I mean, even at Elmworth, I'm still not that far from the Peace in any direction.

Garett:
Yeah. You'll have to bring him down a bucket of water, not tell them what it is. Best water you've ever had.

Emma:
We'll trade. [chuckles]

Garett:
[chuckles] Trade for some mozzarella.

Emma:
Yeah. That would always be amazing.

45:44 - A Can-do Attitude

Garett:
So, Emma, how do you feel that living in the Peace has influenced your outlook on life? So I know it's sort of a big question, and I know that the places that we grow up in and the spaces that we live in influence how we see things, but do you have any feelings on how the peace country has influenced you?

Emma:
Well, I think that we always have a can-do attitude, especially in the rural areas. We take care of each other because we have to depend on each other.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
It's a lot different than in the cities. You might not know all your neighbors in your apartment, let alone everyone on your block. And out here I may not know a neighbor because especially since as a kid the farm was a full quarter, it wasn't very often someone had an acreage. So as time has progressed and changed, so the farms now instead of someone on each quarter, now one farmer may own six quarters and they've turned the original farmsteads into acreages. So you may not know all your neighbors just because people still work in town or they work from home. You don't get to see everyone in the community, especially with COVID. It's altered some things, but we're always the first ones there when someone needs a hand and you're always the first one to line up when someone is in trouble and they have to depend on you. We had a fantastic neighbour here who was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and he was the breadwinner of the family and he had already been in the hospital six months before they found out what was going on. So everyone gathered around and even in the middle of COVID, we did a Facebook auction and we raised just in our little community. Word got around. And I mean, we raised $47,000 to help them with their mortgages and their bills and to take care of them so that they could actually just work on trying to take care of him. But that's what we do out here. These people may have some people never met them, and it doesn't matter. You take care of your own out here.

Garett:
Yeah, that's amazing.

Emma:
And I think that's the same all through all the Peace. Of course, social media makes the world a little bit bigger, but on the other hand, sometimes I think it makes it a little bit smaller too. The Peace are usually fairly open minded, even though we are rednecks. Don't get me wrong.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Emma:
We all came from someplace else, though, whether the original home steaders back in early 1910, when they were bringing in the railroad, through the years, everyone came from somewhere else, putting the Alaska Highway in. And people were from all over the States going up there. So, I mean, especially European countries, we had a lot of our ancestors here from European countries or from the States. In fact, there's probably a lot of draft dodgers around because we're pretty remote, but we have every make and bottle of life living here. And I think because we have to depend on each other, I think that we are a lot more open than maybe some other areas that are rural or isolated. Like I said, we could be really big rednecks, but we're usually really open and wanting to greet people. In the last few years, it's been a little harder. COVID has made things tougher. We don't meet with our elderly like we used to all the time. We can't gather.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
So potlucks, of course, are the staple of any rural area. If you could have a potluck dinner somewhere, you know everyone's coming.

Garett:
Yes.

Emma:
Our little community halls out here, the community halls in the schools used to be the bloodlife of every area. As a kid, some of my greatest memories of the Cleardale School are still we used to hold I don't even know the names of what we would do, but instead of everyone going trick or treating door to door, they host the hugest Halloween party there, and everyone came there. And then all the people would hand out candy there because, I mean, you would literally drive for miles and miles to go to your neighbors to get candy. That's one neighbor.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
So we used to always gather at the school and then do the parades there and win best costume, do bobbing for apples and haunted houses. So we had a very creative school, very theatrical base. And I think that had a lot to do with Carol Wookey. We did a lot of musical theater in school and always put on performances. So the school was definitely the lifeblood. And then when we moved up the highway, we didn't really have a hall or anything up. There was no neighbors, but we spent a lot of time with Pat's family and Upper Cash, and they had a hall, and that was like the highlight was going to the hall dances and getting to see all the people and you could greet and everyone would talk and hang out. So I think that's probably why it's probably been like COVID's been very hard on the rural areas. It's taken away their sense of communities.

Garett:
Yeah.

Emma:
But hopefully it's coming back. I mean, they still gathered at the kitchen tables. You couldn't stop them if you tried.

Garett:
That's true. That's true. It is something else when you take that step back from the hard manual labor that you're doing and just sit with friends, chat or have a good time, and you really get to take your boots off and rest. It's a lot different than standing up from your Zoom meeting and going to your living room to watch Netflix.

All:
[laugh]

Emma:
Yeah. I spend a lot of time with the screen, and it's not ideal.

Garett:
Yeah. It's so much better to be there in person. And I mean, being in Toronto it's been hard too. It's a different kind of hard because it's not as much of I mean, I want to be with people. I do it's great, but most of the time I feel like I'm fighting trying to avoid people and it's a bit more stressful that way.

Emma:
It's like when I have to go into Grande Prairie now. [chuckles]

Garett:
[laughs]

Emma:
Traffic, traffic. My idea of traffic out here is the 40 deer camped on the road that don't want to move. When you want to drive somewhere.

Preston:
It's definitely different, living in bigger cities, big Metro areas, just got to share everything with everybody.

Garett:
So we're coming close to the end of our time here. Are there any other questions that you want to ask Preston or any other final thoughts you want to share Emma?

Preston:
I don't have any final thoughts or questions. I really enjoyed the stories that I've never heard before.

Garett:
Me too. Me too. Thanks Emma.

Emma:
You're welcome. We all have stories.

Preston:
People's stories are great. Everybody has a story.

Emma:
Well, I've enjoyed coming on and talking to you guys about some stories. And of course, if you ask my sisters, they're probably the same stories but just different. [laughs]

Garett:
Jessie definitely told us the one where James didn't want to drive the tractor down the hill and her Dad got it stuck. She told that one, but it's a slightly different perspective, so it was great to hear it. Well, might have to ask Jolene about that, too when we get her on.

Emma:
And I bet she'll remember it and it'll be a little bit different, too.

Garett:
Yeah. We'll have to subtly ask it, so it's not to spoil the memory.

Preston:
Yup.

Emma:
[chuckles] You might have to ask her about why she was called Crash.

Garett:
Oh. I'll make a note of that then.

Emma:
[chuckles]

Garett:
Yeah. Emma, we can't thank you enough for the time that you've spent with us here, sharing your stories. We really appreciate it.

Emma:
Well, I've really enjoyed sharing them with you.

Garett:
Thank you for listening. If you want to email us feedback, ask us questions or writing a story for us to share, you can email us at lifenorthofthe54th@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you, love to hear your stories. We'd love to have you on with us. So, Emma, thank you. Thanks for taking this time. And thank you so much for, I guess, being family, literally being family, but being family to so many others, too.

Emma:
[chuckles] Thank you for having me.

Garett:
Thank you so much. We'll see you around.

Preston:
Take care Emma.

Emma:
Okay.

Garett:
Bye.

Ending Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff with drumbeat]