The House that Fred Built #3
One of my favourite things to do whenever Emily and I visit her family’s farm in Central Alberta is take the dogs out for a wander around the section. I feel a real connection to that countryside: the rolling fields stretched out under a wide blue sky, the tufts of spruce and alder that break them up into their patchwork, the history that seems to seep from the weary barns and rusted equipment that once played home to sheep, goats, and the sturdiest breed of work horses.
Em’s great Uncle, Fred, homesteaded Spruce Hill nearly a century ago and lived a solitary life there until his death, when Em was still a teenager. Every inch of clearing is such because he, along with his team of horses, chopped and pulled the trees; every nail in every barn-board was hammered by his hands. Fred died long before my marriage to Emily, but each time I go for one of my walks I feel as if I’m getting to know him a little better, and I’m filled with admiration for both the man and his story.
The home that Emily grew up in was constructed by her father 30 or so years ago, but the original house Fred built is still there, tucked into a corner of the clearing. It’s falling apart and will eventually need to be torn down altogether, but for now it stands, weathered and tired and filled with a few stubborn traces of his quiet, perhaps lonely life.
I’ve begun to photograph it and the farm whenever I’m out for a visit, and what started as simple curiosity is over time growing into something much more. The House that Fred Built has become my way of adding something to the record of a family I’ve only just joined by telling Fred’s story in a manner I hope he would have liked. It’s my way of paying respects to a man I’ll never have the chance to meet.
The House that Fred Built #4