When Cheese Was Made At Red Point By Pat Rose (written in the mid 1970's)

The journey from Souris to East Point is a pleasing experience for the traveller today, with the good paved roads and charming little fishing coves and farming communities, quite a tourist's paradise. However it is hard to believe that nearly a century ago, some of these placid little villages were the centre of thriving industries with horses and teams hauling out produce daily. Take Red Point for instance, the home of one of the Island's Provincial Parks, where visitors come by the hundreds each summer. Many old timers will still remember when the old Cheese factory was in operation there. According to an old financial statemen,t dated 1903, the factory would operate from June 1st. until November 2nd. each year - and that business was good can be seen from the following figures. Cheese manufactured that year amounted to some 42,664 pounds and this was sold at around 10 cents a pound. Milk haulers (who used to pick up the milk from the farmers along their respective routes, for delivery to the factory,) would be paid by the amount they collected - that is - the driver in Route 1 received $42.44 as his yearly salary, while the one on Route 2, was paid $64.01 and on Route 3, W. Young received a grand sum of $146.50. Price differences in ‘those good old days’ differed a great deal from present times. The cost of digging a well for the factory - $7.45. For repairing the road and bridge $2.00 and for the land for the factory site, $10.00. The building had steam heating and the cost of this modern innovation was a stunning $41.00. A whistle was installed - cost $9.25 - and apparently a collection was taken up from interested patrons for in the list of receipts for 1903 one finds - Collected for whistle, $8.55. Repairs to the building and whitewashing it cost $9.55, while another $8.00 went on insurance. Telephone messages took the phenomenal sum of 50 cents for the entire season (Such big spenders). With the opening of a butter making factory or plant in Souris, business dropped off at the Cheese Factory, until it finally shut its doors for the last time. The building has since been hauled away, so that nothing is left now, but the memories. A common sight in those days was the horse drawn wagons full of barrels of whey, which the farmers in the vicinity would obtain for little or nothing, and which he would feed to his livestock. Another cheese factory used to be located at North Lake, but it too closed its doors more than half a century ago, when progress made the older factories obsolescent. There are not too many records of these old buildings - and most of the material one finds about them is the here say history which is preserved by word of mouth and passed on in this way. The source is far from complete - and not always accurate - however it is always a source of delight to discover new information on the old landmarks.

Ohe Bruce Gramily of Red Point Prince Edward sland 1840-1999 88