Settlement of the East
The communities of Grandview, Gilbert Plains, Ethelbert and Dauphin were once buried beneath the late Wisconsin continental ice sheet. This 1500 metre thick ice mass, as it moved southwards picked up huge quantities of gravel and rock, which are still recognized in the area. About 15,000 years ago, there began a rise in the temperatures of the world and the glacier started to melt towards the northeast. As the Duck and Riding Mountains were uncovered, melt water from the glacier become trapped between the ice and the hills and the base of the hills became a beach. The huge quantities of water released from the melting ice flowed towards this lake, carving out the huge ravines now found on the face of the Mountains. At the same time all the gravel and rock contained within the ice was left behind and it is at this time that the topography of the District took its familiar shape about 5,000 to 12,000 years ago. The glacial lake covered the eastern part of the District and as the glacier continued to retreat, the level of the lake slowly started to drop in stages. Occasionally after a drop, the lake would pile up a long mountain of sand along its shore as is presently seen along parts of Provincial Trunk Highway (PTH) #10.
The initial colonists, ancestors of the First Nations, came from outside areas after the retreat of the glaciers, approximately 12,000 years ago. These people established a nomadic lifestyle that continued until the arrival of the Europeans. As the glacial lake dropped, the aboriginal communities followed on the newly exposed land to continue their migratory way of life.
The Assiniboine, the Cree and the Ojibway (Salteaux) migrated into and lived in this region at different times during the fur-trade era. At first, the people living in this area were hardly affected with the exception of iron tools received in trade from other Native communities, which had traded these tools through Native middlemen. Until the LaVerendryes established their Trading Post on the Mossey River in the 1740’s, people from this area who wanted to trade, had to make the long and arduous journey to Hudson Bay by way of rivers and lakes.
It is believed that the first European’s to actually penetrate the area came from the west on the Assiniboine River. Travel over hills and high ground was much easier than over the swamp to the east. These Europeans were young men who lived with the local First Nations, for the purpose of trapping and trading. For the next 125 years, this area became well known to French and Anglo Saxon trappers and traders. The Duck Mountains were mapped by the Northwest Company in 1812, though at that time they were known as the Fort Dauphin Mountains (a translation of the Cree name).
In 1869, an agreement between the Canadian Government and the Hudson Bay Company transferred all Company lands to Canada. Because of this agreement a large number of Métis, white trappers and traders withdrew from the area into select areas to the north in the Swan River Valley. The lands in the District became unknown again and later pioneers did not know if there had been Europeans in the area. Somehow the original names of some physical features survived.
The first recorded homesteaders arrived in the late 1880’s. Settlers came over the Riding Mountain slope on the Strathclair Trail, which was a wagon trail to facilitate movement across the mountain to the Lake Dauphin area. The trail has been abandoned in favor of Provincial Highway #10. The Dauphin area is on the former lake bed of glacial Lake Agassiz.
In the autumn of 1884, Glenlyon Campbell rode his pony over the Riding Mountains and viewed the fertile valley lying between the Duck and Riding Mountains. He found a couple living in a small log house. This was Gilbert Ross, a Métis, from whom the Plains derived their name. Glenlyon Campbell returned south for the winter and in 1885 when the Riel Rebellion broke out, he enlisted with Boulton’s Scouts as a volunteer. He returned in the fall of that year, traded Gilbert Ross a pony for his house and Campbell and his wife moved in, making them the first homesteaders of Gilbert Plains.
As the good homesteading land in southern Manitoba was taken up, other settlers began to find their way into the valley. The earliest settlers selected land in the vicinity of the present day Gilbert Plains, but gradually settlement spread westwards. In May 1890, William Martin and Goseph Leitch turned the first sod in the Tamarisk district, thus becoming the first to homestead in what was later to become the RM of Grandview. These earliest homesteaders were of Anglo Saxon descent, the majority of them, from other areas of Canada and southern Manitoba.
Also in 1890, the Ethelbert area especially along the present PTH#10 (gravel ridge) was being regularly penetrated by settlers from the Dauphin area. They were coming to hunt and to cut tamarack trees for building bridges, fence posts and buildings.
In 1897, the gravel ridge from Dauphin to Swan River was graded and bridged bringing more people to the Ethelbert area. The first settlement of Ethelbert was by railroad crews who wintered there. Many of the original Ukrainian settlers of that area were working on the railroad. The name of the Village came from the names of the two children of Railroad Inspector R. MacKenzie (Ethel & Bertha), who spent part of that first winter there.
The Gilbert Plains district had become well-settled before the arrival of the railway around 1900. Up to this time, Dauphin was where most business was conducted and supplies were purchased. In the fall of 1900 the Canadian National Railroad (CNR) railway was completed to Grandview (so named for the beautiful view across the valley), bringing more settlers to the district.
On October 2, 1900, town lots were put on the market for what was then known as Ward 3 of the RM of Gilbert Plains. This community came to be known as the Village of Gilbert Plains. In that same year, surveyed lots were made available in the Village of “Grand View”.
In 1901, the area previously known as Gilbert Plains was divided and incorporated as two rural municipalities – Gilbert Plains and Grandview. With two well-established towns, numerous farms and a thriving lumber industry the area was a scene of much activity. Theodore Burrows located his sawmill and planning mill in Grandview in 1902 and another sawmill on the site where the hamlet of Garland (north of the Village of Ethelbert) is now located. The RM of Ethelbert was incorporated a few years later in 1905. The Village of Grandview was incorporated in the same year to be followed in 1906 by the incorporation of the Village of Gilbert Plains. The Village of Ethelbert would not be incorporated until 1951.
The Negrych Homestead national historic site, the oldest and most complete set of pioneer-era farmhouse and buildings in North America, is in the Rural Municipality of Gilbert Plains. It’s one of the most impressive folk sites on the continent and reflects Central Parkland’s rich agricultural heritage and strong agribusiness future.
The Trembowla Cross of Freedom stone and commemorative plaque near Trembowla mark the site of the first Ukrainian Catholic mass to be held in Canada, in 1897. A near by collection of historic buildings, including St.Micheal's Ukrainian Catholic Church (c.1898, the oldest remaining Ukrainian Catholic church in Canada), a pioneer home, and a school, houses artifacts from early Ukrainian settlers is located in the RM of Dauphin.
The Tamarisk School in the RM of Grandview was built in 1909 and is one of the best preserved examples of a Design No. 2 school built according to plans prepared by the Department of Education. The school closed in 1967 and is now being restored
Settlement of the West
Prior to the 1870’s, the Cree, Ojibway and Métis First Nations inhabited the Roblin Planning District area. Early settlement patterns were intimately linked to the fur trade and related transportation networks. The Pelly Trail and the Shell River facilitated the marketing of furs hunted in the Duck Mountains.
European settlers moved to the Planning District area in the early 1880’s, following the Pelly Trail north from Fort Ellice and occupying the agricultural lands along established fur trade routes. As the number of European settlers to the area increased upon the arrival of the Canadian Northern Railway in Dauphin in 1898, more of the forested lands north and east of Roblin were occupied.
The First Nations settlements that had existed along the Assiniboine River to the south also moved north as the railway line was constructed. The Métis in particular concentrated their land claims around San Clara and Boggy Creek. Once construction of the mainline had proceeded from Dauphin past Grandview, the railway company arranged for a sale of lots on the shores of Goose Lake.
By 1903, the Village of Goose Lake had a population of 100 residents with four stores and one small hotel. In 1904, the Village was renamed Roblin and the Town was subsequently incorporated in 1913.