Neerlandia's Centennial Celebrations

Neerlandia was 100 years old in 2012.  The celebration was held on August 2, 3 & 4th.

A hearty and special thanks to all the many volunteers who helped in many, many ways before, during, and after the celebrations to make sure everything went smoothly.  The celebration weekend would not have been possible without your help! 

May 1912

According to the homestead records, these men had cabins on their homesteads by the spring of 1912:

Rients de Jager
Arie Emmerzael                                                                                                  
Cornelius Ingwersen 
Henry Kippers  
Albert Mast  
Koop Mast  
Johan Messelink 
Jan Oldegbers
Berend te Ronde  
Douwe Terpsma 
Siebren Tiemstra
Willem van Ark                                                                               

Among the first of the twelve to bring their families to the wilderness were the Mast and Oldegbers families. Koop (aged 58)  and Minke (ages 53) Mast came with their youngest son, 14-year-old Henry. With them travelled Jan (aged 64) and Johanna (aged 54) Oldegbers and their son, John, who was 16.

The families had hired two teams of horses and two wagons.  Jan Anema and Siebren Tiemstra were the team drivers. The first part of the trip was north through St. Albert, then to Morinville.  North of Morinville, the trip became a nightmare, as the trails were poor with large mud holes and became increasingly worse. After Rossington, there was only a winding trail through the bush, criss-crossed with sloughs, creeks, and rivers. There were hordes of black flies, mosquitoes, and other insects that made the trip more difficult. The men, and often the women too, would walk to make it easier for the horses to pull the wagons that were loaded with household goods and supplies.  

Somewhere along the way, the men decided it was impossible to use the horses because they sank up to their bellies in the mud.  So Siebren and Jan returned to Edmonton, and Albert purchased an ox and a bull; the Masts also had oxen. It was sometimes necessary to double up the teams to cross the sloughs. Other times the men would unhitch the teams, drive them around a mucky spot, stretch chain across and pull the wagons through in that way.

During their trip, the Masts and Oldegbers slept in the bush at night. After two weeks on the trail, they finally reached the Big Timber, which was just south of the Tiemstra homestead. The area was so named because of the trees, many of them up to 24 to 30" in diameter, which had escaped the fire that had come through the whole area about 30 years earlier. It took two days for the families to get through the Big Timber. After having to cross at least one more slough, they finally arrived at their homesteads.

April 1912

During the early months of 1912, twelve or more of those who had filed for land came to this area to build log houses.  Mr. Huinink had a wagon that was used to transport  the necessary provisions from Edmonton. After arriving, the men first erected a structure that was used as both a stable for their horses and as a place to eat and sleep.  Their meals consisted of brown beans, rice, and rabbit meat.

Many of the men stayed until spring, working in groups of four or five to get the houses built. First they cut down forty to fifty straight trees for a building, then used horses to drag the logs to the building site. Menne Nanninga, who was both an architect and a carpenter, was considered the foreman, but he, as well as some others, did not stay until the log houses were finished. They returned to Edmonton earlier, probably because they needed to make money to provide for their families. (Information from memoirs of C. Ingwersen)

On February 12, 1912, Arie Emmerzael  became part of the group who had filed for homesteads in the area when he filed on the NE of 28-61-3. 

January 1912

By the end of January 1912, some of the Dutch settlers from Edmonton who had filed for homesteads in December of 1911 returned to this area to build cabins. Thirty years before their arrival there had been a great fire, which burned over one thousand acres of trees in the area, so there was little heavy bush.

These first Dutch settlers who came had already met the first homesteaders in the area. Along Shoal Creek lived Elizabeth Melsome with her two sons and her brother, Albert Scott. A bit farther north were the cabins of three homesteaders who hunted and trapped in the area. One was Tom Lewis, a tall broad-shouldered Englishman with a clean-shaven, kindly face. The other two were rough-looking bearded Irishmen, one named George Wing and the other George Caughlin.

Almost certainly, Douwe Terpsma, Albert Jan Oldegbers, and Koop Mast were among those to first begin building cabins. They were part of the first group of men who had filed on December 18,1911, at the Dominion Lands Office in Edmonton. These are the men who filed and their quarter numbers:

John Anema----------SW 23-61-3
Rients de Jager----------SW 34-61-3     
Drikus Huinink----------SW 10-62-3
Cornelius Ingwersen----------SE 09-62-3  
Albert M. Mast----------SE 22-61-3
Koop Peter Mast----------NE 15-61-3
Johan Messelink----------NE 34-61-3
Henry J. Michael----------NE 04-62-3
Menne Nanninga----------NE 09-62-3
Albert J. Oldegbers----------SE 34-61-3
Hendrik Schoonekamp----------NW 34-61-3
Berend te Ronde----------SE 15-61-3
Douwe Terpsma----------SW 35-61-3
John Terpsma----------NW 26-61-3
Siebren Tiemstra----------NW 14-61-3 
Willem Van Ark----------SW 15-61-3 

 On December 26, 1911, two more men filed:

Fred Baron----------SE 15-62-3
Henry J. Kippers----------NE 10-62-3