​He was a man that had a most distinguished appearance but not in a positive sense. He was called the wooden man because he had a wooden arm and a wooden leg. 

​Mike Powley was a man that never spoke beyond necessity and was not a man of emotions and feelings. He was not the type of man that would kiss you hello and hug you good bye. He did not tuck in his kids at night and read them bed time stories and he was certainly not a man for small talk. Whenever his wife would invite company  over Mike would sit for a bit, eat dinner but he would not engage in any type of conversation. This would make the company feel very uneasy. The end result of his behavior, was the family, over a period of time, no longer had any friends and spent all of their evenings and holidays alone. Mike's kids feared his persona. There was also something about his steel grey eyes and their authoritative glare. And then there was his thick eyebrows and moustache that were so intimidating. 

​The men had arrived to Canada weeks ago and were staying in Montreal before the Canadian government allowed them to head west to the prairies to claim their stake of farmland. Then finally after weeks of waiting they had been told that they were going west. The Ukrainian men grabbed their limited belongings and piled into cattle cars by the hundreds. Once the go ahead signal was given, the train was off. 

The year was 1901 and Jack Kuly lived alone on his homestead farm which was about 120 kilometers east of Edmonton, Alberta. It was July and a combination of sweltering heat and heavy rains had left the prairie swamps as breeding grounds for millions of mosquitoes. Jack needed to stock up on supplies and knew he would have to walk 240 kilometers round trip to Edmonton to get them. In summers of the past the walk was beautiful and enjoyable as the Canadian prairies were usually dry. But this year the walk would be treacherous as Jack would have to do everything in his power to keep his sanity from the mosquitoes. There were certain measures he could take to prevent being bitten by the mosquitoes. The first was he would wear his heavy sheepskin jacket which the mosquitoes would be unable to penetrate, but with temperatures soaring above 30 degrees celsius it would be impossible for Jack to keep his jacket on during the day. He thought that with the extreme heat the little blood suckers would be unable to survive but this was not true. There were not as many mosquitoes during the day, but they were still there and biting ferociously.