Dominion Lands Policy, Drought and Agricultural Rehabilitation in Southwestern Saskatchewan, 1908-1935
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"THIS LAND MUST BE GOOD FOR SOME KIND OF FARMING...": DOMINION LANDS POLICY, DROUGHT AND AGRICULTURAL REHABILITATION IN SOUTHWESTERN SASKATCHEWAN, 1908-1935 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History University of Regina by Carl Anderson Regina, Saskatchewan December, 2008 Copyright 2008: Carl Anderson Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-55031-1 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-55031-1 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondares ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada UNIVERSITY OF REGINA FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE Carl Eric Anderson, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in History, has presented a thesis titled, "This Land Must be Good for Some Kind of Farming...": Dominion Lands Policy, Drought and Agricultural Rehabilitation in Southwestern Saskatchewan, 1908-1935, in an oral examination held on December 8, 2008. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material. External Examiner: Dr. Randy Widdis, Department of Geography Supervisor: Dr. J. William Brennan, Department of History Committee Member: Dr. James M. Pitsula, Department of History Committee Member: Dr. Raymond Blake, Department of History Chair of Defense: Dr. Michael Trussler, Department of English ABSTRACT The federal government's opening of the entire Palliser Triangle to large scale agricultural settlement in 1908, along with a series of devastating droughts over the ensuing decade, resulted in severe hardships for settlers and an intolerable agricultural relief burden for the Saskatchewan government. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Farming Conditions—the province's formal response to the problem—identified certain adjustments in agricultural methods, natural resource use and settlement patterns in its 1921 report that, if put into practice, might gradually help to stabilize production and income levels in Saskatchewan's semiarid farming regions. Certain constraints hampered provincial efforts to implement the report's key recommendations during the 1920s, and the federal government kept its involvement to a minimum, as it viewed agricultural rehabilitation as a mainly provincial problem. As the experience of severe drought and widespread crop failures during the 1930s demonstrated, the province was financially unable to sponsor a comprehensive agricultural rehabilitation program on its own. This, along with a rapidly deteriorating political and economic situation on the prairies— finally forced the federal government to own up to the oversights in its earlier Dominion Lands policy by passing the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act in 1935. The effectiveness of the activities under the Act owed much to the earlier implementation of certain recommendations of Saskatchewan's 1921 investigative commission. li ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would never have been able to complete this thesis without the help of certain people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Bill Brennan. It was his History 100 class that originally got me interested in pursuing historical studies. His availability, patience and many helpful comments were muchly appreciated—indeed, he embodies everything that a thesis supervisor should be. I would also like to thank Greg Marchildon for his interest in this project. He provided many constructive comments over the last three years three years that helped guide me in my thinking. As well, I would like to thank Roberta Lexier and Brett Quiring for their research assistance at the Library and Archives Canada and the Saskatchewan Archives Board, respectively. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the Department of Graduate Studies and Research for providing the Graduate Scholarships and Teaching Assistantships in 2005 and 2006. A special thank you goes to Marilyn Bickford for answering my many questions about procedures and formatting and for guiding me through numerous administrative details. And finally—and perhaps most of all—I would like to thank my parents, Bart and Mary. Without a doubt, this project would not have been possible without their unwavering support and encouragement. This work is dedicated to them. in TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v PREFACE 1 CHAPTER ONE: "Dominion Lands" Policy and Drought Relief in Southwestern Saskatchewan, 1908-1920 13 CHAPTER TWO: The "Better Farming" Commission, 1920- 1921 41 CHAPTER THREE: Making a Start: Implementing the Better Farming Commission's Recommendations, 1921-1929 80 CHAPTER FOUR: Robert Weir, the Saskatchewan 'Dust Bowl' and the Origins of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, 1929-1935 110 CONCLUSION 140 APPENDIX 145 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 156 iv PREFACE "The problem of the farmer", wrote one American commentator in September 1935 as severe drought was reducing millions of acres of cropland across the Great Plains of North America to a 'dust bowl,' turns on the question, How far can he go in reaping the bounty of the land in wet years and yet survive the penalties of inevitable drought? The problem of the government is to determine whether a man shall be allowed to grow grain in places where he can do so and ought not to.] In Canada, this question had also come to weigh heavily on Robert Weir, Minister of Agriculture in R.B. Bennett's Conservative government. Over the previous five years, countless farmers in Canada's portion of the Great Plains—an area also known as the Palliser Triangle—had suffered immensely from crop failures, water shortages and a catastrophic drop in grain prices. This region was (and remains) the heart of Canada's important wheat growing industry, and dealing with the crisis had become nothing short of a national undertaking. Ottawa had been forced to advance many millions of dollars to the cash-strapped governments of Manitoba, Alberta and particularly Saskatchewan to help them provide relief to avert mass starvation in the drought area. Weir was all too aware that the continual provision of relief, though vitally necessary to keep the farmer on the land, was like throwing money into a bottomless pit: it offered no practical solution to the drought and dust storms that were ravaging the prairie landscape. In certain respects, the unfolding agricultural disaster on the prairies was a legacy of the federal government's "Dominion Lands" policy. From 1870 to 1930, Ottawa had retained control of all lands and natural resources in the Prairie Provinces to oversee their development. However, adaptation to the harsh prairie environment proved to be a classic struggle between man and nature (see Figure 1) and was considered to be the 1 2 settler's responsibility. Farming in the semiarid and drought-prone Palliser Triangle was an often risky business that depended on the use of soil and water conservation methods for its success, and a large amount of land in the area turned out to be unfit for cereal agriculture—particularly in the Dry Belt of southeastern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan. Alas, those who settled in the region were given very little information on sustainable dry farming methods, nor did they have access to long term climatic records or scientific soil survey data for guidance in selecting their land. They would also discover that the system of rectangular homesteads did not always allow for an equitable distribution of surface water supplies or access to grazing land. As the dry conditions of the 1930s showed, the cultivation methods they had learned were incapable of preventing a complete crop failure and had caused extensive soil erosion, while the lack of moisture withered vegetable gardens and hay and forage crops for livestock, making it difficult for farmers and ranchers to provide for their own subsistence. In desperation, many simply abandoned their farms to the wind and the weeds, creating a whole new set of problems. One thing was for sure, a system of agriculture and natural resource use appropriate for the region's ecology had to be found. But doing so required initiative over and above what the afflicted farmers, municipalities and even provinces could muster. Faced with worsening economic, social and political conditions on the prairies, Weir introduced the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act in Parliament in April 1935.