14
THE SEEBACH AND HUBLE BUSINESS:Al and his partner Ed, created a chain of three warehouses and trading stores from the homestead at the south end of Giscome Portage, all the way to McLeod Lake (including the one at Summit Lake). The warehouse at Summit Lake was built in 1912. Al notes the building of this warehouse in his diary in the spring of that year 36. Ed Seebach and Albert Huble built a warehouse, corral and stable at Summit Lake, at the north end of the portage by the end of spring in 1912 37. Sam Huble, Albert's son, stated that the warehouse was constructed of logs. Furthermore, he believed that shortly after that, Al and Ed built a store at McLeod Lake. Ed lived there at the McLeod Lake Store until 1931 when he was badly burned and injured in a fire 38.
Al and Ed also trapped, bought, sold and traded furs, freighted and transported people over the portage, Al also surveyed land, guided river travelers through the Giscome Rapids and boarded many travelers at the Huble family home (figure 1.3) 39. A few prominent travelers who were on their way to the Peace River area stayed with the Huble family boarding house as well, including Price Ellison and W.C. Brewster, both politicians 40.
Al Huble's diaries document visits of many of these homesteaders at the trading post at Giscome Portage. The Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage Historical Research Report 40, documents that Ed and Al did quite well at their trading and freighting business. Additionally, the years between 1909 and 1914, when the Peace River area was first being settled and before the war broke out were particularly good.
Al wrote a speech in his diary of 1915,
"No one will deny the demoralization of any useful industry is in economic waste. A bad thing for the public at large and that its stayability based on a sure but moderate profit is the ideal condition for the consumer as well as for those directly or indirectly connected with its activities.
Wreckage always means waste and financial wreckage is no exception to the rule. A few individuals may secure a momentary benefit from an industrial failure but to society at large it invariably involves a final net loss. Labor suffers, investment suffers, and the body of business in general is disordered.
The modern association spirit is a good one. You can't beat it. Sneaking trade secrets and trying to throttle the man who happens to be your competitor belong to the dark ages of industrial competition. To the period of federalism the associations are now driven out of business. I would hate to think of any line being without an association. Instead of continually reacting for one another's throat we are doing something for the good of the line and everybody in it 41."
It is unclear whether Al Huble wrote this speech or not; however, the speech undoubtedly speaks of his business ideals.
Al Huble and his wife Annie boarded so many travelers at their home between 1913 and 1919 that their children have commented that there were up to forty people around the place some nights 42. In fact, in a historical report completed for the Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage Heritage Society, the Huble House has been compared to a Cariboo roadhouse on the Cariboo Wagon Road 43.
The trading post the two men built and operated at the Giscome Portage, had a great deal of merchandise on hand and to be sold. Some of the merchandise the partners sold in the trading post included, canning jars, pots and pans, dishes, cutlery, blankets, matches, pencils, writing paper, pens, can openers, stove polish, cheese cloth, playing cards, candles, lard, salt, pepper, rice, flour, sugar (white and brown), oats, molasses, spices, tea, coffee, vinegar, jam, plum pudding, beans, canned tomatoes, candies, cookies, ginger snaps, cream soda, edam cheese, La Crosse chocolates, and other food, tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, Beecham's pills, Sloan's lineament, Enos, fruit salts, Epsom salt, headache wafers, Parker's painkiller, planting seeds, socks, wool pants, ammunition, traps, leather for harnesses, tools, buckets, washboards, wash tubs, brooms, knives, rope, pack boards, overshoes, boots, snow shoes, kerosene, lamps, material, coveralls, other clothes and jackets 44.
A few of the companies that Al dealt with were, Montgomery Ward Department Store, Jones Brothers & Co., Oliver Typewriter, Ford Motor Company, Graham & Anderson, Johnson Brothers, Wolf & Hine, Moodie Biscuit & Candy Co. Ltd., Hanes and Drake, J.W. Pecks, Gault Bothers, Manday Biscuit & Candy, Marshall Wells and the Great West Saddlery, and the
Hudson's Bay Company 45. Additionally, the two men bought, sold and traded furs 45, which was in direct opposition to the Hudson Bay Trading Post in South Fort George.
By 1913, Ed Seebach and Al Huble ran a newly built general store, a large warehouse for storage, a portage business, a fur trading business and a guiding business (guided water travel through the Giscome Rapids). Additionally, Al Huble ran a small ranch, conducted surveys for settlers and grew crops for both his family and for re-sale 46. Al Jr. said, "they were making three round trips to Summit Lake in a day there with a team. That's crazy! 47"
On September 17, 1913, Al Huble noted in his diary that the Honorable Price Ellison, and his son and daughter stayed with the Huble family for the night 12. Price Ellison was the MLA for the Okanagan from 1898 to 1916 and the Minister of Finance and Agriculture in 1910 48. Price Ellison was not the only provincial politician to visit the Giscome Portage, in 1917, the Honorable H.C. Brewster, who was premier of B.C. at the time, rode on horseback across the portage 49.
15
The Huble compound on the Fraser River, North of Prince George, British Columbia1915
Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage on the Fraser River, North of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
16
Figure 1.3 -Huble Family House and Warehouse -191317
The Northern warehouse at Summit Lake, located at the north end of Giscome Portage.October, 1927
Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage on the Fraser River, North of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
18
The Seebach and Huble warehouse at Summit Lake19
THE SEEBACH AND HUBLE BUSINESS - COMPETITION.The Seebach and Huble business did not go without competition. On August 29, 1914, the Fort George Herald ran two advertisements for businesses consigning freight service over the portage to Summit Lake.
"Giscomb [sic] Portage is the natural outfitting point for the Peace River Country. At Giscomb Portage we have a large stock of general merchandise, carefully selected to fill all the requirements of the traveler.
Our store is the logical supply point for pre-emptors and others located up the river. All steamboats call at our landing. We make a specialty of delivering freight in the Peace River Country. You can consign your freight to us at South Fort George and we will deliver at Fort McLeod or the headwaters of the Peace River. Seabach [sic] & Huble, General Merchants, Giscomb Portage, B.C.50"
The competitors advertisement went as follows:
"Giscombe [sic] Portage to Summit Lake. It is the intention of this firm to start a freight service from Giscombe to Summit Lake this month. Outfits will be transferred to any point on the route. Parties who intend going into that country this coming season can be assured of the best service possible.
Goods forwarded care of Haynes and Wood, Giscombe Portage, will be stored until arrival of owner. Haynes and Wood 50."
The Haynes of the above advertisement was Emmit (Shorty) Haines who until this time worked for Seebach and Huble. In March of 1915, the Fort George Herald ran another notice, which read.
"NOTICE. DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP. Take notice that Leslie Wood and E.B. Haynes who have lately carried on business in partnership under the firm name and style of Haynes & Wood, as Transportation Agents, at Giscombe Portage, B.C. have dissolved partnership and will henceforth be carried on by E.B. Haynes…..Dated the 11th day of March, 1915 50."
Interestingly, Al Huble wrote in his diary of June 28th, 1915, "Came to terms with Hanes [sic] today 51."
20
Emmet (Shorty) Haynes, shown here on the left in a 1908 photo, had a cabin near the Portage1908
21
Emmet (Shorty) Haynes is on the left in this photo.22
THE SEEBACH AND HUBLE BUSINESS: CONCLUSIONThings didn't always go like clockwork in the freighting business at the portage. For instance, Ed was sent into Fort George in October of 1910 looking for some freight that was supposed to arrive months earlier.
"E. A. Seebach of Giscombe [sic] Portage, 41 miles north of here, a storekeeper at that point, came down the river with one of Green & Burden's survey parties. Mr. Seebach is chasing up a ton of freight that has been on the road between Soda Creek and his store three months 52."
Al Huble's diary of 1910 confirmed this trip as he noted Ed's return to the portage in his diary of October 21; it read, "Ed returned from Ft. George 53".
Some patrons of the Seebach & Huble trading post complained bitterly of the prices. One of those was author, Hulbert Footner. Hulbert Footner and Auville Eager were self-proclaimed adventurers who passed through the homestead in 1911. The two men started their 'adventure'
in Edmonton and made their way to Tete Jaune, following which they floated down the Fraser in a canvas canoe called the 'Blunderbuss'. Upon reaching the Huble Homestead, the men crossed the Giscome
Portage and continued their travels. In Hulbert's book, New Rivers of the North, he mentions his experience with Ed and Al.
"After several false discoveries Giscomb [sic] Portage finally stole into view around a bend. We had been told that there was nothing to mark the place but a couple of chinamen's shacks that we might easily miss; however, we found that civilization had now reached a tentacle up the river. A store had been erected on the bank and two or three little dwellings with gardens at their sides. There were not less than a dozen souls about the place, giving us after our lonely voyage quite the effect of a metropolis.
…It transpired that the storekeepers at Giscomb kept a team for the purpose of transporting outfits across the portage. They were outrageous brigands, the pair of them, and even now my choler rises hotly at the recollection of the twenty cents a pound they forced us to pay for sugar and the dollar and a half for a tin of cocoa that we coveted. 54"
The price of sugar in 1911 in the Hudson Bay Company Catalogue was about 6 cents per pound, and the price of a tin of cocoa was 42 cents. Both the sugar and the cocoa sold to Hulbert Footner, was marked up at a rate of three times the price that Al likely paid for it. However, given the remoteness of the Giscome Portage/Huble Homestead and the difficulty in transporting goods, and the cost of storage, the prices, although high, were not so outrageous as Hulbert suggested 55.
Ed Seebach, Al Huble's partner, was a German from Kitchener, Ontario. Sam Huble (son of Albert James Huble) described Ed as tough, "Seebach was tough. He could hike 50 to 60 miles in a day." Sam also mentioned that Ed remained a bachelor 49. Later, in 1931, Ed fell from a ladder when he attempted to extinguish a fire at the McLeod Lake store where he lived. Ed sustained third degree burns and multiple fractions to one of his legs, which later had to be amputated. Following that tragic accident, Ed was never the same, and about a year later, he passed away 56.
Ed Seebach passed away in Prince George on February 27, 1932 at the age of 46 57. The Fort George Herald ran the following article concerning Ed Seebach's funeral.
"The funeral of the late Edward Andrew Seebach took place Tuesday afternoon from the Connaught Hill Lutheran church, the services being conducted by Rev. Erich Hopka. The pall-bearers were all old-time friends of the deceased. Herbert Porter, A.B. Moffat, L.C. Gunn, George Kennedy, Jack McGaghran and E.H. Burden.
In the death of "Ed" Seebach this section of Cariboo lost one of its colorful personalities who was born in Ontario 46 years ago of German parents, and arrived in this section of the province about 1906, where he entered into partnership with A.J. Huble, and engaged in farming, trapping and trading. For many years the firm Seebach & Huble was one of the best known fur and trading concerns in the district.
….Mr. Seebach was operating a store at McLeod, on the lake of the same name, when his mind became deranged and he was brought in to the city hospital on Thursday last, where he died on Sunday. About a year ago he met with a serious accident, while attempting to extinguish a fire on the roof of his store, he fell from a ladder and received such injuries to one of his legs that the amputation of the member later became necessary. He appeared to regain his strength, and the news that his mind had become affected came as a marked shock to his many friends 57."
The store closed right around the end of the First World War. Sam Huble remembers that when "Ivor Guest came back form the war, he got a job as a game warden and the store was still running then." On October 08, 1919 the Prince George Citizen reported the completion of the new road from Prince George to Summit Lake 58. This wagon road, which went from Prince George to Summit Lake, bypassed the portage, resulting in the demise of the trading and freighting business Al and Ed had operated since 1904 59.
"A first class wagon road has just been completed to Summit Lake and settlers residing in that district are well pleased with the facilities now afforded for the marketing of produce. The distance from Prince George to Summit Lake is variously estimated at from 30 to 35 miles, and several autoists have already made the journey over the raod with out difficulty.
Summit Lake is the point of embarkation over the water route to the Peace River country and several parties have recently gone into the north country by this route 60 ."
Following 1919, the store stood unused until 1926 or 1927 when it was torn down. The materials from the store were transported to an island on Summit Lake, where Al Huble used them to build a summer home 61.
23
Cocoa and Sugar prices from the Hudson's Bay company catalogue, 1911.1911
Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage Society Archives, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
24
Sugar and Cocoa prices circa 1911.25
The Seebach and Huble General Store1915
Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage on the Fraser River, north of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
26
The Store at Giscome Portage, circa 191527
People pushing a car out of mud.1921
Summit Lake, British Columbia, Canada
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