Al and Annie Huble
On September 4, 1872 Albert James Huble was born to Nancy and Samuel Hubble in in Oak Lake, Ontario. The oldest son in an eleven child family, young Albert is said to have left home at the age of 13 after an argument with his father. After spending five years in Chicago, he moved westward, eventually making his way to the Kootenays in the 1890's where he worked on the Canadian Pacific Railroad.
Al came west and, being a very adventurous soul, he tried fishing off the coast of B.C. Huble, along with three other men, purchased a fishing schooner. However the first time out on the water, a violent storm came up and all being inexperienced, were glad to get back on shore. At this point Huble said "I'll never go out there again." He also went to the Yukon to try his luck on the gold fields. However, when he got there he found that all claims on the Klondike had been staked; it was the winter of 1899 and people were starving. Al then left Dawson City in December, winter traveling being an almost unheard of and unparalleled feat of endurance. He traveled across the headwaters of the Pelly, down the Stikine and came to Telegraph Creek where he stayed for awhile. In 1900, Albert Huble came to the Fort George area where he trapped on the upper Fraser River and met trapper Edward Seebach, also born in Ontario, in Mitchell in 1886.
In 1904 Huble and Seebach formed a partnership and started up a trading post which did a flourishing business freighting, guiding, surveying, and fur trading. Albert Huble pre empted D.L. 848 where the Huble house now stands. Al and Ed recut and rebuilt the old Portage trail and many, many, loads of freight passed over this road on its way to Summit and McLeod Lakes. Edward Seebach pre empted land near Huble's homestead around 1909. Huble staked out many sections and quarter sections of land surrounding the Huble House. This settlement became known as the Giscome Portage.
In 1929 Huble sold his Giscome Portage property after he had moved his family into Prince George. Albert James Huble died December 29, 1947 at the age of 75. In his 75 years he enjoyed a variety of jobs, working as a labourer, logger, barber, fisherman, trapper, farmer, rancher, freighter, trader, store clerk, wood cutter, land locator, and real estate speculator.
Annie May Hart was born in 1882 and was living in Havelock, Ontario when Albert Huble courted her in the winter of 1910/11. This was Al's first trip away from his homestead and business in five years. Not one to waste time, he is believed to have proposed to Annie on New Years Day 1911 after the sled the couple were riding in overturned. The second marriage for both, Annie had three children from a previous marriage. She came back to Al's Giscome Portage homestead where they raised four daughters and three sons; Bertha, Martha, Patricia, Gladys May, Al Junior, Samuel, and Dean (who later, as a young man, drowned in Summit Lake) Her first spring at the homestead was a challenge for Annie; five months pregnant enduring the rigors and tribulations of being a pioneer woman, swarms of hungry mosquitoes and homesickness. Annie Huble passed away in 1949 at the age of 67.
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