Little house on the Prairie
David Migicovsky
By PAT ST. GERMAIN
Winnipeg Sun
Forget Survivor. That back-stabbing pack of wussies who spent 39 days on a
tropical island last spring had it easy compared to a quartet of sodbusters
living in the wilds of Manitoba for full year.
After battling mud, mosquitoes and creeping mould this summer, two Ontario
couples living as 1870s settlers on a homestead near Argyle, Man., now have
to pull together to contend with a harsh Prairie winter.
We look forward to cranking up the central heating and watching their
frigid struggle on TV early in 2001. But first, we revisit one of the
coldest, wettest Junes of the past 100 years when Pioneer Quest: A Year in
the Real West gets a two-part debut on History TV tonight at 8 p.m.
Following a bit of production housekeeping -- a brief recap of the search
for settlers and the making of Pioneer Quest -- there's some real drama in
the first hour.
After one day on the farm, Fergus, Ont., couple Alana and Frank Logie and
Winnipeg's Tom and Pat Ziolkoski have a heartbreaking parting when the
Ziolkoskis reveal that just hours before they left the city, Tom, 51, was
charged with sexual assault.
Since the charge, arising from a complaint filed by an acquaintance, will
require Tom to leave the site to attend court (Ziolkoski pleaded not guilty
Wednesday and is set to go to trial in April), it's decided the pair will
withdraw from the show, leaving Frank and Alana on their own for a week
while Winnipeg's Credo Entertainment scrambles to bring in a replacement
couple.
The newcomers, Kenora, Ont., couple Tim and Deanna Treadway, arrive in the
second episode at 9 p.m., and the homesteading adventure begins in earnest,
although it gets off to a bumpy start.
After a week of back-breaking field work, the solid, hard-working Logies -
- she's a 28-year-old nurse, he's a 25-year-old millwright -- are amused
when 49-year-old carpenter Tim and Deanna, a 47-year-old dental assistant,
announce that their first order of business is to build some kitchen
shelves for Deanna, who also wants to "clean up" the home site by removing
stray branches.
Frank and Alana want to build a corral for their milk cow Daisy and plow
horses Duke and Diamond. But the relentlessly cheerful Tim -- citing the
folksy adage, "If Momma ain't happy, nobody's happy" -- sets to work on the
outdoor kitchen.
Luckily, the quartet is able to complete both building projects, later
adding a pen for a pregnant hog named Anabelle and building a coop for
runaway chickens. Unluckily, ceaseless rain hampers almost every other job
they attempt.
The men sweat to plow a field by hand, only to watch furrows fill with
water behind them, the terminally damp tent the couples share is overrun
with mould and the women are repeatedly frustrated as crops of potatoes rot
in the sodden kitchen garden.
"It's our livelihood in the winter time and the rains kept coming and
coming and coming, and they died off, and we'd replant and then they'd die
off again, and we'd replant," Deanna said during a visit to Argyle July 30.
By that time, the settlers had built a barn and a small house for Frank
and Alana, but repeated attempts to dig a well had yielded only
contaminated water, and when June rains gave way to July heat, hordes of
bloodthirsty mosquitoes made outdoor life unbearable.
Rising at dawn and working till 11 p.m. or later was common, but for Frank
and Alana, at least, the change of pace from hectic modern life was still
welcome.
"Everyone's always in a rush and you never have enough time to do
everything and spend enough time together and everything like that," Frank
said. "And now we get to spend a ton of time together and it's a lot more
relaxing. It's not as stressful."
Credo Entertainment producer Jamie Brown, the show's creator, says the hog
Anabelle died in a barn fire this fall -- that disaster is covered in
Episode 4 -- but the couples have completed a second log house for Tim and
Deanna, and so far, the firewood they've been stockpiling since July is
keeping them warm.
Viewers can check on the homesteaders' progress and see video clips on the
show's Web site at www.pioneerquest.com.
>>David ========>
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David Migicovsky
d m i g i c o v at n e w s c e n e dot c o m
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