Identités et échanges
English · Première générale · BO : B1+ ; visée B2 vers C1
A wooden mill with a water wheel stands by a small waterfall in a wild valley, surrounded by rocks, dead trees and thick forest under a cloudy sky.
Homer Watson (1855 to 1936), The Pioneer Mill, signed and dated 1880. Oil on canvas, 86.0 × 127.8 cm. Royal Collection, RCIN 400548; bought in 1880 by the Marquis of Lorne, Governor General of Canada, for Queen Victoria. Public domain. Image via Wikimedia Commons, not cropped or retouched.

S3 · The Last Best West: Choosing Settlers

Recap: what do you remember?
  1. Who were the Black Loyalists?
  2. What did 1,196 of them do in January 1792?
  3. Turn into the passive: “The government broke its promises.”
Answer key
  1. Africans, many formerly enslaved, who sided with the British during the American Revolution and came to the Maritimes.
  2. They sailed from Halifax to Sierra Leone and helped found Freetown.
  3. Its promises were broken by the government.
In this session you will
Key question: Who decides which newcomers are “good quality”?

Look at the painting

Describe, then interpretCore

  1. What do you see in the centre of the painting?
  2. Is the mill working? Look at the details.
  3. What does the painting say about the life of the first settlers?
Answer key
  1. A wooden water mill beside a small waterfall, in a wild, rocky valley.
  2. No: it looks old and abandoned. The painter’s father had worked a pioneer mill, which failed in 1864 (Royal Collection Trust).
  3. It was hard: settlers had to clear forests and build everything; some succeeded, others failed.

In 1880, the Governor General of Canada, the Marquis of Lorne, bought this painting as a gift for Queen Victoria. It made the young Homer Watson famous.

Document 1 · An invitation

A full-page newspaper advertisement titled The Last Best West, inviting settlers to Western Canada, with drawings of farms and harvests.
The Last Best West, advertisement of the Government of Canada in the Christmas edition of The Globe, Toronto, 25 December 1907. Library and Archives Canada. Public domain. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Read the advertCore

  1. Who published this advertisement, where and when?
  2. Why is it called “The Last Best West”?
  3. Who is it trying to attract?
Answer key
  1. The Government of Canada, in The Globe (Toronto), on 25 December 1907.
  2. It presents the Canadian Prairies as the last and best land still open to settlers in North America.
  3. Farmers and families ready to settle and farm the land.
Document 2 · The minister who chose the settlers

Clifford Sifton was Minister of the Interior from 1896 to 1905. His programme raised immigration from around 16,000 to more than 140,000 people per year, and he looked for farm families in Central and Eastern Europe, for example Ukrainians. In 1922, he explained his choices in a magazine article.

“I think a stalwart peasant in a sheep-skin coat, born on the soil, whose forefathers have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half-dozen children, is good quality.”Clifford Sifton, “The Immigrants Canada Wants”, Maclean’s, 1 April 1922.
“If one should examine twenty people who turn up at Hamburg to emigrate he might find one escaped murderer, three or four wasters and ne’er-do-wells, some very poor shop-keepers, artisans or laborers and there might be one or two stout, hardy peasants in sheep-skin coats. Obviously the peasants are the men that are wanted here.”Same article.

UnderstandCore

  1. What does Sifton mean by “good quality”?
  2. Which people does he not want?
  3. How did his department choose the emigrants in Hamburg?
Answer key
  1. Strong farmers from farming families, with a wife and many children, ready to work the land.
  2. Escaped criminals, “wasters”, and also city workers and trade unionists who will not work on a farm.
  3. Booking agents picked out the farmers and peasants and sent them to Canada, and nobody else.

Critical readingStretch

Sifton speaks of “quality” and “quantity”. Who decides what “quality” is? Who is missing from his picture of the ideal newcomer? Write 100 words, using the kind of… that, would rather… than, it is striking that.

Answer key

Model: Sifton describes the kind of settler that Canada needed in his eyes: a farmer with a large family. It is striking that he judges people only on their usefulness for farming. Women appear only as “a stout wife”; city workers, and people from many parts of the world, are not in his picture at all. He would rather choose a few farmers than accept anyone who wished to come. Immigration is presented as a selection, not a welcome.

Expanding your vocabulary

WordMeaningExample
a settlera person who goes to live in a new, often empty regionSettlers came to farm the Prairies.
stalwartstrong and loyala stalwart peasant
to recruitto look for and attract peopleSifton recruited farmers in Europe.
selectionthe act of choosingImmigration was a selection.
the Prairiesthe flat farmland of western CanadaUkrainians settled on the Prairies.
a homesteadland given to a settler to farmFamilies built a homestead.
Petit glossaire en français

settler : colon, pionnier · stalwart : solide, robuste · recruit : recruter · homestead : concession agricole

Mediation

You are a guide at the National Gallery of Canada. In English, present The Pioneer Mill to visitors in one minute, and link it to the settlers Sifton wanted.

Homework
  1. Learn the vocabulary.
  2. Write a short advert (60 to 80 words) inviting settlers to the Prairies in 1907, then one sentence saying what the advert does not say.
  3. Prepare two questions you would ask Sifton in an interview.