PRAIRIE FORUM Vol. 9, NO.1 Spring, 1984 CONTENTS A Tribute to Lewis H. Thomas, 1917-1983 v ARTICLES "The Settlers' Grand Difficulty": Haying in the Economy of the Red River Settlement Barry Kaye William Todd: Doctor and Trader for the Hudson's Bay Company, 1816-1851 Arthur J. Ray 13 The Missionaries' Indian: The Publications of John McDougall, John Maclean and Egerton Ryerson Young Sarah Carter 27 The Recognition of Leaders of the Opposition In Alberta, 1905-1983 David Byron 45 Aberhart and the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute David R. Elliott and Iris Miller 61 The Saskatchewan Coal Strikes of 1932: A Study in Class Relations Glen Makahonuk 79 The Decline of the Family Farm in Saskatchewan J.F. Conway 101 RESEARCH NOTE: Regional Perception in a Small Prairie City: The Case of Brandon, Manitoba Leo Liu and Meir Serfaty 119 COPYRIGHT 1984 CANADIAN PLAINS RESEARCH CENTER ISSN 0317-6282 BOOK REVIEWS JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WESTERN CANADA (editors), Jewish Life and Times: A Collection of Essays by Harvey Rich 133 CLARK, W. Leland, Brandon's Politics and Politicians by D.J. Hall 135 FRANCIS, Daniel, Battle for the West; Fur Traders and the Birth of Western Canada by Andre Lalonde 136 TROFIMENKOFF, Susan Mann, Stanley Knowles: The Man from Winnipeg North Centre by Donald Swainson 137 RUSH, Jerry, Earth Dreams; and McLEAN, Jim, The Secret Life of Railroaders by Laurie Ricou 139 PALMER, Howard, Patterns of Prejudice. A History of Nativism in Alberta by Cornelius J. Jaenen 142 BREEN, David H., The Canadian Prairie West and the Ranching Frontier, 1874-1924 by A.W. Rasporich 145 SUKNASKI, Andrew, The Land They Gave Away: New and Selected Poems By Ian Adam 147 CHALMERS, John W., Laird of the West By Ian MacPherson 151 LUPUL, Manoly (editor), A Heritage in Transition By John C. Lehr 152 URSELL, Geoffrey (editor), Saskatchewan Gold: 25 Stories of the New West by Sherrill E. Grace 155 LETTER TO THE EDITOR 157 PRAIRIE FORUM: Journal of the Canadian Plains Research Center Chief Editor: F. Pannekoek, History, Alberta Culture Associate Editors: A. Artibise, History, Winnipeg J. Bennett, Anthropology, St. Louis, MO J.W. Brennan, History, Regina W. Currie, Native Studies, Saskatoon M.E. Jonescu, CPRC, Regina W. Last, Earth Sciences, Manitoba W. Latta, English, Lethbridge M. Mackie, Sociology, Calgary F. MacKinnon, Political Science, Calgary B. Neal, Biology, Saskatoon A. Paul, Geography, Regina A. Smith, Agriculture, Regina S.A. Smith, Archives, Winnipeg R. Vogt, Economics, Winnipeg Book Review Editor: G.W. Minifie, CPRC, Regina PRAIRIE FORUM is published twice yearly, in Spring and Fall, at an annual suoscnption of $15.00. All subscriptions, correspondence and contribu­ tions should be sent to The Editor, Prairie Forum, Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. S4S OA2. Subscribers will also receive the Canadian Plains Bulletin, the newsletter of the Canadian Plains Research Center. PRAIRIE FORUM is not responsible for statements, either of fact or of opinion, made by contributors. In Memoriam Lewis Herbert Thomas, 1917-1983 Canadian scholars, particularly those in Western Canada, mourn the loss of Lewis Herbert Thomas, who died late last year at the age of sixty-six. Born in Saskatoon and educated at the Universities ofSaskatchewan and Minnesota, Professor Thomas carefully nurtured Western and prairie studies for more than thirty years. He was a devoted student of the prairie experience and wrote numerous articles and seven books, including the landmark publication The Strugglefor Responsible Government in the North- West Territories 1870-97 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1956). As Provincial Archivist of Saskatchewan, and as Professor of History and Chairman of the History Department at the University of Alberta, Professor Thomas was a key figure in the development and flowering of Western Cana­ dian historical writing among the rising generation ofscholars in the 1960s. As Professor Lewis G. Thomas noted in his biographi­ cal sketch of Lewis H. Thomas in The Developing West: ESSQ.l's on Canadian History in Honor ofLewis H. Thomas (Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1983), "the fruitful course of his life, and all that it has meant to his family, his friends, and his students suggests that the way of the pilgrim, though it may be hard, is not without rewards." PRAIRIE FORUM. 1984, Vol. 9, NO.1 "The Settlers' Grand Difficulty": Haying in the Economy of the Red River Settlement Barry Kaye Department of Geography, University of Manitoba ABSTRACT. The sharpness of the distinction between farmers and hunters at Red River should not be overemphasized. Most of the farmers throughout Red River's history exploited many of the freely available "wild" resources. In fact, the wild hay from the plains provided the main support for animal husbandry at Red River. When the winter feed was not available, the settlement was pushed even closer to the edge of starvation. RESUME. Les limites nettes de la distinction existant entre fermiers et chasseurs de la Riviere rouge ne devraient pas etre exagerees, Au cours de toute l'histoire de la Riviere rouge.Ies fermiers exploiterent beaucoup de ressources "sauvages" librement accessibles. En fait. Ie foin sauvage de la plaine fournit I'aliment principal du cheptel de la Riviere rouge. Lorsque Ie fourrage d'hiver n'etait pas disponible, la Colonie se trouvait poussee un pas plus avant vers les limites de la famine. When Lord Selkirk founded a colony on Red River in 1812, his intention was to establish a commercial farming settlement but, from the onset, the colonial economy was based only partially on crops and domestic animals. Repeated crop failures compelled all settlers at Red River, whatever their origins and agricultural skills, to turn continually tothe game resources ofthe plains and the fisheries oflake and stream for a large part of their food supply. From its commencement, the colony was linked by necessity to the nomadic economy that was the basis of the fur trade, a link that the colony, even at its optimum stage ofdevelopment, was not able to break. Hunting, fishing, and fowling, in addition to agriculture, were the supports of the colony, just as they were of the fur trade. It was the continuing uncertainty of both agriculture and the plains buffalo hunt that first created and later sustained this basic dichotomy in the Red River economy prior to 1870. This dichotomy also reflected the disparate peoples and cultures that made up the settlement. Among Red River's population were colonists, primarily Highland Scots, but including also numbers of French Canadians, British mixed-bloods and Orkneymen, whose prime concerns were their crops and animals. By 1830, however, these colonists were out­ numbered by peoples who showed little predilection for agriculture, and lived chiefly from hunting, fishing and trading in furs. ·Predomi­ nant among this latter group were the French-speaking mixed-bloods of St. Boniface and St. Francois-Xavier, but some French Canadian freemen, British mixed-bloods and many of the full-blooded Indians at Red River lived in a similar manner. One distinguishing characteristic of this group was its heavy dependence on "wild" resources, or on what Palliser called the "natural productions" of the land. I In the colony's early years, would-be farmers at Red River were also dependent on the same "wild" resources, for not until the late 1820s was anything like a 2 KAYE viable agriculture beginning to emerge. Until then, tillage endured only as a partner of the nomadic economy that underlay the fur trade. The most obvious expression of this partnership was the autumn migration ofmost of the colonial population to Pembina, sixty miles to the south, where they lived by hunting during the winter months. Increased agricultural productivity after 1827, and the acquisition ofdomestic animals from the United States, enabled potential farmers in the Red River population to discontinue their yearly trip to Pembina and, to a great extent, freed them from dependence on the buffalo herds. However, the settlement of large numbers of French-speaking metis at the colony after 1823 ensured the perpetuation ofthe essential dichotomy of the Red River economy. As a result, by 1830, one of the most striking internal divisions within the settlement was that between areas where agriculture was the main support of the economy and areas where hunting and fishing supplied most of the staples of life. The sharpness of the distinction between the farmers and the hunters at Red River should not be overemphasized, however. It was blurred by the fact that some dominantly hunting peoples, despite their general preference for the free, wandering life of the plains, carried on small-scale agriculture. Another obscuring factor was that most Red River farmers continued to exploit many of the freely available "wild" resources after 1830. The farmer-colonists supplemented the produce of their river-lot farms with sugar from riverside maple groves, with a variety of wild fruits gathered at appropriate seasons, and with fish, especially whitefish, which they caught in Lakes Winnipeg and Manit­ oba. Some of them also took part in the spring and autumn goose hunts at Shoal Lake. The main concern here, however, is with one aspect of the farmers' dependence on the natural environment: their dependence on the plains as a source of winter fodder for their livestock. During the colony's difficult early years, the few domesticated animals at Red River suffered from a general lack of adequate hus­ bandry. Harvests were often meagre and provided little or nothing to spare for animal feed. Haymaking was a casual, hit-and-miss affair, not the well-organized and regulated activity it became later. As a result, winter feed was often in short supply, while sheltering stables were inadequate or absent.