For over a century, people have written about or photographed the Bell Farm.
Today, we strive to discover lost documents and to share these with the residents of the Indian Head region and with website readers throughout the world.
The Bell Barn Society has rolled out an Eductional Program for Teachers suitable for Divisions One & Two.
We greatly appreciate the financial and in-kind contributions that people and agencies have made and continue to make the Bell Barn Project Possible. Please make your donations to:
Bell Barn Society of Indian Head
P.O. Box 1882
Indian Head, Saskatchewan
S0G 2K0
Charitable Registration Number
83482 0524 RR000
Sessional Papers of Canada
(Click on photos above to enlarge)
Title: Report from J.McD. Gordon, Regina to the Deputy Minister of the Interior, Ottawa
Date: Dec. 22, 1883
Source: Government of Canada, Sessional Paper (No.12) for 1884, p.11 & 12
Saskatchewan Archives Board, Regina
Comments: The Sessional Papers provide annual reports on various provincial and federal government activities. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these publications often included reproductions of correspondence and reports. For various reasons, the originals of these may not have survived, as was the case with certain records belonging to the Department of the Interior, many of which were destroyed in the 1897 West Block fire on Parliament Hill, Ottawa.
This letter from Dominion Lands Agent J. McD. Gordon, of Regina, to his superior, the Deputy Minister of the Interior, was dated December 22, 1883, at the end of another busy year in the West. As construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway progressed across the prairie in 1881, 1882 and 1883, settlers, merchants and other pioneers began to follow at a steady pace. The large corporate farm then being built just north of Indian Head by the Qu’Appelle Valley Farming Company was obviously of considerable interest to the federal government, warranting a very detailed report and covering almost two full pages of the Session Paper for 1884. The tight binding makes copying the spine portion of the letter difficult to read.