Ticket to Curlew
This story takes place many years ago, when your great grandparents might have been children like you and Sam. The homesteaders lived very different lives from the way we live now. You will discover that travel and school and play time were not at all what you are used to. Click on the buttons below to learn something about Sam's world.
The CPR comes to Calgary
The Railway
Sam and his father came to Curlew by train. As the CPR railroad was laid down across the Canadian prairies, new land became available for settlement. The CPR sold this land for a small price in money, but the settlers had to be willing to work hard and face harsh weather conditions. Back then, railroad travel was the easiest way to cross the country to settle this new land. The locomotives were steam-powered and they did not travel as fast as the diesel trains do now. It took three days to travel from Winnipeg to Curlew. This gave the people on the trains an opportunity to visit together and to hear each other's stories.
Check out these links to railway web sites to see some pictures of the old locomotives and learn more about the early days of railway travel.
Virtual tours of old Alberta Railway Stations
The setting- the eastern Alberta prairies
When Sam arrived in Curlew he was disappointed to discover that Curlew was just as flat and treeless as all the other prairie towns that they had passed through. He missed his old home town, Jericho, Iowa.
"Jericho had trees and painted houses and wide wooden sidewalks. Curlew looked as if it might disappear at any minute, swept away by the prairie wind." p.8
Click on the wheat sheaves (below) to see some pictures of the prairies.
If you would like to read more about the prairies, try one of these books:
One Day In The Prairie by Jean Craighead George
If You're Not From The Prairie by David Bouchard
Sam's very special horse: Prince
Prince was part mustang.
To visit some web sites that will tell you more about mustangs, click on the horse icons below:
It was a common practice for the homesteaders to let their horses winter out on the range. Horses had better survival skills than cattle. They knew how to dig through the snow for food. Some of these horses decided that they preferred to stay wild. When springtime came they ran away and refused to be caught. Many descendants of these once domestic horses were running wild on the Armed Forces land near Medicine Hat. In 1996, there was a big round up of all these horses. Some of the wild horses were old and could not be domesticated (tamed). The younger healthy horses were sold to people who wanted to try to train them for riding and driving.
Prince, who became "King of the mustangs", decided to come home to be a farm horse again.
Why do you think he returned?
Can you imagine how Sam must have felt when he saw that Prince/King came back?
Did you enjoy this book? Would you like to talk to other kids about it?
Check out the Discussion page by clicking - 
If you would like to read more about the Ferriers,
Celia Lottridge has written another book about them called Wings To Fly.
