Golf was played each summer for about four years when it was abandoned. Caddies for golfers made about 50 cents a round and wooden-shafted clubs were used. 

A railway surveyor James Holme travelled west in 1883 to check on the progress of building the railway and his excerpts are recounted in “Trip West in 1883” in AB History, spring 2000, Vol48, #2. Pg 14& 15 are about his arrival at Cochrane Ranche.

We also had a “Bomb Shelter”. The Government thought the Russians might Nuke us in the 1960’s. And of course, Cochrane, being what they thought was a primary target in Canada, had a Bomb Shelter at the Police Detachment. It was a big culvert buried in our back yard, another totally cool fort.

Business was brisk, and so with farming, trail riding, cutting logs, post and poles, plus even Christmas trees, we did just fine. Occasionally in the winter I helped out as a meatcutter at M&K Foodmaster in Cochrane. After a few years, M&K was put up for sale and we decided to buy it and sell the farm and ranch. 

There were no modern conveniences. The washing had to be done on a washboard. There were no bathtubs or indoor bathrooms. The mothers usually sewed all the children’s clothes, dad’s shirts, and knit all the stockings and mitts by hand. Everybody burned wood in the stoves. The wood had to be cut with an axe or sawed by hand. The water had to be pumped from the well and carried to the house in pails and heated on top of the stove for washing and scrubbing.