Canada in the Frame by Dr Philip J. Hatfield

Author:Dr Philip J. Hatfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UCL Press
Published: 2018-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Drivers of ‘The Last Best West’

Fig. 5.1‘Homesteaders Trekking From Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan’. Copyright Lewis Rice, 1909 (copyright number 20797).

Fig. 5.2‘Land Office, Moosejaw, Saskatchewan’. Copyright Lewis Rice, 1909 (copyright number 20795).

Fig. 5.3‘Breaking near Moosejaw, Saskatchewan’. Copyright Lewis Rice, 1909 (copyright number 20796).

‘Pioneer’ is a word that comes up a few times in the list of titles for the Colonial Copyright Collection. As a title for photographs marking the first days of settlements or commemorating foundations some years down the line it is an evocative and powerful word attributed to individuals and groups photographed in Canada’s west and northwest. Another word that jumps out of the collection is ‘homesteader’ – and indeed one of the first images from the collection I ever saw is here reproduced as Fig.5.1, part of a series on the Moose Jaw homestead rush. This series of photographs, copyrighted by Lewis Rice in 1909, captures a moment in Canada’s life that is, in a globalised popular narrative, more often thought of as being an element in the development of the American prairies (see Figs 5.1–5.3). It shows the family unit packing up everything and heading off for the promise of land in the west, in the manner of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Far and Away.

And indeed this kind of migration was predominantly part of the American story for much of the nineteenth century, to Canada’s misfortune and underpopulation. This began to change in the late 1890s, so the Moose Jaw homesteaders photograph represents a later record of this general trend. The homesteaders captured in these photographs are the result of the administrative and technological opening up of Canada’s west and a shift in the prevailing attitude of migrants towards the United States. By the late nineteenth century there was a developing impression that the lands of the American west were filling up and that the best opportunities had gone – an impression that coincided with the new marketing techniques applied by Clifford Sifton during his tenure as head at Canada’s Department for the Interior under the Liberal government of 1896 onwards.2

In short, then, the collection serendipitously starts being developed right at the start of Canada’s migration boom. From 1896 onwards total numbers of migrants rose year on year, reaching seven million people by 1907 and continuing to rise until the First World War restricted movement and therefore numbers. Canada’s demographic trends were shifting profoundly during this period; by 1911 almost 50 per cent of people lived in urban areas across Canada, with boom cities such as Winnipeg proving to be major sites of settlement and economic drivers of the Canadian west.3 The effect of this change can be seen in the photographs of the Colonial Copyright Collection, as towns celebrate their founding, population increase and the development of new infrastructure while also providing markets and sites of operation for photographers and photographic businesses.

Photographs in the collection of areas such as Medicine Hat are illustrative of some of the many urban areas that underwent rapid development during this period.

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