Image: Three unidentified game farm employees ride on camels while another unidentified man rides a much smaller goat-like animal in front of them, ca. 1908. (SPRA 0679.01.055)
In 2018, the Sutherland family donated a album containing over a hundred photographs relating to the Hines family life on a Scottish game farm prior to their immigration to Canada. The game was unlike any found in the South Peace region.
Game farms are places where wildlife is raised and kept typically for hunting. It appears that the specific game farm where the Hines family worked also contained a menagerie of exotic animals: for the private enjoyment of estate owners and their guests or possibly for commercial display. Menageries acted as symbols of prestige for the upper-classes and provided a glimpse into life in “exotic” Eastern lands. The Hines family album contains images of zebras, ostriches, and llamas as well as a number of photos of the family riding and playing with the animals.
In August, Ross Sutherland and Anne Graydon visited the Archives to meet with staff and provide additional information about the family album and the history it contains. Archives staff will use their stories to describe the photographs in the album.
The siblings remember their grandfather, Alfred Hines as a man who was, at times, quite strict. Ross recalled that his grandfather always made him shine his shoes when he was a boy; likely a holdover from the time he worked as a bobby. Alfred later went on to run a game farm for the Duke of Winfield in Bedfordshire at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was here that he likely met his future wife, Octavia Beeata Hines, who worked for the neighbours as a scullery maid. Anne recalls that her grandmother hated cleaning fireplaces to the extent that she would not let Ross put a wood stove in their old home.
Alfred and Octavia’s eldest children were raised on the game farm, including Helen Sutherland nee Hines: Ross and Anne’s mother. By 1912, the family relocated to Regina, SK where Alfred took up a number of jobs including working for the Partridge family farm and the Canadian Pacific Railway. He also worked at the provincial jail. The Hines family album contains a few photos of the family’s time in Saskatchewan, including a photograph on the farm.
Helen moved to the Peace Country as an adult after marrying Seath Sutherland, son of George and Phoebe: descendants of British loyalists living in Massachusetts. Helen experienced a more privileged upbringing than most immigrants. Her father had a prestigious job at the provincial jail that afforded the family privileges such as running water. Nevertheless, Helen preserved through numerous challenges to successfully raise twelve children (six daughters and six sons) while homesteading in the Peace.
Helen inherited the Hines family photo album after her father died at the age of 90, and eventually passed it on to her son, Ross. The photographs encased in the album are an important component of their family’s journey to the South Peace Region, where they encountered very different “wildlife” than they had become accustomed to on the game farm.
This article originally appeared in the September 2018 issue of Telling Our Stories. For more information about the Hines-Sutherland fonds, a finding aid is available on our website.
