I feel very lucky that I was able to tape record an interview with my dad before he passed in 1992. I had a feeling. But that's not unusual. Intuition has always run deep in my dad's family.
His dad, Saskatchewan homesteader, Avery Ghent, was written up in several newspapers for his intuitive powers. Among my Gramps' many prophetic abilities was that you could blindfold him, give him something to hold in his hand and, after Gramps got the feeling off it, you could hide it anywhere on the property. You'd stand him up, turn him around and around to disorient him, after which time he would take your hand and drag you to the object you had hidden.
Gramps was orphaned back in Ontario when he was 10 years old. He was adopted by a nice couple in Georgetown, Ont. but ran away when he was 13. He joined the circus and became a large animal handler. He also worked on the railroad out West, being one of a great many men who put their backs into building the transportation marvel that would change the face of Canada. He was a horse-trader, too, wheeling and dealing with mostly Americans, and it was said he had a special gift over animals. I believe it.
As hard as Gramps' life was, I never heard him raise his voice or see his eyes when there wasn't a glint in their blue. His gentleness and intuition drew animals to him. Animals, people, children - everybody loved Gramps.
I don't know when he started homesteading in Saskatchewan. All I know is that a map shows that he was homesteading in Round Valley from 1918 to 1938, but I know from my dad that he had property further south in Saskatchewan before that.
He was an amazing individual, but maybe everybody was amazing back in the day. Everybody being their most resourceful, trying to figure out how to survive. During the wars. During the Great Depression. My dad recalls what life was like:
"[Dad] got caught on a belt in a threshing machine. He went all the way along the belt -his arm went around and smacked his head - his head was split all the way along here. Yeah, [my mom] doctored him. There was no doctors close by. You kiddin'? You couldn't pick up the phone and call a doctor He had a big scar all the way along here - big one. He hit his head on a wheel of the tractor this is how I remember it as a kid. He walked 15 miles to Lloydminster, walked, in the cold of winter-and he carried 100-pound bags of flour on his back, all the way back home so we could have bread and biscuits and stuff. My mom done so much fruit and stuff. We got a fruit cellar and we'd had potatoes and stuff like that. And she used to make everything: lye soap-you talk about bein' clean! The thing about Grandma's lye soap, it'd take the roughness off your knees, you ain't lyin'!"
Stories about the homestead and our roots began to fascinate me and my family and I had a burning desire to find the land that our ancestors were from. There was Clara Knight, my grandmother, and the three boys, Fred, Doug and my dad, Denzil, who didn't like his name and used his middle name, Howard, instead. This is the third summer in a row that I've come here to retrace our Saskatchewan roots.
Now I want to get back to my grandfather's unusual powers. Gramps was a diviner. When fancy machines were invented to make well drilling easier, Gramps would always end up being the go-to guy, using his gift to find water after the drillers would give up and declare the land dry. His uncanny ability made the headlines: "Avery Ghent Baffles Science In Finding Water!" the headlines read.
"Did I ever tell you the story about them guys and reporters and everything? They said, 'Ah, man, this is hoax time. You know, nobody can [divine water with a stick].' So, that kinda irked Dad a bit. He used to make me so damn mad. He used to go and witch wells for $5 or $10 and they'd pay $600 for their drillin' holes in the ground and couldn't get water and he'd go up there and witch around for 'em, found the veins and tell 'em how far it was - the water - which way the veins were runnin' and stake 'em off for 'em and everything and charge 'em 10 bucks. I said, 'Are you outta your mind? I'd be drivin' Cadillacs, man.' He'd say, 'Well, they're poor and they can't afford it.'
Dad said they "moved up North" when he was three or four.
"It was a big place between Lloydminster and Marshall. Oh man, you could ride a mile from the road to get to the house. Dad, he got it on a deal somehow - through a colonel or somethin'. It was big. I mean, big! You'd walk three miles across a field to the closest property line o' the neighbours. I lived there from the time I was about three or four 'bout then 'til I was 'bout 10 or 11."
There are holes in the story of my homesteading grandparents. The information I've managed to find out up to now is due to the stories of my Aunt Mary Ghent (nee Hague), the detective work and navigation skills of my friend, Sam Sharkawy, and the kind help of Butch Boskill, who to this day farms the land across the way from my grandfather's old homestead. Many thanks to my cousin, Sharon, for scanning and sending me some photos of Gramps. It's good to be back in Saskatchewan.
