Berton published this volume in 1984, after his books about the forging of the national railroad and the Klondike gold rush. This volume was necessary to complete the picture of that period in Canada prior to the outbreak of World War One (best covered by Berton in "Vimy".) The settling of the Canadian prairies is not as compelling a subject on the surface as locomotives and gold, but Berton once again constructs a cohesive narrative forged from mining the recorded experiences of settlers, newspaper archives and political documentation. Its introduction misleadingly suggests this book has not aged well. While Berton's work does not always choose the same places for emphasis and prominence that a similar book would today, it (eventually) proves otherwise.

Berton's theme is the forging of Canadian identity in the West: who's immigrant heritage was sidelined, and who's became fused into the new. Not surprisingly numbers told, but it was surprising to me that half the number of new arrivals was American migrants. They sold heavily taxed farm land for a premium in the south, in order to emigrate for free or very cheap land in the north where there were easy fortunes to be made. The remainder of immigrants more closely matched with images I initially had - Ukrainians and Poles producing sod huts on the prairie, with a smattering of Russians and more British than I'd imagined. Others from Germany, Scandinavia, etc. are acknowledged but barely mentioned. Berton moves on to look at the developing west more broadly as a whole, and offers a small bit of history for the Canadian National railroad.

Berton does not shy away from the story's darker notes. There are full descriptions of the misleading promotions by the Government of Canada, their prejudice against some sources of immigrants in favour of others, the swindling of immigrants by those employed to deliver them to Canadian shores, and extensive coverage of the scandals tied to Clifford Sifton for which justice was never served. What's notably absent in the introduction and through the first six chapters is any analysis of the original occupants of this "empty", "untrammeled" country these immigrants were coming to occupy. When Berton does address them at last, he correctly describes the many injustices of their treatment in principle, including the residential schools but none of their horrors. This may indicate how little of that had been shared and known in the 1970s. Or listened to, when it was. Published today, I'd expect this topic to receive attention front and centre.

An excellent but short chapter similarly describes the unjust experience of American black immigrants, including the hassles stemming from unstated racism (in policy, anyway) that was no less prevalent north of the border. Whereas vast numbers might have come and wished to, they were restricted to barely more than a thousand. There is also content about Nellie McClung, a key figure in the Women's Suffrage movement.

This is maybe not a good Berton volume to start with, better reserved for later when you've read and appreciated some of his other work, unless you've a particular interest in the locale and in a broad overview that addresses this part of our first one hundred years. ( )

found this tedious ( )