John Kenneth “Jack” Sutherland was born in Central Earltown in 1889 to Donald Sutherland “Elasaid” 1and Nancy MacKay “Achany”. His parents died within a few months of each other in 1903 after which Jack lived with his aging Sutherland grandparents near Matheson’s Corner.
In 1909 at the age of 20, Jack and his next door neighbour, Andy MacKay “MacIubh”2, left Earltown to find their fortune in Alberta. After roaming the prairies east of Red Deer, they filed claims to adjoining acreages in the vicinity of Hanna.
In 1920 he was joined at Hanna and in marriage to Eliza Jean Munro, a Halifax schoolteacher, who was a daughter of Hugh Munro “Captain” 3and Isabel MacFarlane, Clydesdale near Earltown.
Jack was active on many fronts which we will review in a future post.
In 1949, at Jack’s invitation, the National Film Board documented an extraordinary harvest excursion. Self-propelled combines were relatively new. Jack and his neighbour, Ted Quaschnick, hauled their combines, supplies and camps south to Texas and made their way back through Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana, and southern Alberta before returning to Hanna to harvest their own crops. This was a short-lived solution to the early harvests in the South as combines became more affordable to ranchers in the early 1950’s.
It would be a few years before the folks back home in Earltown had televisions where they could view the adventure.
Here is your link Harvests on the March – NFB . It is 43 minutes. Old farm boys like myself will watch the whole film whereas those with other interests may want to watch the first 10 and last 10 minutes to get a feel for the experience.
- Elasaid, pronounced Allsage, was the descriptor attached to the descendants of Donald Sutherland and Elasaid Ferguson. The homestead was at the junction of the Matheson Corner and Spiddle Hill roads. Elasaid was Gaelic for Elizabeth. ↩︎
- “MacIubh”, pronounced MacYew, is a descriptor for a MacKay family on the Matheson Corner Road. The name followed them from Strath More in the northwest of Sutherland to Muie in Rogart and from there to Earltown a few generations later. ↩︎
- Captain describes the descendants of Captain Hugh Munro, an early settler in Clydesdale, notables for firsts in Earltown: first horse, first sawmill and first pair of boots. ↩︎
earltown 
A very interesting article that hints at the great deal of out migration that is part of Earltown’s story. John Duncan “Jack” MacKay DOB 6 JANUARY 1876 • East Earltown Colchester County Nova Scotia, DOD 11 AUGUST 1957 • Wolfville Ridge Kings County Nova Scotia Canada burial The Falls Cemetery had a wheat farm in Delia AB only around 35 Kms from the Hanna AB mentioned in this article. For those who follow such things, this particular John Duncan MacKay has ties that lead back to the “Ole” Ale Alexander Murray line, from Scotsburn NS.