On Saturday morning a dozen travelers (and a butterball dog) made their way to my Creek Bend home. Our 1 ½-hour pilgrimage along the Seine River valley was to the future Warde Avenue right-of-way to the north. It was a cold day to walk, but luckily there was little wind in the valley.
The pilgrims were from many places and from many groups. Save Our Seine. OURS-Winnipeg. The Lemay forest. Even from Little Mountain Park. They were up for an exploration that day, so I was glad to oblige.
I am sorry to say that I do not know the Metis history of the area and who the original owner families were. The start of our journey on Creek Bend was known as the Storoschuk farm in the 1940s. The original outbuildings, chicken coop and summer kitchen, still stand, at least for now. The pilgrims did not need to know about the tragedies of Storoschuk farm. Sometimes it is best to leave the past buried.
Smith Farm, now owned by Qualico Developments, was owned by the English-immigrant Smith family for almost a hundred years. While most of the family’s famous collection of old cars and trucks have been hauled away, one rusted car still sits in the middle of the farm’s forested Seine River coulee.
In winter Smith Farm coulee looks like the bar at 2 a.m. after the lights have been turned up. A crude bridge of lashed together deadfall trees spans the creekbed. A collapsed barn sits high on the bank. A surprising number of ancient plywood shacks and forts built by generations of Smith children litter the forest. As we walked inland through the deep snow we could see marks on trees from beavers that had penetrated deep into the lowland. This place would never grace the cover of a nature magazine, but I was glad to see that the pilgrims were still interested in the surviving forest. With attention and care it could be restored. Qualico is even considering using it to drain the ponds of their new bedroom community. Similar to Waverley West, Smith Farm coulee could be incorporated into a new development. Is that a good idea? I cannot say.
I made a bad decision and led the group onto the high ground and the snow-covered fields of the adjacent Sampson Lands. The snow-shoe path I had hoped to find there was blown over. We doggedly made our way in deep snow westwards to the river. The backs of existing Royalwood houses and the treed Four-Mile Road right-of-way were to our north.
The forested valley within the Sampson Lands is deceptively large. Keen eyes found wood duck boxes and owl platforms in the trees. A rough path has been blazed beside the river. An historic horse path leads down to the site of the old wooden Schlorf bridge, now dismantled. It appears that this riparian forest is safely within the valley, protected from future development by the City’s Waterway requirement.
To save time we took the existing South Seine River AT Trail on the west bank for our return journey. It had been freshly plowed by the City. Ironically, it is far easier and perhaps even more enjoyable to walk along the developed riverbank than it is to walk through the undeveloped lands to the east. One day Winnipeggers will enjoy walking the new riverside trails in the east side’s Precinct K. Until then, the land is still private property.