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Monkman Homestead
Cutbank Lake, Near
Other Names:
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Monkman Barn
The Monkman Homestead
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Statement of Significance
Description of Historic Place
The Monkman Homestead comprises roughly 64.7 hectares of land on the southwest bank of Cutbank Lake, twenty kilometres northwest of Grande Prairie. The site includes a log house, barn, machine shed, and granary constructed between 1906 and the 1930s.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Monkman Homestead lies in its association with early settlement and agriculture in the Peace River district and its connection to Alex Monkman, a pioneering trader, rancher, and farmer in the area.
The township survey of the Peace River Country was begun and the area opened to settlement in 1909. Alex Monkman laid one of the first homestead claims in 1910, filing on a quarter section of land along the southwest bank of Cutbank Lake. Monkman relocated the home he had constructed in 1906 at his ranching operation on Bear Lake to the site and likely erected the extant machine shed and barn during the mid-1910s. The granary was built later, probably in the 1930s. The utilitarian design and humble materials of the buildings express the North American vernacular style typical of frontier structures, emphasizing functionality and pressing need over artistry and elaborate construction. These four buildings provide some of the earliest structural evidence of the initial settlement wave into the Peace River country, the last agricultural frontier in North America to be opened to homesteaders.
Alex Monkman was a prominent figure in the early settlement of the Peace River Country. Descended from Metis of the Red River Settlement, Monkman travelled and worked throughout the North American West during the 1880s and 1890s before arriving on the Grande Prairie in 1899. In the fall of that year, he established a trading post for the Bredin and Cornwall firm at Lake Saskatoon. The post proved successful and attracted Hudson's Bay Company traders and Christian missionaries, both of whom established posts nearby. The Lake Saskatoon Settlement, effectively begun by Monkman, represented the first Euro-Canadian settlement on the Grande Prairie. While at Lake Saskatoon, Monkman created a small farming operation, one of the first in the district. When the Revillon Freres bought out Bredin and Cornwall in 1906, Monkman moved to Bear Lake and set up a ranch. Four years later, he was one of the first to file a homestead claim in the Peace River Country, settling on Cutbank Lake. During his time in Northern Alberta, Monkman was an important figure in the region's public affairs, most notably in his championing of a transportation route from the Peace Country to the Pacific Ocean. From the early 1900s until the late 1930s, he advocated for a new transport avenue - first for trains, later for cars - through a pass in the Rocky Mountains through to Vancouver. Although his proposal was ultimately unsuccessful, the mountain pass was named in his honour and is now incorporated into British Columbia's Monkman Pass Provincial Park.
Source: Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, Historic Resources Management Branch (File: Des. 1992)
Character-Defining Elements
The character-defining elements of the Monkman Homestead include such features as:
Site:
- spatial arrangement of buildings and structures.
Log House:
- mass, form, and style;
- round log facade, hand-hewn flat on the inside, held together by saddle notches;
- lean-to kitchen on west elevation featuring squared logs and shed roof;
- medium pitch gable roof.
Barn:
- mass, form, and style;
- double pitched gambrel roof with cupola on center of rooftop ridge;
- balloon-framing;
- loft supported by regularly spaced floor joists placed on heavy-timber beams-on-post;
- stall dividers, open stalls;
- barn doors;
- small openings for ventilation.
Machine Shed:
- log construction featuring square wall logs joined with dovetail notching;
- medium pitched gable roof.
Granary:
- squared log construction featuring dovetailed joins.
Location
| Street Address: |
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| Community: |
Cutbank Lake, Near |
| Boundaries: |
Portions of SE 27 and NE 22-72-8-W6 |
| Contributing Resources: |
Buildings: 4
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ATS Legal Description:
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Mer |
Rge |
Twp |
Sec |
LSD |
6
6
6
6
6
6
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8
8
8
8
8
8
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72
72
72
72
72
72
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22
22
22
22
27
27
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09
10
15
16 (ptn.)
1 (ptn.)
2 (ptn.)
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PBL Legal Description (Cadastral Reference):
Latitude/Longitude:
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Latitude |
Longitude |
CDT |
Datum Type |
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55.254125 |
-119.134853 |
GPS |
NAD 83 |
UTM Reference:
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Northing |
Easting |
Zone |
CDT |
Datum Type |
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6125541 |
0364536 |
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GPS |
NAD 83 |
Recognition
| Recognition Authority: |
Province of Alberta |
| Designation Status: |
Provincial Historic Resource |
| Date of Designation: |
2001/10/19 |
Historical Information
| Built: |
1906 to 1939 |
| Period of Significance: |
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| Theme(s): |
Peopling the Land : Settlement
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| Historic Function(s): |
Food Supply : Farm or Ranch
Residence : Single Dwelling
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| Current Function(s): |
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| Architect: |
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| Builder: |
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| Context: |
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
One of the first European Canadian settlers on the Grande Prairie was Alex Monkman, who opened a store at Lake Saskatoon for the firm of Bredin and Cornwall in November 1899. With the signing of Treaty No. 8 that summer, and a significant influx of cash into the northwest, Bredin and Cornwall were out to challenge the Hudson's Bay Company for the trade in the Peace River Country. Theirs was a combined operation which undertook cash sales as well as barter for furs. At the post on Lake Saskatoon, Monkman also began one of the first farms in the south Peace River Country.
In 1906, when Bredin and Cornwall sold out to Revillon Freres, Monkman was replaced at Lake Saskatoon by Leon Ferguson. Impressed by the agricultural potential of Grande Prairie, however, Monkman set up a ranch on the shore of Bear Lake with cattle purchased from Jim McCreight. When the land in the district was surveyed for homesteading in 1909-10, Monkman filed for a quarter section at SE22 TP32 R8 W6 by Cutbank Lake. He moved his house here from the cow camp at Bear Lake in 1910, and over the next few years he erected a number of other buildings. Several of these still stand on what was the first homestead in the region.
One of the buildings which remains on the Monkman property is the large barn, erected in 1916, just after the railway arrived in Grande Prairie. The barn served Monkman's thriving cattle operation on leases next to Bear Lake, and due to its size, it was also a social centre for parties and dances.
Over the years, Alex Monkman became a leading member of the community around Lake Saskatoon and Grande Prairie. He is best known for his effort in the 1930s to get a road built southwest from Beaverlodge through the Rocky Mountains, a potential outlet for the Peace River Country to Prince George and Vancouver. Monkman had discovered a pass sometime earlier, and publicized it as being 160 feet lower than the Yellowhead Pass. It was hoped that the British Columbia and federal governments would pick up on the idea and complete the road, but this was during the Depression, and nothing came of it at the time. The pass is now officially designated Monkman Pass and there is a British Columbia provincial park there. Alex Monkman's farm at Cutbank Lake had served as the business centre for the Monkman Pass Highway Association.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The historical significance of the Monkman site lies in its connection with Alex Monkman, and even more so, in its association with the first wave of settlement in the Peace River Country, the last major region of North America to be thrown open for homesteading. The 1906 house is one of the two oldest buildings in the south Peace River Country, and the 1916 barn is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, such structure in the district. Along with the machine shed, granary and outhouse, they exemplify the pioneer spirit of the district and of the time.
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Additional Information
| Object Number: |
4665-0993 |
| Designation File: |
DES 1992 |
| Related Listing(s): |
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| Heritage Survey File: |
HS 75627
HS 75609
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| Website Link: |
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| Data Source: |
Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, Historic Resources Management Branch, Old St. Stephen's College, 8820 - 112 Street, Edmonton, AB T6G 2P8 (File: Des. 1992) |
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