Clearing Winter Roads in Rideau Township ~ 1940s

Snow clearing was the responsibility of the farmer, and it was each man's duty to look after his own part of the road. Several men worked together with their teams to clear a stretch of road. They used a board tied to a sleigh to wingthe snow back. The road was just wide enough for one car to pass. The horses plowed just one width of a sleigh. There were turn-outs made in the entrances of laneways or in the few places where the drifts were shallow. Horses and sleighs did not require perfectly cleared roads, and unless there was an emergency, such as the arrival of a baby, when the neighbours got together and dug a way for the doctor, people stayed at home when it stormed. Township roads were not plowed regularly until after the Second World War.

Mr. John Kirkpatrick of Kars, tells the following snow story.

"Billy Boyd of Osgoode had a milk truck, and bought a plow to put on the truck SO he could get round in the winter. In the early 1940's the farmers of the First Line raised enough money to pay him to plow the road for them. In February 1942, near Lee Pratt's, half way down the First Line, Boyd's plow broke down, and there were no spare parts to be had. There came up a storm and it snowed and it snowed, and then it blew and it blew, and the people wanted out. They telephoned all round, then to the Department of Highways, to see if they could rent a plow.

The Department said that they could, when the main roads were all clear or when their crews were not working. It turned out that the only day that they could rent the plow was a Sunday, and that if the job was to be finished, they'd need men to help dig ahead of the plow. At nine o'clock on Sunday morning, twenty-two men met the plow at Wattersons! Corners, on Highway 16. They dug all day and by seven o'clock that night, the plow had made a rough track through the five miles to the village of Kars. There wasn't time to wing the snow back for the plow had to be back on the Highway first thing Monday morning. The men all trudged back home and fell into bed.

Along about midnight there came another storm, and it snowed and it blew all night, and all day and by Tuesday morning, when the storm had died down, the road was drifted solid right across. The First Line was closed for the rest of that winter, and some people in Kars said, very morally, to the men of the First Line, "You see, that's what come s of working on a Sunday!"

Mr. Boyd had taken the plow off the truck and had managed to back to Kars and then get home to Osgoode. For the rest of the winter, the farmers opened a horse track through the lowest drifts in the fields, and with a horse and cutter were able to take their milk and other produce to the highway.

The pictures below were taken in February, 1942 by Mrs. John Kirkpatrick, and given to the Tweedsmuir History in 1963, and verify the story beyond all doubt.

When the roads were plowed regularly, the plowing was paid for by the taxes.

By 1963, many roads had been widened, graded and improved. Many had been given black topping, so that most of the weather hazards were eliminated. People were able to travel at will at all times of the year.