Post by L Roebuck on May 24, 2006 9:11:41 GMT -5
Bandit caves in badlands
By JOHN MASTERS
Meridian Writers’ Group
May 21 2006
There isn’t a lot in Coronach (pop. 822), 10 kilometres north of the American border. For a visitor, the second most interesting thing might be the mural at the visitor centre. It tells how the Canadian Pacific Railway put a line through here in 1926 and named the station after the horse that won the Epsom Derby that year.
The first most interesting thing might be Tillie Duncan.
Duncan, born a year after the CPR came, leads tours into the Big Muddy badlands, showing people where bandits, including the Sundance Kid, used to hole up a century or more ago.
Duncan got into guiding because in 1991, she recalls, “I went on this tour and I wasn’t too impressed.” She decided she could do better, so more than a decade later here she still is, bumping down gravel roads that spit grit against the underside of the car like hailstones, dressed in jeans, talking about Sam Kelly, horse thief, cattle rustler, train robber and leader of the Kelly Gang.
The Big Muddy badlands are gouged by river valleys formed when the weather was wetter. The water honeycombed the soft sandstone hills with caves, perfect hideouts for felons.
On the jolting ride to the caves where Sam Kelly hid, Duncan explains that he was one of the last of a string of American and Canadian who holed up here, beginning in the late 1800s.
The outlaws engaged in cross-border commerce.
“They’d steal horses in Canada and run them into the States,” says Duncan, “and rob trains in the U.S. and hightail it into Canada.”
Lookouts were posted on the buttes, where they had commanding views in all directions. In fact, it was such a good sanctuary that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid made it station number one on the outlaw trail they created from here to the Mexican border.
“They had stations ever 10 or 12 miles,” says Duncan, “usually a ranch where they could get fresh horses. We know the Sundance Kid was here. We’re not sure about Butch.”
Kelly’s caves, when we finally reach them, are disappointing.
There’s a cave for the crooks and another for the horses, but both have been boarded up after the first few metres for safety reasons. All the same, it’s easy to imagine the outlaws here, the sentries up on Peak’s Butte, the horses tied up near the creek. Montana is less than a kilometre away.
On the way back to Coronach, past yellow fields of canola and an abandoned 1916 house said to have been used by bootleggers, Duncan fills in the rest of Kelly’s history.
He came from Nova Scotia, where there wasn’t work, and only became a criminal when he couldn’t find any in Saskatchewan, either.
After a decade in the badlands, he’d made enough money and left, never having been in jail.
“He wanted to lead a better life,” says Duncan.
In true Canadian fashion, he became a school trustee in Debden, Saskatchewan, and died in 1937 at the age of 78.
IF YOU GO:
Visit the Tourism Saskatchewan website at www.sasktourism.com
Langley Times
By JOHN MASTERS
Meridian Writers’ Group
May 21 2006
There isn’t a lot in Coronach (pop. 822), 10 kilometres north of the American border. For a visitor, the second most interesting thing might be the mural at the visitor centre. It tells how the Canadian Pacific Railway put a line through here in 1926 and named the station after the horse that won the Epsom Derby that year.
The first most interesting thing might be Tillie Duncan.
Duncan, born a year after the CPR came, leads tours into the Big Muddy badlands, showing people where bandits, including the Sundance Kid, used to hole up a century or more ago.
Duncan got into guiding because in 1991, she recalls, “I went on this tour and I wasn’t too impressed.” She decided she could do better, so more than a decade later here she still is, bumping down gravel roads that spit grit against the underside of the car like hailstones, dressed in jeans, talking about Sam Kelly, horse thief, cattle rustler, train robber and leader of the Kelly Gang.
The Big Muddy badlands are gouged by river valleys formed when the weather was wetter. The water honeycombed the soft sandstone hills with caves, perfect hideouts for felons.
On the jolting ride to the caves where Sam Kelly hid, Duncan explains that he was one of the last of a string of American and Canadian who holed up here, beginning in the late 1800s.
The outlaws engaged in cross-border commerce.
“They’d steal horses in Canada and run them into the States,” says Duncan, “and rob trains in the U.S. and hightail it into Canada.”
Lookouts were posted on the buttes, where they had commanding views in all directions. In fact, it was such a good sanctuary that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid made it station number one on the outlaw trail they created from here to the Mexican border.
“They had stations ever 10 or 12 miles,” says Duncan, “usually a ranch where they could get fresh horses. We know the Sundance Kid was here. We’re not sure about Butch.”
Kelly’s caves, when we finally reach them, are disappointing.
There’s a cave for the crooks and another for the horses, but both have been boarded up after the first few metres for safety reasons. All the same, it’s easy to imagine the outlaws here, the sentries up on Peak’s Butte, the horses tied up near the creek. Montana is less than a kilometre away.
On the way back to Coronach, past yellow fields of canola and an abandoned 1916 house said to have been used by bootleggers, Duncan fills in the rest of Kelly’s history.
He came from Nova Scotia, where there wasn’t work, and only became a criminal when he couldn’t find any in Saskatchewan, either.
After a decade in the badlands, he’d made enough money and left, never having been in jail.
“He wanted to lead a better life,” says Duncan.
In true Canadian fashion, he became a school trustee in Debden, Saskatchewan, and died in 1937 at the age of 78.
IF YOU GO:
Visit the Tourism Saskatchewan website at www.sasktourism.com
Langley Times