Ralph Edwards (homesteader)
Encyclopedia
Ralph Edwards was a pioneering British Columbia
n homesteader and leading conservationist
of the trumpeter swan
. He received the Order of Canada
in 1972 for his conservation efforts, and is the namesake of the Edwards Range
mountains. Edwards and his family were celebrated in a number of books and films, including Leland Stowe
's best-selling Crusoe of Lonesome Lake (1957), which led to Edwards being the surprise honoree on the 1957 Christmas Day edition of This Is Your Life
.
. After a few years he moved with his medical-missionary parents to India
where he spent three years in the foothills of the Himalayas
, until the age of eight, coming to love the mountains. He then returned to North Carolina for two years of school, and then to Massachusetts
where he lived with his great-uncle helping him on his farm, learning a love of farming. In his mid-teens he moved to Oregon
where his nomadic parents had settled. At age 16 he found work in British Columbia on a railroad construction crew. Edwards deep interest in farming and mountains came together when he learned he could get free land in British Columbia as part of a homesteading program. From age 17 to 21 he taught himself how to be a farmer using books and working as a farmhand. In 1913, at the age of 21, he was granted a 160-acre tract in the Atnarko valley on the eastern edge of the Cascade Mountain
range in British Columbia.
. Winters were long, snowy and very cold. Dangerous wild animals such as grizzly bear
s and bobcat
s were everywhere. He spent the first decade alone, clearing towering virgin forest
s of cedar trees with hand tools, building a multistory log home
, shooting and trapping game. He rarely left the farm, and could only bring in from the outside what he could carry on his back and packhorse
over a difficult mountainous trail, which took at least two days to traverse. Edwards named the farm "The Birches".
In 1917, he enlisted with the United States Army
as a radio operator, and fought in World War I
with the Fourth Division's 8th Field Signal Battalion, serving at the Battle of Château-Thierry
and later with occupation forces on the Rhine. He was discharged nine months after the armistice, and returned to The Birches. In 1923, he married a local girl, Ethel, and they raised three children on the farm: Stanley, Johnny and the youngest, daughter Trudy. The children were schooled through a correspondence system, and had access to Ralph's extensive home library.
The Edwards family became locally renowned for their pioneering self-sufficiency and DIY ethic
. Since it required so much effort to bring material in from the outside they tried to make as much as they could from scratch. Beyond such things as making their own shoes and spinning wool into clothing, accomplishments included a water-powered saw mill, and even an electric-generator powered by the river, enough to keep a single light-bulb going at night. He studied for a decade to build an airplane, teaching himself advanced mathematics and aeronautic engineering, although in the end he was forced to buy a used plane due to legal restrictions. At the age of 62 Edwards obtained his pilots license after only 28 hours of instruction, making him the oldest pilot in Canada to ever qualify (at the time). During his physical his doctor said he was healthier than men half his age.
Over the years, as Edwards' farm and family prospered, the legend of his accomplishments spread. In 1956, Pulitzer Prize
winning journalist Leland Stowe
visited The Birches for 12 days on assignment with Reader's Digest. From his interviews he wrote a biography called Crusoe of Lonesome Lake (1957). Leeland saw Edwards as a modern day "Crusoe"
self-sufficiently carving a bountiful existence out of harsh but beautiful land. The book sold well and Edwards became somewhat famous there-after. Popular interest was such that Edwards was the honoree on the 1957 Christmas Day edition of This Is Your Life
, hosted by Ralph Edwards
(no relation). Guests for the show included his younger brother, who he had not seen in 35 years; former Army comrades he had not seen in 38 years; and his 93-year-old mother.
. He died in 1977 of cancer.
By the time his wife died, nobody was living at The Birches, and the property had begun to deteriorate back to nature. His son John made efforts to restore the farm beginning in the late 1980s, but the entire property burned to the ground in a forest fire in July-August 2004, and John died soon after in 2007. A documentary called Crusoe of Lonesome Lake was filmed in 1988 by Tony Wade, featuring footage of the historic property and buildings before the fire.
of trumpeter swan
refugees, a species facing extinction due to over-hunting in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The lake's remoteness offered the swans safety, but at the cost of starvation during severe winters. In 1925, the Canadian government enlisted Edwards' help to feed the swans during winter. Over the years, a number of family members took on the task – first Ralph, then Stan, John, and Trudy – using sacks of corn which were hauled in by packhorse.
During Princess Elizabeth's 1950 tour of Canada, she was promised a Dominion
gift of Trumpeter swans, by arrangement of British conservationist Peter Scot, who was head of the Severn Wildlife Trust in Britain (now known as the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust). Canadian officials discovered the only swans tame enough to capture were at Lonesome Lake as they had been fed by Edwards family for decades. In 1952, with the help of Ralph and his daughter Trudy, five were captured and flown to England, the first time Trumpeter Swans had ever flown across the Atlantic (although in the 19th century swans had been brought by ship to European zoos). One later died, and the remaining four thrived at WWT Slimbridge
. The Queen in later years became Patron to the WWT, and Prince Charles the WWT President.
In 1972, Edwards received the Order of Canada
(Medal of Service) – the highest Canadian award for conservation – for his work with the swans. By the 1980s, trumpeter swan populations had increased throughout their range, and the Canadian government stopped its feeding program. Many of the swans cared for by the Edwards family subsequently died of starvation, but others found new homes elsewhere in less cold and remote areas. It is unclear how effective the Edwards' feeding program was in the end, but the species today is better protected from hunting, and is no longer considered endangered.
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
n homesteader and leading conservationist
Conservationist
Conservationists are proponents or advocates of conservation. They advocate for the protection of all the species in an ecosystem with a strong focus on the natural environment...
of the trumpeter swan
Trumpeter Swan
The Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator, is the largest native North American bird, if measured in terms of weight and length, and is the largest living waterfowl species on earth. It is the North American counterpart of the European Whooper Swan.-Description:Males typically measure from and weigh...
. He received the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
in 1972 for his conservation efforts, and is the namesake of the Edwards Range
Edwards Range
The Edwards Range is a small mountain range in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, located north of Gellenspetz Creek. It has an area of 179 km2 and is a sub-range of the Pacific Ranges which in turn form part of the Coast Mountains.-Name origin:...
mountains. Edwards and his family were celebrated in a number of books and films, including Leland Stowe
Leland Stowe
Leland Stowe was a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist noted for being one of the first to recognize the expansionist character of the German Nazi regime.- Biography :...
's best-selling Crusoe of Lonesome Lake (1957), which led to Edwards being the surprise honoree on the 1957 Christmas Day edition of This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...
.
Early life
Edwards was born around 1891–92 in the mountains of North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. After a few years he moved with his medical-missionary parents to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
where he spent three years in the foothills of the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
, until the age of eight, coming to love the mountains. He then returned to North Carolina for two years of school, and then to Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
where he lived with his great-uncle helping him on his farm, learning a love of farming. In his mid-teens he moved to Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
where his nomadic parents had settled. At age 16 he found work in British Columbia on a railroad construction crew. Edwards deep interest in farming and mountains came together when he learned he could get free land in British Columbia as part of a homesteading program. From age 17 to 21 he taught himself how to be a farmer using books and working as a farmhand. In 1913, at the age of 21, he was granted a 160-acre tract in the Atnarko valley on the eastern edge of the Cascade Mountain
Cascade Mountain
Cascade Mountain can refer to:* Cascade Mountain in Alberta, Canada.* Cascade Mountain in New York, United States.When pluralized, Cascade Mountains generally refers either to the Cascade Range that runs north-south along the west coast of North America from British Columbia to Mount Shasta in...
range in British Columbia.
Farm and family
Edwards chose a location for the farm forty-miles walk from the nearest human settlement, deep in the mountains over a treacherous trail on the far end of Lonesome Lake (which Edwards named), in what is today Tweedsmuir South Provincial ParkTweedsmuir South Provincial Park
Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. Formerly part of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park it was formed from the southern portion of that park, the northern portion being redesignated Tweedsmuir North Provincial Park and Protected Area in order to allow...
. Winters were long, snowy and very cold. Dangerous wild animals such as grizzly bear
Grizzly Bear
The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...
s and bobcat
Bobcat
The bobcat is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, appearing during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago . With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including most of the continental United States...
s were everywhere. He spent the first decade alone, clearing towering virgin forest
Virgin Forest
Virgin Forest is a self-described B-movie starring Sarsi Emmanuel, who plays a barrio lass of Chinese ancestry; the late Miguel Rodriguez, as a Filipino-Spanish illustrado; and, Abel Jurado, who plays the lover of Sarsi's character.-Synopsis:...
s of cedar trees with hand tools, building a multistory log home
Log home
A log home is structurally identical to a log cabin...
, shooting and trapping game. He rarely left the farm, and could only bring in from the outside what he could carry on his back and packhorse
Packhorse
.A packhorse or pack horse refers generally to an equid such as a horse, mule, donkey or pony used for carrying goods on their backs, usually carried in sidebags or panniers. Typically packhorses are used to cross difficult terrain, where the absence of roads prevents the use of wheeled vehicles. ...
over a difficult mountainous trail, which took at least two days to traverse. Edwards named the farm "The Birches".
In 1917, he enlisted with the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
as a radio operator, and fought in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
with the Fourth Division's 8th Field Signal Battalion, serving at the Battle of Château-Thierry
Battle of Château-Thierry (1918)
The Battle of Château-Thierry was fought on 18 July 1918 and was one of the first actions of the American Expeditionary Force under General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing...
and later with occupation forces on the Rhine. He was discharged nine months after the armistice, and returned to The Birches. In 1923, he married a local girl, Ethel, and they raised three children on the farm: Stanley, Johnny and the youngest, daughter Trudy. The children were schooled through a correspondence system, and had access to Ralph's extensive home library.
The Edwards family became locally renowned for their pioneering self-sufficiency and DIY ethic
DIY ethic
The DIY ethic refers to the ethic of self-sufficiency through completing tasks oneself as opposed to having others who are more experienced or able complete them for one's behalf. It promotes the idea that an ordinary person can learn to do more than he or she thought was possible...
. Since it required so much effort to bring material in from the outside they tried to make as much as they could from scratch. Beyond such things as making their own shoes and spinning wool into clothing, accomplishments included a water-powered saw mill, and even an electric-generator powered by the river, enough to keep a single light-bulb going at night. He studied for a decade to build an airplane, teaching himself advanced mathematics and aeronautic engineering, although in the end he was forced to buy a used plane due to legal restrictions. At the age of 62 Edwards obtained his pilots license after only 28 hours of instruction, making him the oldest pilot in Canada to ever qualify (at the time). During his physical his doctor said he was healthier than men half his age.
Over the years, as Edwards' farm and family prospered, the legend of his accomplishments spread. In 1956, Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning journalist Leland Stowe
Leland Stowe
Leland Stowe was a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist noted for being one of the first to recognize the expansionist character of the German Nazi regime.- Biography :...
visited The Birches for 12 days on assignment with Reader's Digest. From his interviews he wrote a biography called Crusoe of Lonesome Lake (1957). Leeland saw Edwards as a modern day "Crusoe"
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...
self-sufficiently carving a bountiful existence out of harsh but beautiful land. The book sold well and Edwards became somewhat famous there-after. Popular interest was such that Edwards was the honoree on the 1957 Christmas Day edition of This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...
, hosted by Ralph Edwards
Ralph Edwards
Ralph Livingstone Edwards was an American radio and television host and television producer.-Early career:Born in Merino, Colorado , Edwards worked for KROW-AM in Oakland, California while he was still in high school...
(no relation). Guests for the show included his younger brother, who he had not seen in 35 years; former Army comrades he had not seen in 38 years; and his 93-year-old mother.
Final years and postscript
Edwards separated from his wife in 1965, and sold The Birches to American buyers, under the stipulation that his wife could continue to live there. He then took up commercial ocean fishing in his 70s, and for the remainder of his days lived in Prince RupertPrince Rupert, British Columbia
Prince Rupert is a port city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is the land, air, and water transportation hub of British Columbia's North Coast, and home to some 12,815 people .-History:...
. He died in 1977 of cancer.
By the time his wife died, nobody was living at The Birches, and the property had begun to deteriorate back to nature. His son John made efforts to restore the farm beginning in the late 1980s, but the entire property burned to the ground in a forest fire in July-August 2004, and John died soon after in 2007. A documentary called Crusoe of Lonesome Lake was filmed in 1988 by Tony Wade, featuring footage of the historic property and buildings before the fire.
Trumpeter swans
When Edwards first arrived, Lonesome Lake was home to a gaggleGaggle
A gaggle is a term of venery for a flock of geese that isn't in flight; in flight, the group can be called a skein.In terms of geese, a gaggle is equal to at least five geese....
of trumpeter swan
Trumpeter Swan
The Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator, is the largest native North American bird, if measured in terms of weight and length, and is the largest living waterfowl species on earth. It is the North American counterpart of the European Whooper Swan.-Description:Males typically measure from and weigh...
refugees, a species facing extinction due to over-hunting in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The lake's remoteness offered the swans safety, but at the cost of starvation during severe winters. In 1925, the Canadian government enlisted Edwards' help to feed the swans during winter. Over the years, a number of family members took on the task – first Ralph, then Stan, John, and Trudy – using sacks of corn which were hauled in by packhorse.
During Princess Elizabeth's 1950 tour of Canada, she was promised a Dominion
Dominion
A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...
gift of Trumpeter swans, by arrangement of British conservationist Peter Scot, who was head of the Severn Wildlife Trust in Britain (now known as the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust). Canadian officials discovered the only swans tame enough to capture were at Lonesome Lake as they had been fed by Edwards family for decades. In 1952, with the help of Ralph and his daughter Trudy, five were captured and flown to England, the first time Trumpeter Swans had ever flown across the Atlantic (although in the 19th century swans had been brought by ship to European zoos). One later died, and the remaining four thrived at WWT Slimbridge
WWT Slimbridge
WWT Slimbridge is a wetland reserve managed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, England. Slimbridge is halfway between Bristol and Gloucester on the estuary of the river Severn. The reserve was the first WWT centre to be opened, on 10 November 1946, thanks to the...
. The Queen in later years became Patron to the WWT, and Prince Charles the WWT President.
In 1972, Edwards received the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
(Medal of Service) – the highest Canadian award for conservation – for his work with the swans. By the 1980s, trumpeter swan populations had increased throughout their range, and the Canadian government stopped its feeding program. Many of the swans cared for by the Edwards family subsequently died of starvation, but others found new homes elsewhere in less cold and remote areas. It is unclear how effective the Edwards' feeding program was in the end, but the species today is better protected from hunting, and is no longer considered endangered.
External links
- Photographs by Susan Turner
- Photographs from Ralph Edwards of Lonesome Lake
- Google Maps: The Birches, areal view of the former farm (post-fire).
- The Crusoe of Lonesome Lake (video documentary 55 minutes).