Every small town has an eccentric & ours was Ole Anderson - The Mayor of Smith. He and his father came to the area around 1919. They settled on a piece of land along the Lesser Slave River and became vegetable farmers. Ole would drive into town with an old horse hitched to a light wagon with two or three skinny dogs trailing behind and sell their vegetables to the new arrivals.
Once his father passed away, Ole sold the horse and built a little cabin alongside the small lake south of town now known as Ollie’s Ponds. Every day he walked to town down the middle of the road. His gunny sack was tied up with a rope and slung over his shoulder with his dogs trailing behind.
His ‘cabins’ were built with materials he could scavenge along the way – cardboard, cull lumber, used nails and the like. When one cabin became inhabitable he built another.
He was dubbed “The Mayor of Smith” because mayors should be quite visible to the public. There was no doubt Ole was about the most visible guy around with his shaggy beard, gunny sack over his shoulder and the clothes he wore until they were plain wore out – and his troupe of dogs.
In the later years of his life he was talked into going to BC where he would be cared for. He passed shortly thereafter. His body was shipped back to Smith on the train for burial in his home town. Along the way an avalanche put a halt to the train and true to form as being someone who set his own rules, Ole missed his own funeral.