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The American Farmer and the Canadian West by Karel D. Bicha discusses the migration and its effects of Americans to the Canadian west. The book starts out talking about the reasons behind the migration to Canada by farmers. It talks about the farming ladder of laborer-tenant-farm owner and goes in-depth about each groups incomes and the profitability of farming for each of these groups. Another factor given for the migration north was the problems of soil depletion and describes the two main reasons for the depletion; tenants had short leases on land which meant they tended to literally "mine" the land, and pressure to increase income encouraged over cropping by tenants and thereby assured the diminution of soil fertility. What I found most interesting about this chapter was that by 1910 half of the farms in ND were mortgaged. Next the book turned to the situation on the Canadian prairie and how formerly negative attitudes about it changed by the late 1890's because of the economic situation in the world. During this time it shifted to a positive outlook and a place of opportunity where there was affordable land for anyone who wanted a home. The book then turns to the promotion of the land and Canadians efforts in trying to get people to more north. Here the book discusses how Canadians first concentrated on trying to get Europeans to come over but with the economic situation they shifted their efforts towards the U.S.. This chapter also talks about the Canadian agents there were sent to set up shop and spread propaganda about the land, where the agencies were located, and their effects on the population. An interesting part about this chapter was how the agents went as far south as Oklahoma at one point in response to the U.S. opening up reservation land there and attempting to get the Americans who were going to settle there to come north using the slogan "go northwest." This part of the book also points out how the agents did not just aim their efforts at small tenant farmers and laborers but religious groups like the Mormons and Mennonites as well who would bring whole colonies north. This chapter raised the question of what would have been the effects on each country had this migration not happened especially with the lack of land to go around and the economic situation of the 1890's. The book then turns to discussing how the immigrants got to Canada talking about the schooners, trains, wagons, and other methods of transportation across the plains. I found it interesting that trains would have cars specifically for immigrants that would simply stop and be pushed out onto the prairie to let the immigrants fend for themselves. This part of the book also talks about the influence Americans had on the development of towns and the Canadian west in general and also discusses all of the different ethnic groups that came from the U.S.. The book ends with the politics of the immigration issue. This chapter shows how the U.S. tried to combat the migration north by opening vast tracts of land and showed the types of propaganda the U.S. government used in their efforts. The book then ends with how the migration north finally came to an end with the Great War.
Overall the book was a fairly boring read with a lot of numbers and figures that made it hard to follow at times. There were some interesting points brought up however. What I found most interesting was how Americans played such an important role in shaping the Canadian west and in my opinion Canada's west may have not been developed without American immigration. I find this interesting because of the way Canadians try to set themselves apart from us and think they are so much better then us when really they should be thanking us for the development of their west because without Americans coming in by the hundreds of thousands the face of the Canadian west would have a much different look today. The other part that I found interesting was that of all the states that had people migrating to the north North Dakota had the most people leave. Had they not gone to Canada I am sure they would have left at some point by the 1930's anyways. However I do wonder what kind of state we would have today had they not left at all?