LANDSCAPE ANGLICAN CEMETERY
Located on the SE 1/4 of Sec. 14, Tp. 6, Rg. 27, W2nd
RM OF EXCEL #71 – (1908 – 1917)
Just west of Landscape, Sk., three Church of England “Anglican” Ministers, Revs. Clement R. Brown, William J. H. McLean & John A. Horrocks, homesteaded, built a church, and ran a mission. These priests were missionaries in the truest sense of the word as they served the church without salary, paying their own expenses. They, along with a lay person known as William Cole, then in training for the ministry, called themselves the Prairie Brotherhood. Part of Mr. Cole’s duties was to care for the homestead/horse ranch while in training; he later served as minister in Assiniboia, Sk. During the winter months they kept a light burining in the church steeple, as a landmark for the wandering homesteader. Of necessity, they often held church services in homes as they travelled across southern Saskatchewan, west from Weyburn to the Alberta boundary and south of the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, visiting homesteaders and staying overnight wherever they happened to be. Many are the stories told of these men. One of them was caught in a storm at a homesteader’s sod shack, and to pass the time of day he painted a large mural of Litchfield Cathedral on a wall.
Although the Reverends were always welcome visitors, they often brought with them some things that were not — like bed bugs and lice, which most sod shacks were infested with – compliments of various homes they stayed in as they toured their expansive mission. Two features making these men recognizable to settlers in Saskatchewan were their unshaven faces and the teams of ponies they drove for transportation. The mission was served by these men until 1917, at which time they gave their land to the church and moved to larger more established congregations.
The land was later purchased by Bill and Alfred Wenaus, who dismantled the Church and used the lumber to build themselves a home. The farmland is presently owned by Donald & Kathleen “Birchard” Stevenson (2019).
At present all that remains of the Anglican Mission to remind one of its past existence, is a cemetery with three lonely unmarked, untended graves, located on a knoll south of the present farm buildings. Isolated as it is, the cemetery remains quite neglected! (Some of the above information was gleaned from the Assiniboia Times, May 2019, and from the history book “We of Excel” copyright 1989, pages 32, 33 & 44).
The land the three ministers homesteaded, along with the year they obtained their patents is as follows. P.S. According to homestead requirements, one should generally backup three years for the actual year a homestead application was filed!
Brown, Clement R. — SE 1/4 of Sec. 14 T. 6 R. 27 W2nd — Dec 07, 1911
McLean, William J. H. — NE 1/4 of Sec. 14 T. 6 R. 27 W2nd — Nov 18, 1912
Horrocks, John A. — NW 1/4 of Sec. 14 T. 6 R. 27 W2nd — Jan 03, 1913
There is no registrar for this cemetery. Known burials are recorded herein, and are accessible at the Willow Bunch Museum and on the Internet at www.willowbunch.ca .
