Early land surveyors had negative opinions of Manitoulin Island's agricultural potential and expressed those concerns to the government, which was planning on marketing the island to prospective purchasers as a farming paradise when Tehkummah was first opened to settlement in the mid-1860s. Their concerns were inconvenient and went largely unheeded.

Only about one-third of surveyed land in Tehkummah fell under the modern definition of arable (meaning crops could be successfully grown on them) or marginal (meaning the land wasn't good enough for commercial agriculture, but was acceptable for growing hay or pasturing livestock). That wasn't great, but it should be noted that land on Manitoulin Island was better disposed to farming than the free land that was available to anyone willing to settle on the thin-soiled Canadian Shield north of the island and was far cheaper than the highly desirable farmland in southern Ontario.

So Tehkummah was marketed as a farmer's dream come true when land sales started in 1866. Soon many potential settlers arrived on the island to scout out prime agricultural lands. Most left disappointed. The low quality of available land was one problem, the challenge of shipping produce to markets in southern Ontario was another. Land sales, at least initially, were a fraction of what the government had anticipated.

Those early settlers who took the plunge despite their reservations found out the hard way that much of the apparently arable land had been subjected to fires in prior decades and centuries, some of which had burned so hot they damaged the soil's structure and its fertility, making it next to impossible to plough. Worse, crop yields exceeding the domestic needs of the homesteaders were hard to come by. Any truly arable land there was tended to be situated in random pockets within the surveyed properties, not in a wide swaths that could be conveniently worked.

Farming may have been rough going in those early years, but many early settlers stuck with it and eventually managed to eke out a living, although many augmented their farming activities by working for local lumbering operations in the off-season.The lumbering operation at Michael's Bay not only employed them, but it also bought their grain, hay and livestock. Soon grist mills started to spring up, allowing farmers to process their grains.

Wheat was often grown on arable land while peas were the favoured crop on lands that needed their fertility improved before they were viable for cereal crops. Marginal lands were used to grow hay and pasture cattle, horses, oxen and sheep. Homesteaders planted vegetable gardens and established orchards. They raised chickens and geese. The entire community would come together for planting and harvesting bees.

By 1871, Tehkummah contained 12 barns or stables. Collectively the community owned three ploughs and cultivators, one thresher, five fanning mills, 23 horses, three colts or fillies, 22 working oxen, 30 milk cows, 31 horned cattle, 102 sheep, and 84 pigs. They produced two acres of hay, 1,750 pounds of butter and 301 pounds of wool.

It wasn't much, but it was a start. By the time the Bryan and Amer families arrived in Tehkummah just a few years later, it was well on the way to emerging as a thriving farming community, one that tragedy would prevent both families from fully embracing.

Photo by Miika Laaksonen on Unsplash