The story of how a priest and forty pioneering families turned a wilderness into a flourishing township is told below, and reminds us that the world is not yet so full that it cannot find room for those determined to get the best from the land.
" One day in 1932 the Rev. J. A. Allard, who is parish priest of East Bathurst, New Brunswick, led 40 determined but penniless settlers out to lots which the government had given them in the woods 13 miles from town. They were anxious to strike out for themselves—to be done with the uncertainties of existing relief.
PRIEST CHOPS FIRST TREE " Father Allard chopped down the first tree—and in five minutes the forest resounded to a chorus of axes. That first night the settlers slept under the leantos of evergreen boughs.
" The next morning they were hard at work again. Log cabins rose as if by magic, including a log cabin church with a bell that was operated by a rope and wheel that had come oft an old automobile. " In those first months they lived through hardships that compared with those undergone by New Brunswick's earliest settlers. Settlers who died were buried beside the snow-covered rustic church in crude pine coffins built by their neighbours.
FLOUR BARREL ALTAR
" Old flour barrels and crates were improvised as altars for the Masses. Through it all the faith of the settlers in the future of their simple community remained constant and enduring. New settlers came. Lumber cuts and farm crops were sold, and money began to circulate through Allard% ille, as it ssas named after its founder priest. " To-day a visitor would hardly know the place . . Father Allard estimates that the original 40 families of Allardville have grown to a progressive community of nearly 2.000 inhabitants, in which everyone works at something and earns a fair livelihood and eats three square meals a day."