« p. 139-146: The Gateway to the Prairie
The Settler
p. 147-152
Mr. J. W. Greenway, Commisioner of the Dominion in Ottawa’s Ministry of the Interior, holds the key to the prairie in his pocket. He is an exceedingly kind man, and not only did he give me some of the best information available, he also gave me more letters of recommendation than I could fit in my suitcase. At the same time, however, a gatekeeper stands at the entrance to the prairie, Mr. Bruce Walker, Winnipeg’s Commissioner of Immigration. His personality has grown to mythological heights. This easy-going, rotund man wears the mask of a busy, superior government official. He holds in his hands the fates of millions of people, and after sundown his name will be mentioned across the prairie in ten thousand prayers to their dear God and the good King George!
In Ottawa and Winnipeg, I learned some theoretical lessons in the art of becoming a settler. Then I took in a plethora of trivia about the three large wheat-growing areas, the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, which take up approximately three quarters of the agricultural output of North America.
If you look at the map of Canada, you’ll notice that these three provinces are divided by precisely straight lines, like most of the states in the Union.
Whenever an immigrant looks for a plot of land in front of a state employee, they lay out between them a map divided up into tiny squares. These squares cover an area of six English miles. They call each of these squares a Stadtgebiet, a township. It is cut into 36 divisions (640 acres), each of them one English quarter mile. Each of these divisions is cut into four exact parts of 160 acres. Of these 36 divisions, sixteen are given to the homeseekers. Another sixteen are given to C.P.R. (in the wheat country that the railroads have developed). Two are given to the Hudson Bay Company, the large mercantile corporation which is credited with the discovery of Canada. The last two are given over to a school.
Out of 1280 acres, each township gets its school and a bit of free land around it. In Canada, it is decreed that a school is erected every five miles, so that a young schoolteacher can bring reading, writing, arithmetic and patriotism to the schoolchildren. The land around these schoolhouses is very highly valued and gets a higher price than the land belonging to the Canadian Pacific and the Hudson Bay. The proceeds from these lands goes to the good of the school and the government.
The settler arrives in the strange, vast land that has waited for him since the creation of the world. It is a virgin land. The prairie has never felt the ploughshare digging into its bowels. I’d like you to imagine a settler who, after traveling over ocean and land, stands at the train station in Winnipeg with only five dollars in his pocket. And these five dollars are all he has to begin his new life as a landowner.
With only five dollars, he’s not about to occupy the 160 acres which belong to him, stirring up the soil with his fingers. Instead, he’ll have to start work as a Landarbeiter.
At the train station, in-between the immigration offices and the land offices of the Canadian Pacific, a wooden hut is covered in signs.
| Harvest workers needed. | |
| Gilbert Plains | 50 |
| Gladstone | 20 |
| Tessier | 100 |
| Roblin | 90 |
| Humbolt | 50 |
| (and so on) |
This particular sign (and a dozen others) are hung at eight in the morning. By ten, two trains are arriving and Tessier is accompanied by the number 20. All the other numbers are crossed out.
I take note of all the wages.
Thresher: 2 1/2 dollars a day. Carriage driver: 2 1/2 dollars a day. Farmhand: 45 dollars a month, including food and board. These wages are in place during the harvest. -- Mill workers: 2 1/2 dollars a day. Carpenters: 25 cents an hour. Train workers: 2 1/4 dollars a day. Sawmill workers: 4 dollars a day. Coal miners: 55 cents per ton. Lumberjacks: 2 1/2 dollars a day. Bridge builders: 2 1/2 dollars a day, including board. Cooks: 65 dollars a month. Foremen: 75 dollars a month.
Our five-dollar man can also hire himself out as a servant on the farm, who isn’t only needed during the harvest, but also the entire year. On an average farm, he can earn about 25 to 35 dollars a month. He is better off hiring himself off to a farm, where he can learn the trade from scratch. In addition to the experience, after about two years, he can have 360 to 400 dollars to his name. Now he can take up the government’s 160 acres. Everyone will help him in his undertaking. He can become what he wants. If everyone knows he’s a good worker, it’s easy for him to get the credit he needs. First he has to get a pair of oxen, a plough and a harrow. Then he needs wires for a fence, tools to build his cabin and one or two cows. He can gets all this on loan with low interest. Country banks, public and private, keep their agencies and branches in the furthest segments of the prairie, keeping in direct contact with the farmers. In the first year, if he focuses on nothing else, our farmer can successfully cultivate 40 acres. Now he needs a sowing machine, and later a harvest machine.
In Saskatchewan I saw farms which produced in their first years 40 bushels of wheat per acre. A rich layer of earth sits on top of the land. It has pulled strength out of plant rot and animal decay since prehistoric times. It’s better than ours. We only take in about 25 bushels per acre, which in Manitoba would require about 30 or 40 years of neglect. A novice can get a thousand bushels out of 40 acres. With these proceeds, after settling the costs of the grain elevator, he can pay off a part of his debts to the bank and start all over again. The quality of the wheat will be determined through official government overseers.
As a rule, after two or three years of intense labor, a farmer buys another 160 acres at a fairly low price. The man who came into this country as a castoff pauper, rescued from hunger and despair, can now look around with pride. The wonder of the seasons, acting itself out morning after morning outside his cabin, will guide him towards the truth that work is everything and property nothing. Maybe, in time, he’ll find his money printed on a better sort of paper than the usual brick-a-brack it’s printed on. Maybe, in the stillness of a long Canadian winter, many thousands of seeds will grow, the kind which the old world would have allowed to wither away and die in service to the masses.