frank and grampa

i'm not sure when grampas' younger brother frank came to canada; late 20s i think. grampa came over in 1923. about 1930 or 31 frank was in southern alberta working as a cowboy near the town of hanna. by this time grampa and his pal sandy were on thier homestead near valleyview in northern alberta in the peace river country. frank heard that there was a bad fever that had gone through the peace region that had killed hundreds of horses. back then almost everyone needed horses. frank and another cowboy decided to partner up, gather a herd of saddle horses and drive them up to peace river. they hoped to sell them at a good profet. i'm not sure the distance but it must be 500 miles! just making that trip accross rugged untamed county by horse would be rough, but for just two men to drive a herd of 40 horses would be an epic trip. one would need to be with the heard all night, so they would have slept in shifts; until the herd was well trail broke there was likely no sleep at all! lukily the horses would have been well broke to trail by the time they reached the rough bush country north of edmonton. the trip took over a month and they were able to sell thier horses in peace river and make some money, which was very scarce during the great depression. after selling the herd franks partner headed home and frank rode down to valleyview to see his brother( grampa ). it must have been a great reunion as they had not seen each other since grampa left ireland. grampa said he was lucky that he and sandy had just buthered a moose because "frank was so skinny he could have washed his ass in an egg cup" and all he did was eat frying pan after frying pan of moose steaks as fast as grampa could cook them! frank stayed on the homestead with grampa for a couple of weeks then headed back to his cowboy life; frank ended up working for cn in ontario.