Canada, the New Nation; A Book for the Settler, the Emigrant and the Politician

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX THE FINDING OF A HOMESTEAD Towards the end of April in every year there is a noticeable migration of people towards the outer confines of the settled prairie. Along the railway line East and West there are millions of acres of unoccupied land; but these are the property of great corporations, who hold them for sale at fancy figures which few but nonCanadian newcomers into the North-West would be so foolish as to pay. There are also considerable areas in and about this strip of future wheat-land which are in the hands of men who have acquired them by the performance of " homesteading" duties, and have, for one reason or another, abandoned farming and would sell if they could find purchasers gullible enough to buy at inflated prices. Beyond all these lands, however, lie many millions of acres of virgin prairie, for which nothing need be paid by the settler except an entry fee of ten dollars for a block of one hundred and sixty acres--the "Free Farm," which allures so many English people to the West. It is to these lands the spring migration goes. They may be reached from Regina by a branch line northward which runs as far as the dreary bushlands of Prince Albert; or, again, far across the prairie, from another northward branch starting from the foothills of the Rockies. That from Regina runs for several miles through the picturesque Qu' Appelle Valley. The train was crowded with homeseekers when I travelled by it. There were a few English immigrants whose means had enabled them to travel thus far. They had determined to spend their all in the perilous experiment of "homesteading," without having first learned the agricultural, climatic, and other conditions of the problem by a season's work with an established farmer. There were several Ruthenian...