In 1682 Pierre Terriot and his wife settled along the Saint Antoine (Cornwallis) River and built what was probably the first house in New Minas. Terriot was at the forefront of a wave of Acadians from Port Royal who would settle in what became the village of Saint Antoine and today is the village of New Minas.

This little-known fact about the Acadian link with New Minas was revealed in a presentation recently before the village commission. The presentation was made by members of the Acadian Heritage Sites Committee which was formed to have Acadian sites in the village identified and protected. Co-chairs Maynard Stevens and Ken Belfountain, along with Glenda Bishop, gave an extensive overview of New Minas’ Acadian roots, along with a detailed report on historical sources confirming that the village was an Acadian settlement.

Leading off the presentation, Maynard Stevens noted that after Pierre Terriot established a farm on the banks of the Cornwallis, “the settlement… grew larger, extended to both sides of the river, and took in what is present day New Minas.” Stevens said that source material “suggests the village was of significant size compared to Grand Pre and included a church, a mill as well as many farms.”

Stevens pointed out a census taken by the French indicate that a “sizeable population” lived in New Minas before the expulsion. “Remnants of (Acadian) cellars, a mill and graveyard” exist within the boundaries of New Minas, Stevens said, these sites being confirmed by various archaeological studies. The mill site is located immediately behind the elementary school on property owned by the school board. Acadian homesteads, the cellar depressions still visible today, are also on school board property.

The heritage committee would like to see Acadian sites in the village identified and where possible, protected under the special places act or similar legislation. To achieve these goals, Stevens said, the first step is to have Acadian sites on land owned by the village or municipality recognised as heritage sites.

“The one site that falls in this category,” Stevens said, “is the Acadian graveyard that is located beside the railroad tracks at the foot of Cornwallis Avenue. It is marked by a rise that is covered by a growth of small trees.

“It is our hope,” Stevens said in effect, “that the village commission will start the process whereby the cemetery is designated as a historic site and protected under municipal bylaws.”

I’m pleased to report that there was a positive response to the committee’s presentation and there will be action on the request that the cemetery be recognised and protected. Hopefully, by the time the Acadian World Congress meets here, the cemetery site will be marked by a plaque. The committee also hopes to have other Acadian sites in the village identified in the future.

Some historical writers claim that Kentville was once called the “Devil’s Half Acre” and Horton Corner; several historians – Bruce Fergusson, Dr. Watson Kirkconnell and Arthur W. H. Eaton among them – note that Kentville was once called Penooek by the Mi’kmaq.

The Devil’s Half Acre is the title of Mabel Nichol’s Kentville history, suggesting perhaps that the town was once known for ribald celebrations. The Mi’kmaq Penooek may have been used as a place-name at one time as Fergusson, Kirkconnell and Eaton suggest. However, Dr. Silas Rand writes that the Mi’kmaq designation for the Kentville area was Obsitquetchk, which means a fording place. This ford, where a bridge now spans the river, was a well-used crossing place and explains why the immediate area was settled. Two roads from the north and north-east which meet at the ford, Cornwallis and Belcher Street, probably were trails used by the Mi’kmaq and Acadians.

I doubt that the Planters or any later settlers used the Mi’kmaq names for Kentville. But Horton Corner it definitely was before the name was changed by public proclamation. Arthur W. H. Eaton confirms this; he refers to a notice published in the Nova Scotian newspaper in 1826 advising the public that henceforth Horton Corner would be called Kentville. “The inhabitants of Horton Corner having held a public meeting,” the notice began, “have resolved that their growing village should in the future be called Kentville.”

Kentville was chosen as the new name of Horton Corner, the notice read, in honour of the Duke of Kent. Some sources say that this honour was bestowed on the Duke because he stayed overnight in Horton Corner. Here’s what Louis Comeau wrote in the book Historic Kentville: “In 1826… the residents (of Horton Corner) decided to change the name to Kentville in honour of His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, who had stayed in the village while on a hunting trip in 1794.”

Bruce Fergusson in Place-Names and Places in Nova Scotia writers in a similar vein on the origin of Kentville’s name: “The name Kentville was given… in honour of the Duke of Kent who visited the place in 1826.” Heather Davidson makes a similar inference in the Kentville history she wrote for the area’s Board of Trade in 1979. Mabel Nichols makes the same statement in her Kentville history, and names the hotel the Duke stayed in.

I have several other references including newspaper articles and an 1895 historical paper that also claim Kentville was given its name due to a visit by the Duke of Kent. There’s even a website that makes the same claim.

However, despite claims by local historians that he did, it’s questionable that the Duke of Kent stayed in Horton Corner. While the Duke of Kent travelled through Kings County in 1794, it appears that he made his lodgings in Wolfville. Arthur W. H. Eaton writes that the only known Kings County stop of the Duke was in Wolfville.

Finally, there is the Doreen Roberts exhaustive research for her 1977 Masters thesis (Two Hundred Years of Travel in Kings County) which is on file at Acadia University. Roberts said that “although the Duke of Kent may have stopped in the Shiretown as a resting place, he did not stop in the town overnight.” While Kentville residents “adhere very strongly” to the belief that their town was the official stop, it was Wolfville, Roberts concluded.

New Minas was settled by the Acadians around the same time as Grand Pre and as I pointed out in a previous column, some documentation of homesteads, mills, orchards and other sites has already been done. For the most part, however, the documentation exists only in archaeological studies, and surveys which are of limited access.

One example is a detailed study of Acadian sites, a historical, archaeological and botanical survey of the French period by the late John Erskine. This work was privately published in 1975 and copies are difficult to find today. Another example is a 1971 archaeological survey of Acadian sites by the Nova Scotia Museum (curatorial report number 20) which also looks at Acadian sites in New Minas.

Like Erskine’s work, curatorial report number 20 is not readily available for the study of Acadian sites. As I mentioned previously, some Acadian sites in New Minas are indicated in a municipal map of parks and open space. But like Erskine’s work and the curatorial report, it isn’t something you can find in a library or information centre.

This pretty well sums up the extent of the work that’s been done on the New Minas Acadian connection. In other words, while we are aware that New Minas was an Acadian settlement, no identification of these sites exists except for references in material of limited public access.

As I reported in my April 16 column, steps are being taken to rectify this. An Acadian Heritage Sites Committee was formed recently and immediately co-chairs Ken Belfountain and Maynard Stevens organised a tour of Acadian sites in the village. The committee checked out homestead sites and looked at what’s believed to be the location of an Acadian orchard, cemetery and mill.

As mentioned in the April column, the main purpose of forming the heritage committee is to identify Acadian sites in the village. The plan is to place plaques on sites where there is public access. The committee has already began to canvass senior residents of New Minas for the purpose of recording oral folklore about Acadian sites.

On April 29[, 2004] a public meeting was held in the New Minas civic centre and there was an excellent turnout. Several new Acadian sites were identified at the meeting including something I found intriguing, the possibility that the French military had built a blockhouse in New Minas.

The meeting began with a review by committee member Glenda Bishop of known Acadian homesteads and other sites. At the meeting, it was decided to concentrate on one site at a time and the Acadian cemetery was chosen as the first project. I’ll have more information on what will be done to mark the cemetery site in a future column.

Residents who are familiar with stories about Acadian sites in New Minas or who may have heard stories about the Acadians from parents, grandparents or other relatives are invited to contact any of the committee members: Ken Belfountain, 902-678-5356; Maynard Stevens, 902-681-2040; Glenda Bishop, 902-681-0819.

It wasn’t meant to be derogatory.

Actually, Canard historian Ernest Eaton was simply comparing old apple varieties with contemporary varieties when he wrote in 1973 that fruit grown by the Acadians “varied widely in appearance, flavour, season,” and with few exceptions were “small and unattractive except for cider.”

No doubt, for the most part, Eaton is correct. The apples grown today are bigger, tastier and more colourful than the apples produced by the Acadians. Eaton observed that grafting and pest control were unknown to the Acadians, which limited the quality of their apples. As for the varieties, he said that no more than two or three were grown in their orchards.

However, historians have different opinions on how many varieties were grown by the Acadians. Recently when I was working on a couple of apple-related stories for this newspaper I found references to more than three varieties grown by the Acadians. I also found that as well as disagreeing on numbers, historians also differ on what the varieties were called.

For example, in Valley Gold, Anne Hutten’s comprehensive history of the apple industry published in 1981, the author names several varieties that may have been grown by the Acadians. Hutten mentions the L’Epice, or Spicy Apple as probably being brought here by de Monts and cultivated by the Acadians. Hutten said that while it isn’t certain, other French varieties possibly grown by the Acadians were the Pomme Gris, Fameuse, Belliveau and the Bellefleur.

Keith Hatchard, in an eight-part history of apple growing in the Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly in 1977, writes that the Acadians grew the L’Epice and the Bellefleur, as well as other varieties which he didn’t name.

In files at the Kings County museum, I found two reports which said the Acadians grew the L’Epice, Pomme Gris, Belliveau, Bellefleur and Fameuse. I also found a reference to a variety called Nonpareil, which Anne Hutten also mentions in connection with the Acadians. The Acadians may have imported the Nonpareil from New England.

Some of the apple varieties known to the Acadians were grown in Nova Scotia long after the expulsion. At the Hants Exhibition in 1907, for example, two of the apples on display were the Bellefleur and Pomme Gris. The 19th-century fruit growing pioneer, Charles Prescott, is credited with introducing more apple varieties in the province than anyone. Prescott experimented with the Acadian variety Fameuse and it was growing in his Kings County orchards when he died in 1859. A census by the Department of Agriculture indicated that at least three Fameuse trees existed in 1949.

It’s interesting to note that according to Keith Hatchard, one of the apple varieties favoured by the Acadians still grows in Kings County. This is the Bellefleur, which Hatchard says was the predecessor of Bishop Inglis’s Yellow Belleflower, and today is called the Bishop Pippin.

At his request there was no public service and only a few relatives and friends were present when Dr. Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton’s remains were buried in Kentville’s Oak Grove Cemetery alongside his brother, Frank. “The ashes of Dr. Eaton buried at The Oaks,” The Advertiser headlined a brief report in its July 22 issue. Oddly, this was scant news coverage of the passing of one of Kentville’s most distinguished citizens.

Dr. Eaton, who is best known as the author of The History of Kings County and other works, died in Boston on July 15, 1937, at age 87. He was a Kentville native and was born there in 1849. Dr. Eaton was the son of William Eaton and Anna Augusta Willoughby Hamilton; both, as various sources point out, were of New England Puritan stock.

Dr. Eaton’s family had a long association with Kentville (his mother was born there) and it was appropriate that his remains came to rest in Oak Grove Cemetery. His father’s residence may have been the Royal Oak, the inn the Duke of Kent stayed in during his 1806 visit. William Eaton taught school in Kentville for seven of his 14 years as a teacher, and he was inspector of schools for Kings County. When Kentville was incorporated in 1866, William was honoured by being named to its first council board. Later he became the town’s Clerk and Treasurer, an office he held until his death in 1893.

Dr. Eaton was a descendant of one of the first Planter families to settle in Kings County, tracing his ancestry back to David Eaton who received the original grant in Cornwallis in 1761; David was a farmer and had lived all of his life on Canard Street near what is known locally as Jawbone Corner.

Little is known about Dr. Eaton’s early days except that he attended Kentville and Wolfville schools before moving on to university. On his education, he wrote that he “received his early classical and general training in the grammar schools of Kentville, from his father at home, and for a short time in the College and Academy at Wolfville.”

When he was 23 years old, Dr. Eaton went to Boston to study for the ministry. In a family genealogy he compiled, he wrote that he “graduated at Newton Theological Seminary in 1876 and at Harvard University in 1880.” Shortly afterwards he was admitted into the ministry of the Protestant Church.

While Eaton spent most of his ministry in the States, he returned to Nova Scotia to earn an M.A. at Dalhousie University in 1904. He wrote a number of books on religious topics, authored a collection of poems about Nova Scotia, historical monographs on Hants and Colchester County, a history of Halifax and his major work, the history of Kings County.

Eaton was honoured for his scholastic accomplishments with an Honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree from Kings College, Windsor, in 1905. In 1913 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is also recognised as a Canadian major poet; a review on an Internet website salutes his poetry as holding a “distinctive place in Canadian verse.”

A long-time county resident says he is a bit disturbed because the municipality insists on placing his home in Scots Bay. “I don’t live in Scots Bay,” he says. “I live in the community of Scots Bay Road.”

He’s quite correct about that. There is or once was a community known as Scots Bay Road and some people living in this area still think of it as such. A map of Kings County circa 1920 indicates Scots Bay Road and Scots Bay were separate communities. Charles Bruce Fergusson’s Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia acknowledges this as well; but while he lumps Scots Bay and Scots Bay Road under one heading, he gives the 1956 population for each community as if they were separate entities.

Scots Bay Road is just one example of many Kings County place-names that have vanished from county records, and exist today only on older maps, in historical records and in that nebulous thing known as oral history.

Where, for example, is Hamilton’s Corner? Even though it’s mentioned in Eaton’s Kings County history and it’s only a few minutes drive north of Kentville’s town limits, you probably never heard of it. Bet you know a place called Jawbone Corner though. Who hasn’t heard the story of how the jawbone of a whale was used as a gatepost on a gate at the corner. Jawbone Corner and Hamilton’s Corner are one and the same. Oddly, Eaton says the area was first called Jawbone Corner (or simply The Whalebone) and later was changed to Hamilton’s Corner after a Planter grantee. Why Hamilton was forgotten and the jawbone of the whale replaced him as a place-name no one knows.

Okay, another place-name test. These communities, Randville, Sunnyside and Jackson’s Mills, are only a few minutes drive from Kentville. Some of you probably know that Sunnyside was once the name of a community between New Minas and Greenwich and it exists now only as the name of a road; but what about the others?

Well, if you’ve driven over Borden Street, the road between Canning and Sheffield Mills you had to pass through the long gone community of Randville. The community name probably disappeared when the government closed the Randville school and amalgamated it with the Canning school. Jackson’s Mills is the old name for Coldbrook, according to an 1864-65 Nova Scotia directory. In Memories of Coldbrook, Marie Bishop writes that one Isaac Jackson came to Coldbrook in 1861 and established a lumber mill; he may have given the area its earlier name.

No more tests. Here are some community place-names that have disappeared with the contemporary name in brackets. Bass Creek (Medford); Middle Pereau (Delhaven); Upper Horton (Wolfville); Oaklyn (Lockhartville); Fisher’s Corner (Grafton); Bull’s Corner and Pineo Village (Waterville); Five Points (White Rock) Shingle Brook and Givan’s Wharf (Harbourville); Buckley’s Corner (Grafton).

In her Kentville history, Mabel Nichols gives the town’s early name as Horton Corner so we can add this to our list of vanished place-names. Gone too is the place name of Atlanta, which is behind and just west of Sheffield Mills. Long gone are the South Mountain communities behind Gaspereau of Union Street, Albert Mines, Etna and Vesuvius. Also vanished as place-names are the communities of Brooklyn Corner north of Coldbrook, Condon Settlement south of Cambridge, New Ross Road and immediately north of Kentville, Pine Woods.

In a January column, I noted that relatively little attention has been given to Acadian settlements in Kings County outside of the area around Grand Pre. Areas such as Canard, Pereau and New Minas, for example, were settled by Acadians about the same time as Grand Pre. In fact, the land immediately adjacent to most of the county rivers running into Minas Basin – the Grand Habitant (Cornwallis), Habitant, Canard, Gaspereau and Pereau – were prime settlement areas.

Early on, the Cornwallis River attracted Acadian settlers. While the Cornwallis apparently wasn’t as easy to dyke as the Canard, due perhaps to the high banks and ferocious tides, the Acadians established settlements near the river. What is now New Minas was a favoured place. As I mentioned in the January column, New Minas may have been a large enough settlement to have a church and several mills.

The Acadian presence in New Minas is a historical fact and in my opinion, not enough has been done to recognise this. However, I’m pleased to report that this should soon be rectified.

Recently I sat in on the inaugural meeting of an Acadian heritage sites committee. A mission statement hasn’t yet been written by the committee, but it will be forthcoming soon. I gather that the basic aim of the committee is to create awareness of New Minas as an early Acadian settlement and to identify Acadian sites in the village. It’s possible that down the road some of the Acadian sites will be marked with plaques; the committee may also publish a historical brochure with maps that pinpoints Acadian homesteads and other relevant sites.

Some identifying of Acadian sites has already been done and is documented.

A parks and open space map prepared by the Municipality of Kings County identifies several areas in New Minas with an Acadian connection. The map indicates the location of Acadian cellars, an “Acadian priest’s home and church,” an Acadian orchard and an Acadian mill. Most of these sites are literally no more than a stone’s throw from the main business area of the village.

In 1971 an archaeological survey of Acadian habitation sites in the Valley (curatorial report number 20) was conducted by the Nova Scotia Museum. The report mentions seven “structures” of Acadian origin in New Minas. Six of the structures, which for the most part are depressions in the ground, were examined during the survey; some of the depressions contained evidence of stone foundations. A couple of the structures appear to have been too large to have been homesteads.

In a 1975 publication, John Erskine writes that an Acadian church with a nearby priest house and several grist mills were located near Jones Road. Erskine also mentions an Acadian cemetery and other cellars of Acadian origin in New Minas. On the burial ground Erskine writes that “a furlong eastward in the cultivated lands, a forested island stands alone, traditionally the Acadian cemetery.” This reference must be to the prominent landmark known locally as Oak Island.

A study done a few years ago on a collector road on the north boundary of New Minas mentions an Acadian cemetery on a spur of Oak Island, the location of half a dozen cellars and the remains of an Acadian dyke.

“I think it is fascinating,” Connie Millett said, “to hold in my hand a letter written by my great great-grandfather and have it in such good condition.”

The letter datelined Hantsport, July 4, was written by shipbuilder A. C. Ells in 1879 and is addressed to his son Cyrus Ells in Scots Bay. Ms. Millett contacted me to mention the spelling of Scots Bay, a topic that’s been in the news lately. As she stated, the letter is indeed fascinating and for various reasons besides it being a valuable family keepsake.

First of all, for anyone interested in the shipbuilding era, the Ells letter provides an intimate glimpse of this period. A. C. Ells apparently built a number of sailing ships. Ms. Millett tells me she has quite a bit of background on her ancestor. Millett says Ells was listed in the Scots Bay business directory of the 1864 Ambrose Church map as a master shipwright and way office keeper.

Ells, Millett writes, built three ships, “a barque, The Bluebird, a barque, The Bremen, and a schooner, The Avon.” Her reference source is the history of Scots Bay, written by Abram Jess in 1940. Millett says Ells refers to the Bremen and Avon in one of his 1879 letters. “We may be sure that he was in the process of refitting the Bluebird (when) he wrote (this letter),” Millett says, since there is a reference to it in a note sent to Ells from one of his sons. This note mentions “serious damage sustained by The Bluebird on a journey back from the West Coast.”

The letter A. C. Ells wrote to his son Cyrus describes in detail the repairs being done on the Bluebird, which is being worked on in an unidentified Hantsport shipyard. Sailing ship buffs will be interested in Ells’ description of the work and his reference to the ship as female; it is, to say the least, a fascinating glimpse of that bygone era of sails.

“I write to inform you that we have got the vessel stripped of her copper as far as we can from the beach,” Ells wrote, “and have taken out some plank(s) out of her topside and deck and find her as sound as when she was launched. Not a bit of dry rot in her. We have got the caulking to work now and will be ready to put her on the blocks next week to get at her bottom.

“She wants a new foreyard and some new sails, which we are getting made and a new top gallon yard.* We have to send down the main topmast and lift the main rigging, so it will take me some time to get through, perhaps a fortnight. We think it will spoil $2,000 by the time she gets away.”

Ms. Millett intimates that she treasures this and other letters in her possession written by her shipbuilding ancestors well over a century ago. She’s fortunate indeed to have these family treasures.

*Topgallant, which is a sail, according to Leon Barron. The foreyard referred to is cross spars. Re the reference to stripping the ship of copper, Leon tells me that sailing ships were sheathed in copper to protect the wood from a marine woodborer.

“Paddy’s Island, a mile north of Medford, was part of the farm of Patrick Barnes, who came to Nova Scotia from Ireland at the time of the potato famine,” the late Watson Kirkconnell states in his 1971 book on place names in Kings County.

In a recent column on the Irish element in Kings County, I quoted Kirkconnell, whom as most readers know was a distinguished scholar in various fields and was president of Acadia University. I had no reason to question such an esteemed source as Dr. Kirkconnell; in fact, I had used Kirkconnell as the source before in this column when mentioning the Irish origin of the Paddy’s Island place name.

It appears, however, that Dr. Kirkconnell was astray when it comes to Paddy’s Island, and it was named after Patrick Burns, not Patrick Barnes.

I was talking recently with Helen Burns who told me about her research on the property where Paddy’s Island is located. Ms. Burns great grandfather Patrick purchased the property in 1869 from Judson Strong. Ms. Burns believes that the Strong family received the land as part of an original grant and she said “it doesn’t look like it was owned by anybody in between.” In other words, it appears that there was no Barnes family connected with this land.

Ms. Burns said that her family, including her father, lived on the property and she doesn’t know how Kirkconnell got the Barnes name connected with it. She “isn’t 100 percent sure that Paddy’s Island was named after her great-grandfather,” she said, “but it seems logical.

Ms. Burns also has a copy of a story written about Paddy’s Island by Alice Parker, which she believes was published in The Advertiser. In the article Parker writes that the island was named for Patrick or Paddy Burns.

As mentioned, Dr. Kirkconnell said that Patrick Barnes emigrated to this area during the potato famine. Helen Burns tells me that her great grandfather did leave Ireland during the famine. She attempted to trace her great grandfather’s roots while in Ireland a few years ago, but had no luck.

Helen Burns tells me her great-grandfather came from County Cork, where he was born in 1842. Patrick Burns died in 1882 and is buried in the cemetery of St. Joseph’s Church in Kentville.

As for Dr. Kirkconnell writing that it was a Patrick Barnes who gave Paddy’s Island its name, this may have been a typo. Helen Burns told me that Patrick Burns marriage record incorrectly spelled his name as “Byrnes.” Dr. Kirkconnell may have seen a copy of the marriage document. A slip of the keys later by a typesetter could have changed the “y” in Byrnes to an “a.”

When I was working on the story about the Wilf Carter fan in Australia who searched out a fellow Wilf Carter fan, Leon Barron of North Alton, I discovered all sorts of interesting trivia. Here’s some of it.

As long as there are country and western music fans, Wilf Carter will never be forgotten. Carter is also a popular Internet topic as well. The legendary country and western singer died in 1996 but he remains alive on the ‘net. I found a mind-boggling 3,369 Canadian websites that mentioned Wilf Carter. I didn’t look at all those sites, of course, but the ones I checked offered biographies, the words to Carter’s hit songs, photo highlight’s of his long career and so on.

There’s a Wilf Carter room in the Canning Library and Heritage Center. The room was established in 1993, says John Newcombe, the chairman of the committee that operates what amounts to a Wilf Carter museum. In the room are photographs, some of Carter’s clothing, including a pair of his chaps, records, an autobiography and other memorabilia.

The committee looking after the Wilf Carter room is part of the Fieldwood Heritage Society. The committee has two fund raising events a year, called Wilf Carter Night, which helps maintain the room.

Wilf Carter’s first record, on the RCA Victor label, was released in 1933. Carter recorded Swiss Moonlight Lullaby, which featured his famous triple yodel, with The Capture of Albert Johnson on the flip side. RCA Victor must have figured the latter song was best since it came out on the A side. However, music historian Fred Isenor says it was Swiss [Moonlight] Lullaby that was the hit and it started Carter on the road to stardom. Isenor writes that Swiss [Moonlight] Lullaby has been available continuously in different formats from 78 to CD since Carter recorded it.

Wilf Carter’s record sales numbered in the millions and he is hailed as the grandfather of country and western music. Carter was inducted into the Nashville Song Writers Hall of Fame. He is a charter member of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma, and his likeness stands in the Banff Canadian Wax Museum.

Wilf Carter was a hit in America where he generated a massive following using the nickname Montana Slim. In the 1930s Carter had a daily radio show on the CBS out of New York.

Wilf Carter wrote a book about his life but his modesty led him to understate his fantastic accomplishments as a country and western singer. The best book on Carter’s life was written by a German fan.

Canning claims Wilf Carter as its own on the basis that his father Rev. Henry Carter had been the minister in the Pereau Baptist Church. However, Rev. Carter’s tenure as minister in Pereau was short-lived. He served for only a year, from November 1916 to November 1917, when illness forced him to leave the ministry to recuperate. Leon Barron tells me Rev. Carter stayed in Greenwich while he was mending.

Wilf Carter was a rodeo rider in his early days in western Canada and later had a ranch in Alberta. On one occasion when he was being interviewed he was asked how he got his start with horses. Carter replied that it was while he was driving a team hauling apples to Canning for Pereau farmer Lorenzo Lyons. Actually, Carter added, it was a team of oxen.