When 100-year-old farmer Bill Scarrott first moved to the Eagle Hill area in Mountain View County in 1929 it was almost nothing but bush.
There were no paved roads, no gravel roads, just trails. The land had to be worked using horses. He lived off the land for several years and has worked hard on the farm until about four years ago, when he lost his vision due to macular degeneration, a vision disorder that typically affects older adults. But if it weren't for the loss of his sight, he'd still be out working on the land today.
“If I could see, I'd still be out there in the field,” Scarrott said. “There's no better place to be than on the farm.”
Scarrott celebrated his 100th birthday on March 28. He was born in 1913 in Wales, where by the age of 14 he started working in coal mines in the southern portion of the country.
Scarrott was 15 years old when his mother, father, grandfather and his five siblings moved to Canada, attracted by vacant quadrants of land used by the government to draw immigrants.
They first arrived in Saskatchewan and by 1929 had moved to the Eagle Hill area.
“It was just before the Great Depression in the 1930s and I'll tell you things were pretty rough,” he said.
The family practically lived off the land for 12 years, he said. They had a big garden that supplied them with produce and their meat came from the pigs, cattle and chicken they raised.
“When I wasn't clearing land I worked on the farm driving horses for $15 a month. General farm wages for a hired man was a dollar a day.”
When Scarrott was 19 years old, he bought 160 acres of his own property in the area. It's where over the years he has raised beef cattle, milk cows, pigs, sheep, chicken and elk and grew hay and a variety of grains.
Things didn't change much until after the Second World War. The only form of transportation before then was by saddle horse or by teams of horses and wagons. All the farming was done with a horse or a team of horses, depending on the implement, until about the mid-1940s when he first got a tractor.
But the most significant change in his life came when he met the woman, Astrid, who would eventually become his wife.
“I met a lovely Norwegian girl. I was 33 years old before I found anyone who would give me a smile or hold my hand,” he said.
Astrid first moved to Eagle Hill from near Suffield, Alta., where she was born and raised. She moved to the property next door to Scarrott's after her family was forced to move from the Suffield area when a large area of land was expropriated for a new military training facility.
Astrid said she was attracted to Scarrott mainly because of his sense of humour.
“It was his keen sense of humour. The first time he came over to pick me up in a big truck, he said ‘have you got your life insured, just in case,'” Astrid recalled, with a chuckle.
In November, the couple will celebrate 67 years of marriage. It's at Eagle Hill where they raised their six children. The Scarrotts now have a family that includes 16 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.
“It's great to raise kids on the farm. We have a son and his wife who moved to Saskatchewan and he said ‘mom, it's just like when we grew up. Everybody worked hard and yet they still had time to visit with neighbours,'” Astrid said.
She liked living close to church and having friendly neighbours nearby while her husband enjoyed taking others hunting and raising various animals on the farm. Scarrott said that he has only travelled outside of the province twice since moving to Alberta.
“From 1929 until this day, I've only been out of Alberta twice and that was just to B.C,” he said.
Scarrott has since sold most of his farmland. He and his wife remain on just four acres of land that holds a collection of small red and white buildings which includes their home.
They live along a paved range road, located about halfway between Olds and Sundre, north of Highway 27, south of the Eagle Hill Co-op. The area is now developed with several agricultural properties and serviced by modern-day utilities.
Scarrott said he's lived a long life thanks to abstinence from alcohol, staying away from tobacco and his love of tea. Looking back, he said life has been good.
“We've had a wonderful life. I have a wonderful wife and a wonderful family.”
