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Sell, Sell, Sell
by Jeffrey S. Murray, Library and Archives Canada
The Durieux family of Somain, France, was as surprised as anyone to learn that there was another side to the government's advertising campaign. On a stopover in Montréal while en route to central Alberta, a long-time family friend advised them that the government's pamphlets were "nothing but a big bluff in order to provoke a 'boom'." As related by Marcel Durieux in his journal, translated and published posthumously as Ordinary Heroes: The Journal of a French Pioneer in Alberta, their friend's image of the West was quite different from what they had been led to believe: The "… winters last for eight months … and one can barely harvest potatoes, … and the wheat freezes in August, … and the hail storms are horrible …. There are cyclones, too, and houses are known to fly away like match-boxes…."
Despite the dire warnings, Marcel Durieux and his parents were convinced that their future was linked to the Prairie West. They went on to make a homestead on the Red Deer River Valley where, despite loneliness, unpredictable weather, and hardships -- and with lots of determination, patience, and sacrifices -- they survived. Like many homesteaders who followed them, they never became affluent, but they did at least survive to the point that one branch of the family was able to make a living from the land.
When Marcel Durieux and his family first arrived in Alberta in 1906, the government's immigration campaign was already a decade old and it was apparent to everyone that the colourful posters and carefully composed pamphlets were doing their job. When the campaign was just into its fourth year, immigration from the United Kingdom had already leapt from 17,000 to 87,000 annually. Before 1896, immigration to western Canada from the United States was almost non-existent. After Sifton's system of advertising was inaugurated, however, American immigration immediately jumped to 9,000; by 1906 the yearly figure had reached 57,000. From a barely populated landscape, the Prairie West expanded to 1.3 million by 1911, and to 2 million by 1921. Where Winnipeg had been the only Prairie city in 1896, there were 12 by 1914.
Although motives for immigrating differed widely from family to family -- persecution, poverty, lack of opportunity, adventure -- within the span of a single generation Canada and several million immigrant homesteaders had realized their dreams. The Prairies had been converted into a productive agricultural landscape and a "home for the million."
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