This is how we occurred to the land. The land was not yet ruled and lined. The land named by the Stony People, who occurred to the grass, as stones left behind, as the foundation of teepees and the scoring of shale along the testy Bow River. The stones marked an intention to return. Possibilities of address – the river embankments, the buffalo, diamond willow.

Missionaries occurred to the land. John McDougall tramped over the brome grass in the summer before the snow storm that swallowed him. Before the Methodist horses that stampeded in the spring of 1880. That snap of memory, or horses that spooked and snatched Flora McDougall's horses, throwing her on the harsh fescue where a wagon rolled over her. Then John McDougall's wagon overturning, snapping a tree. Wagons exposed, destroyed. No serious injuries, just forewarning. A century moved by, and the old McDougall church became a charred Ruin.

There are townships. And English polo players. Scottish remittance men who waited for water. Presumed it as their privilege. Sometimes they got lucky, but only in a spring runoff. The hidden water travelled underground, beneath the sandstone and Morleyville Trail. We found it northeast of the trail, in a small valley that wanted to be a coulee, where a pine tree burst open from a prairie fire, where the sandstone cracked open its seed. A bursting prairie home opened, enlarged itself with Danish immigrants whose language sang to the aquifer, the Jersey cows, the willows, the wood lilies in June. The song always returned to the coyotes.

The Glendale Women's Institute compiled and published the stories and narratives of the local settlers but never mentioned the family of Christian and Minna Jensen (neé Hansen) in the book "Taming the Prairie Wool." Even so, the book is a treasure of how many people occurred to the land. Typically, the voices were adept at English, seizing the privilege of nestling inside its hard covers and becoming the definitive stories of the time. It's a rare book; the descendants of Chris and Minna each found a copy, only to sigh that yes, they had known all those people. The stories must now be told through their descendants and a niece who sat quietly with Tante Minna while her aunt seeded her heart and mind saying: "remember what I tell you."

There is one small story in Taming the Prairie Wool where Chris Jensen is mentioned. The story is really about my Uncle Hans, a bachelor with no heart, some say; perhaps others would disagree. Uncle Hans warranted four paragraphs of interest:

"Born in Padborg, Denmark in 1903, the son of a mixed farmer, Mr. Hansen came to Saskatchewan in 1927 where he worked on a farm during the summer. He then worked without pay on a farm in the Nightingale district northeast of Calgary for two years, as he was never able to collect any wages. He then came to work for Arthur E. Norris at Glendale staying two years.

In 1932, Mr. Hansen went into partnership with his brother-in-law Chris Jensen on the Hankinson place. They took green colts from William Bancroft and broke them to do the land work. Mr. Hansen rented NW ¼ Sec. 36 from Les Smith in 1936 where he milked cows by hand, shipping the milk to Union Milk Co. until he bought Malack's farm west of Airdrie in 1943. He has since been engaged there raising beef cattle and grain.

Mr. Hansen had living with him a Danish friend, Andy Andersen. Andy was very particular and always kept himself very clean. He was after Hans all the time to wash his hands and tidy himself up.

One time Andy washed a suit of underwear and hung it on the aerial of their car to dry. Later they went driving somewhere and the suit blew off and into the ditch. When they were on their way home, Hans stopped to pick up the garment which he knew was Andy's. Andy seemed to have forgotten about his underwear and said 'Oh, Hans, don't pick that up. Some dirty person might have been wearing it.' Hans gave Andy a bad time over that episode."

All you might ever learn about Chris Jensen comes from these pages, that he partnered with his brother-in-law Hans Hansen. Uncle Chris had immigrated along with Hans, and Andy who was gay, and quite possibly in love with Uncle Hans. Andy became peripheral kin to us; he always appeared at family events, which often included wiener roasts in the poplar trees on the farm. He always selected a dashing clothing ensemble of a grey suit and polished black shoes, despite the bonfire.

Andy had spirited my parents and brothers away from Uncle Hans' farm in 1956, after my mother pleaded for rescue. He encouraged them to study English in the big city of Calgary and remake their lives. Andy adored my mother and loved to discuss topics with her that were marginal to our patriarchy. The healing properties of Witch Hazel and the post traumatic effects of hysterectomy often came up. He attended Sharon Lutheran Church regularly and became a great hit with the ladies' choir. Andy was lovable enough, although Uncle Hans told me years later that his new lady friend/housekeeper had left the farm speedily after Andy had thrown a butcher knife at her. The menacing blade had become embedded in the door and come out only with some difficulty. Uncle Hans often pointed out the damage as a cautionary tale about Andy, whose action seemed to suggest a crime of passion. Uncle Hans steadfastly refused to discuss any probable motives.

If you walk through the remains of the old farmhouse looking for traces of Chris and Minna Jensen, there are no more clues on this prairie than there are in a well researched history book. They were marginal to the history of this place, by all central accounts. But as I loiter near the ground site of the old farm, I get bearings on what was the kitchen window view, where we kids sat for dinner at a small table, the old oak table having filled with adults. The monopoly game is put away reluctantly, for next Sunday. The picture kitchen window looks out toward the small dairy barns and Uncle Chris' nuts and bolts shop – the scent of black oil still reaches me fifty years later. Uncle Chris stands in his shop, oiling a chain or some other chunk of metal he wants to tease into further use. Beyond the short barns, there is simply the hay field, pitted and pocked with grazing milk cows. Past that, the poplars, the distant escape of foothills, the cairns of stones plucked out from each new year's spring frost. 

As I leave this site, I picture my mother disappearing into the black night embrace of the prairie, disappearing four times to unhitch each cattle gate. Each time I hold my breath to hope for her return to my father's pink station wagon. She always comes back, the car door swinging open to allow a lungful of scented Timothy hay.

The icy clutch of the wind off the glaciers scoops into the hollow where the old house stood. Back in Calgary, it is May and crabapple buds lower the trees to eye level. Here in the almost-there nest of Cochrane, the wind believes it is still February. There are islands of snow in the poplars, and even after a hundred years, the stones leach their way to the top of the soil.

Taming the Prairie Wool:  Glendale Women's Institute.  1965 (122)