Albertan researcher Gemma Noon explains the history of the Canadian Prairies, and how to access the rich records that their European settlers left behind
Canada is a vast country, second only to Russia in terms of land mass, with a long and colourful history. First Nations peoples have lived on the land for millennia, while the first Europeans did not begin to establish permanent colonies here until the 16th century. Even then, it was another 200 years before European settlers tried to make their home in the Prairies – the vast, high plateau of semi-arid grassland that constitutes a third of the heart of the North American continent.
In the 1840s, the USA and the British government agreed on the division of the North American continent, establishing a border that, when it came to the Prairies, was a straight line along the 49th Parallel: the circle of latitude 49 degrees north of the equator. This decision, however, was made without considering the indigenous nations who were already living there. The border, a mere line on a map, would eventually become a political barrier, disrupting their way of life and leading to irreversible changes.
Despite the agreement, the relationship between the USA and the British government was never without tension. The concept of Manifest Destiny, a belief in the divine right of Americans to settle and govern the entire continent, was a powerful force in US politics, with both newspapers and politicians openly discussing annexing the British-held lands to the north. The end of the American Civil War in 1865 led to a surge of young Americans venturing into the West in search of prosperity, achieved perhaps through farming, or mining for gold or coal. The poorly marked and monitored border with Canada also allowed unscrupulous US adventurers to freely cross into foreign territory for hunting, trading, prospecting or even theft.
In response, the British parliament passed the 1867 British North America Act, which consolidated all of its North American colonies, provinces and territories into one nation: the Dominion of Canada. The plan was to send farmers and settlers into the Canadian West to establish new communities affirming Britain’s ownership of the land and its resources. There was just one problem: with a population of about four million, Canada simply did not have enough people to move to the Prairies.
