Ad McPherson, Oldtimer of ’69
By W.M. Bleasdell Cameron, Meadow Lake, Sask.
‘On a hot July day in 1881 I dropped into a wooden restaurant in the wooden town of Winnipeg and sat down at a wooden table with a magenta cover. Opposite me sat a compactly-built, red-faced man of medium height who somehow reminded me of a racehorse. A short bristling crop of red hair covered his bullet head over a pair of snapping, humorous blue eyes and a nose to which nature had given a comically pugnacious tilt. We both ordered steaks.
Read Also
History: Reminiscences of the North West Rebellion, 1885
Reminiscences of the North West Rebellion, 1885By Annie L. Gaetz ‘The seat of the North West Rebellion of 1885, was…
When the orders were brought I thought for a moment the pepper box had been emptied. I glanced across at the stranger and he looked back at me with an amusing frown on his fiery features and said in a soft southern draw: “Do you reckon there’s anything under ‘em?”
“If there is, I wouldn’t offer it to a dog,” I replied, and we both pushed back our plates. They were black with flies.
That was my introduction to Addison McPherson, one of the squarest shooters and most lovable characters I ever knew, and the beginning of a friendship that lasted from that day until he passed on more than forty years later in the city he had seen rise from the grass roots that is now Calgary.’
- More ‘History’ on the Canadian Cattlemen: Were chuckwagon races first introduced at Calgary rodeos?
Click on the image below to open a fully-readable PDF (a new window will open, the page may take a few seconds to load).
Comments and suggestions are welcome. You can reach us via the editor at [email protected].