So many homesteading men would have been taking their walks and looking at land to find their home. I am going to use the McCumsey family as an example. They like many other homesteaders had their string of bad luck in the southern prairies and were encouraged to homestead in other parts of the country.
In 1921 they had bought a half section of land and rented another to farm on. They had a few good years and more bad. In the spring of 1931 they got seed from the government and again very little of it came up. The government then told them that they should move and let the land go back to grass. (The era of the dirty thirties).
They offered every family free transportation , along with 2 box cars for their stock and possessions, to any where they wished to settle in Alberta.
Guy McCumsey, the head of the household, along with seven neighbors in two cars headed out to look at land. They looked at land west of Edmonton, Jarvie and then Smith and Moose Portage. Most of their trip it rained. It looked as though it had rained all over. They thought a homestead looked like a lot of work with all of the trees and brush to clear, so they went home. Home had not a drop of rain so they decided to get out while they could and headed for Smith.
It was a chore going through all of their possessions trying to sell or give away anything that was not necessary to make room for the stock in the box cars. A full train load, made up of several families left on July 29th and arrived in Smith on August 2nd, 1931.
They lived in a tent by the tracks for almost a month while the men found homesteads to file on. It snowed before they were able to erect their home. With help from neighbors they go a house built to live in. The logs were fire killed spruce, When erected they filled the gaps with moss. The roof was of small round poles with dirt and moss on top. It had a dirt floor and no partitions but it was warm. What more could a person ask for?