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| Dick
Carroll, Pioneer |
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by
Bonny Remple |
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(Editor's note: It's such an honour
to publish local family histories with original photos.
The stories pay tribute to all our pioneers)
West of Burns Lake, at
Palling Road West, there is a farm house
behind
a screen
of poplar
trees.
The
house belongs to Jean and Charlie Paulson, and it may not
be the oldest house in the Lakes District, but Jean is
the daughter of one of the area’s earliest
settlers. Her father was Richard “Dick” Carroll who arrived in the
Lakes District
from Minnesota
some
time
in 1909.
After Dick left his parents’ home in Minnesota,
he crossed most of the continent and then travelled up
the Skeena River from Prince Rupert on
a paddlewheel boat, eventually reaching Hazelton. From there, he walked
all the way to Burns Lake. |
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Dick
Carroll (centre) with the two men he snowshoed
with to Hazelton for
supplies in 1909. (note
the pistols)
(photos courtesy of Jean Paulson)
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Upon arrival in the fledgling community,
the young Irishman discovered a First Nations village and
a single log structure near the lake, part of the Telegraph
Trail from San Francisco to the Yukon. The log building
was manned by a young telegraph operator, who
happened
to be the only non-Native in the area.
Dick decided to stay in the Lakes District, choosing to
settle about eight kilometres west of Burns Lake. This area,
which is on the northwestern shore of Decker Lake, is known
as Palling and is still predominantly a farming community.
That first winter, he and two friends had to make a return
trip
to Hazelton on snowshoes for supplies. There was nowhere
else to buy the tea, flour and
sugar he needed to live on until spring. There were no supplies in
the area
at all, not even the railroad reached this far west. |
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Dick
with a dog on his sleigh used to deliver mail from
Aldermere to Francois Lake
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By the following
year, Dick had cleared and plowed land in Palling
with the help of his brother, Billy, who followed
him to British Columbia. He planted potatoes that year,
the
first crop ever grown in Palling.
“Dad said it was a good crop,” Jean
comments. She says her dad grew grain too, with the
help of his brother.
In addition to the farming he did,
Dick had a mail run. In the summer, he used horses and
a stage, and in the winter
a horse-drawn sleigh to deliver letters
and packages to the Lakes District. His run started in Aldermere, which was
a community located just above Telkwa, and ended at
Francois Lake. Another man
took over from there, carrying the mail from Francois Lake to Fort Fraser.
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