Thanks to Celestial Badger for providing the cache as a
third-to-find gift.
The cache site overlooks the North Saskatchewan River near the
mouth of Wabamun Creek, formerly known as White Whale Creek. Two
fur trading posts were located here, a logical place because the
forests here were rich in fur-bearing animals (beaver, bear,
muskrat, otter, martin, mink, but no celestial badgers), and
because this had long been an area where First Nations People
gathered during the winter.
Across the road is where the White Whale School was located,
from 1903-1956. The first teacher at this school, Mr. D. Lent,
lived seven miles west of here. Every school day he and his oldest
children walked the seven miles to school, and then walked seven
miles home again at the end of the day. A later teacher, Mr.
Hoffman, would leave school on Friday afternoon and walk the trail
to Edmonton to bring back school supplies in time for class on
Monday.
Even in later years teachers didn’t have an easy job. Consider
these recollections from Elsie Scheideman, a teacher at the school
from 1942-1947 (Miss Sheideman’s salary was $840 a year, and from
her pay she had to make payments on a set encyclopedias for the
classroom): “Loose boards on the outside steps and inside the entry
porch presented a physical hazard to the unwary. Loose and missing
boards at critical points on the two outhouses presented a hazard
of another sort.” She also describes the classroom in winter, where
the old furnace “…devoured wood and coal ungratefully. Its metal
jacket did a conscientious job of protecting the room from fire and
sent its heat upward for little of it reached any other area.
During the cold winter months the children kept their coats and
mitts on.” Unfortunately White Whale School burned down during the
summer of 1947, and although the building was replaced a year
later, most of the students chose to continue their education via
correspondence, and the school was permanently closed in 1956. The
building was eventually sold and moved away.
More information on the history of this area can be found in the
book “Hills of Hope”.