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The American Farmer and the Canadian West 1896-1914 written by Karel Denis Bicha is a brief history of the transition for many Americans who would immigrate to Canada around the turn of the 20th century. Bicha starts out the book with the quote , “It is rather curious that American historians, concerned for so long with the concept and process of the frontier, have given so little consideration to the role played by American farmers in the settlement and early exploitation of the last plains frontier – the Canadian prairies provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.” Between the time period 1896 to 1914 close to 600,000 Americans immigrated to this area for the purpose of attaining cheap land. This is considered to be one of the greatest land rushes in North American history.

In 1896, the Liberal party led by Wilfrid Laurier took power and concentrated on bringing immigrants into the country to settle and farm the land. The country was losing its population because people were leaving for the United States. The government decided to offer parcels of cheap land in order to bring more people into the country. The American farm system consisted of laborers, tenants, and owners. On the American plains tenancy was not a very lucrative position to be in and it was difficult to make the move from tenant to owner. Moving to the West Canadian plains was a solution and many Americans took advantage of this. Canadians set up agencies in towns across the U.S. to recruit people to move out west. Propaganda was used heavily to promote the Canadian prairie areas and the agencies would visit state fairs. All of this work paid off and immigration rates soared until the year 1914 when Canada entered World War I and the immigration rate dropped off.

I think this book is a great tribute to this part of American-Canadian history that is rarely told. I feel the reason Americans don’t really know about this is because the U.S. was getting so many immigrants from other countries itself during this time period. It is interesting to think if this was offered now how many Americans would be compelled to take the cheap land and move to Canada, especially with how high land prices are now. This book was very interesting to read and really made the reader understand what the times were like for American farmers and the measures people took to make a decent living.