Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  Mixed-Farm Economics

  Despite the lack of immediate rail transport to the lands set aside for soldier settlement, the Prince Albert SSB land branch was busy. There were several advantages to purchasing land in a recently homesteaded, forested ecotone region. Not only was such land considered the best bet for mixed farming, but also, in general, it was much cheaper than prairie land. In the Regina and Saskatoon districts, where free dominion land was scarce, the majority of soldier settlers took loans to purchase farmland or clear mortgages and liens on their own farms. The Soldier Settlement Board had sweeping land power. It could negotiate and purchase land directly from farmers and hold the land under speculation for purchase by soldiers. Soldiers could also approach the SSB with agreements worked out with private owners on land that they wanted to buy. “Vendors of land to the board are always requested to reduce the original price of the land by sums ranging from $200 to $1000, and it is estimated that at least a saving of seven per cent has been effected on land purchased since the inception of the local office.”55 In Saskatoon, 1,364 soldiers purchased farms through the SSB; the average farm cost was about $3,000, requiring loans of $4 million. The Regina situation was similar: 1,322 soldiers purchased land averaging $3,500 at a cost of $4.5 million. At Prince Albert in 1919, the majority of soldiers, 590, settled on dominion land. The 559 soldiers who purchased land needed loans to the amount of $1,613,033, which worked out to less than $2,900 per farm.56 This figure is an average and is somewhat misleading. An established farm in the settled districts around Melfort (south and east of Prince Albert) or Shellbrook sold for significantly higher prices than the just-proved-up farms in the north Prince Albert region. If a soldier bought a farm in that region, it cost about $1,200 per quarter. He faced smaller payments.

  The Prince Albert district gave out significantly fewer loans overall, as settlers on Crown land were limited to loans for stock, equipment, and improvements, while their land was still in the proving-up stage. The soldier was expected to secure all of his loans through the SSB, which would also prepare bulk purchases of machinery, supplies, and stock, to pass savings on to the soldier. Soldier settlers who bought more expensive farms carried much higher and more risky loan portfolios, attempting to make payments on nearly everything: stock, buildings, and the land itself. Indeed, in the Prince Albert district up to 1921, the average loan per settler on purchased land was $5,663; on dominion land, it was $1,497. The majority of soldier settlers on dominion land across the country decided to go about “pioneering in the ordinary homestead use of the term without government financial assistance,” choosing not to take any loans at all. Across Canada, the numbers were interesting. As of 1921, there were 25,443 soldier settlers. Of those, 5,672 settled on dominion land with no loans. A further 3,735 settlers on Crown land received loans, which were minuscule ($6,369,364) in comparison with the number of loans to settlers on purchased lands, with total loans of $69,259,608.57

  In the Prince Albert district, more loans were given out for the purchase of stock and equipment than for land; in Regina and Saskatoon, land purchases were worth double the loans for stock and equipment. A soldier settler on free dominion land, able to secure both a soldier grant and a homestead grant, carried a lighter burden of debt spread across more land. The majority of soldier settlers in the north Prince Albert region took land at Paddockwood under the combined soldier grant/homestead option, with a significant minority purchasing cheaper, recently patented farms in the Alingly, White Star, Henribourg, and Albertville districts.58

  As long as the soldier settler was still on his SSB farm, actively working and paying his loans (or at least the interest), the SSB continued to support him, offering further advice or loans to expand the farm or help in lean years. “Not only does it give him a start, but it sustains him, not through charity, but through a well-thought out system of credits by means of which everything needed by the settler may be purchased and paid for over a long term of years.”59 The ongoing, sustaining help, it was thought, would make the difference in successful soldier settlement. Although advertised as a new and welcome departure in land settlement policies, there was a considerable paternalistic overtone to the endeavour.

  Land Classification and Surveys

  F.J. O’Leary, district superintendent of the Soldier Settlement Board at Prince Albert, reported in 1921 that soldier settlers in the “timbered country” of the Paddockwood district, twenty-six miles north of Prince Albert, were showing evidence of “making good.” Soil was listed as first-class “chocolate loam,” a new railway into the district was “under construction,” and the country was covered with black and white poplar.60 With settlers taking both homesteads and soldier grants, about two townships of land were opened.61 Although soldier settlers were given priority, civilian homesteading was once again allowed in the Paddockwood area, and settlement spread steadily north, filling Township 52, Ranges 23 to 26, and spilling over into Township 53. In fact, settlement was rapidly spreading to the end of surveyed land, forcing the dominion to face a land shortage or find new areas of expansion.

  As land was being filled, the dominion government financed a land classification survey. It sent professional surveyors north of Prince Albert “to examine and report upon those lands suitable for immediate settlement ... [and] to classify the lands for general information, giving data that will afford prospective settlers and the general public a better knowledge of the country.”62 Surveyors classified the land by quarter section, specifically visiting abandoned homesteads or other land not yet settled. The survey provided information on the older settled districts around Alingly, White Star, Henribourg, and Albertville. It used these assessments to forecast the possibilities of the Paddockwood district, including the recent soldier settlement, and to classify the land that could yet be opened farther north.63 In general, the report divided homestead land from unfarmable scrub and muskeg land, such as that found in the more northern townships. Good land, the survey noted, roughly ended in Township 53; few quarters were thought fit for homesteads in Township 54 and farther north. Settlement past this point was moving out of the relatively good land of the Shellbrook-Meath Park plain and onto podzolic-leached grey forest soil, with more white and black spruce, jack pine, and muskeg. Soldiers and other northern settlers were rapidly reaching the end of good land.

  Figure 13. Department of the Interior surveyors, c. 1920.

  Source: SAB, R-183 I.222 (6).

  Soldier Settlement on Reserve Land

  The popularity of soldier settlement meant that the dominion was scrambling to find enough suitable farmland within fifteen miles of a railway to offer for soldier settlement. One of the most common places to find farmland was on First Nations reserves. During and immediately following the First World War, hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland were forcibly or coercively (and voluntarily) surrendered by reserves and sold to the Soldier Settlement Board. As the practice became more common, farmers in the Alingly district, stymied in their attempt to have Little Red River Reserve opened for homestead settlement, changed their tactics. The local Grain Growers Association petitioned for opening of the reserve, not for homesteading but for soldier settlement.64 They believed that the added moral weight of servicing the returned soldiers would tip the balance in their favour.

  The attempt to open the reserve for soldier settlement became a game of semantics. What one group (the Alingly Grain Growers Association and the Prince Albert Board of Trade) considered good mixed farmland, the other (the Department of Indian Affairs) dismissed as “questionable” and hardly fit for settlement. W.B. Crombie, the local Indian inspector, stated that “were this land put up for sale today it is very questionable if it could be sold readily, but on the other hand, were it thrown open for homesteading no doubt the most of it would be taken up for mixed farming purposes.”65 It was a telling statement. Crombie suggested that there was a different standard between land appropriate for purchase and land good enough
to homestead. Purchased land had to be “improved,” with fields ready to farm and buildings suitable for occupation to be worth its money. Homestead (and soldier grant Crown) land was essentially free. Clearing land and erecting buildings was a sweat equity process whereby a homesteader added marketable value through labour to change a homestead to a farm worth money. The reward of a patented farm to be sold for profit came at the risk of settling on possibly inferior land or land that could take a lot of time to clear and break.

  Those demanding that Little Red be surrendered and opened for settlement continued to claim that few people lived there, even fewer year round. Others stated that as many as sixty people lived on the reserve and perhaps more. Still stinging from the underhanded tactics of the real estate agency and farm instructor who had duped residents into signing a land surrender,66 the Department of Indian Affairs refused new soldier settlement surrender requests. It would have been a difficult surrender to obtain regardless, and the department knew it. What was the department to do with the families already in residence at Little Red? How would it deal with those who were farming, like Billy Bear, who had both a successful farm and a freighting business? Should he be offered homestead rights, which were not offered to First Nations men? What of those who were cutting hay and feeding cattle on reserve land? It was a reasonable use of the land, after all, given the growth of stock raising and the market at Prince Albert. Who was required to sign the surrender documents: the inhabitants of 106A or the reserve’s legal owners, the Montreal Lake and Lac La Ronge bands? If the northern bands, then who would go up there and ask them? The journey was still a tremendous undertaking.67 These were questions and concerns that no one at Indian Affairs wanted to answer. Considering the pressing need for farmland in the north Prince Albert region because of increased soldier settlement demand and the rather discouraging results of the land survey, the refusal to ask for the surrender of Little Red was remarkable.68

  The Home Branch

  Perhaps the most intriguing difference between soldier settlement and previous dominion homestead schemes was the development of the Home Branch in July 1919. The SSB literature decreed that “home conditions are a vital and often a deciding factor in the success of the settler. A branch, therefore, was formed to instruct and advise the wives and family dependents of settlers in home economics.”69 Creation of the Home Branch was in part a response to important social developments and public recognition of the role of women in society, particularly on the farm. Common complaints from women on homesteads in the western interior prior to the First World War included isolation and loneliness. In many cases, these feelings were exacerbated by complete bewilderment and lack of background knowledge in farming practices. The phenomenal growth of women’s organizations, particularly the Women’s Section of the Grain Growers Association and the Homemakers (Women’s Institutes) prior to and during the war, began to alleviate these concerns. Combined with women’s valuable contributions to the war effort and ongoing work by public women such as Nellie McClung in promoting women’s issues and rights, the growing public stature of women in farm communities led to female enfranchisement, the right to vote, in 1917.70 Perhaps the SSB, in keeping with its close alliance with mixed farming, understood what agricultural newspaper Saskatchewan Farmer had been saying all along: it was not possible to operate a successful mixed farm without a partner to shoulder part of the workload. And by 1919 those female partners had a much stronger voice for change.

  Journalist Ethel Chapman wrote about the SSB Home Branch in Maclean’s magazine in 1920. A woman, Chapman averred, was an “absolute necessity” on a farm. But her needs required due care and attention: “If the wife is not contented or if the home conditions are not liveable for the family, the farm business cannot prosper.” Just as the SSB was there to look after the man and the farm business, the Home Branch was there to look after the needs of the wife and family.71 A somewhat more derogatory view of a woman’s role on a farm came from the SSB: “It is recognized that the wife’s attitude towards the undertaking may be either a great help or a serious handicap to a settler. If she is cheerful, interested, capable, [all is well.] If she is discontented, not interested in farm life, or unthrifty and indolent, it is impossible to estimate the financial injury which she may do.” The paragraph went on: “It is futile to loan money to a man for the purchase of land, stock and equipment if the mental attitude of his wife and her physical condition are such as to discourage and render him incapable of repaying that loan.” In large part, the Home Branch was inaugurated to protect those loans by identifying, helping, and teaching the farm wife before her inabilities, attitudes, or accidents required money to fix or solve a physical, mental, or embarrassing financial situation.72 The SSB looked at earlier homestead policies of the dominion government and decided that one obvious shortcoming was the lack of aftercare and support, particularly for women and families. Chapman suggested that the Home Branch operated as the women’s branch of the SSB, just as there was a women’s branch in many other social and political movements in Canada at the time.73

  The Home Branch concentrated on providing information, bulletins, pamphlets, and courses designed to help women successfully support their family and farm. Assistance tended to fall into three general categories: educational and technical, medical, and information. Educational information and technical help (usually printed bulletins) were geared almost exclusively toward homemaking issues, teaching women the basics of farm life, including staples such as baking, milking cows, and making butter, looking after poultry, gardening, canning, sewing, and raising children. These skills were particularly useful to the wife of a mixed farmer raising beef and dairy cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, and a kitchen garden. Travelling libraries and homeschooling techniques and books, for those too far from established schools, were also important. The Home Branch established courses through university extension divisions across the country, including the University of Saskatchewan. They were often called “short courses” and operated from two days to several weeks. Board and tuition were covered at first by the Training Contingency Fund left over from the war effort. Courses and lectures reflected what the board thought were the duties of women, including “Poultry Raising,” “Home Dairying,” “The Kitchen Garden,” “Personal Hygiene,” “Bread-Making,” “Beautifying the Home,” “Canning,” and “Remodelling of Clothing,” to name just a few.74

  Personal visits from qualified Home Branch staff helped to ease the loneliness and provide technical help and advice.75 Chapman claimed that “it was made clear that their [Home Branch staff] purpose was not supervision, and not inspection—that they should go into the homes of the settlers and find out their greatest need.”76 Sometimes that “greatest need” was advice or even just a visit from another woman. Other issues came up. “Lost baggage has been traced, gratuities secured, employment found, information secured on selling houses, War Bonds, obtaining divorces, re-uniting parents and children, getting relatives out from England, and any of the hundred-and-one questions which may arise,” the Home Branch report proudly declared.77 The branch soon found itself with “a sheaf of letters on file from bachelors asking them to find them wives.”78 It effectively operated as a clearing-house for all other issues aside from the business of operating a commercially successful farm enterprise.

  The Home Branch continued as an important component of settlement aftercare, and its many publications found their way into the hands of those who were not specifically under its scheme, including the popular book Useful Hints on ... Home Management. This book was published in 1930 by the Soldier Settlement Board as an amalgamation of household hints and tips collected by Jean Muldrew, in charge of the Home Branch throughout its existence. The book focussed on the practical aspects of being a farm wife, from cooking to raising poultry, doing laundry, raising children, and decorating the home on a budget.79 All Home Branch publications were printed in English. It was thought that non-British immigrants were
already well versed in mixed-farm life and had experience, while British war brides and those brought out under the 3,000 British Families scheme needed far more help, support, and advice. The Home Branch was eliminated when the SSB was reorganized in 1930–31.

  While in operation, Home Branch representatives specialized in two areas in particular: first, an ability to liaise with other established organizations; second, a commitment to health. The Home Branch had a limited budget and could not meet specific requests or requirements itself. To compensate, it excelled at creating connections with groups such as the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE), the Homemakers Clubs, the Patriotic Fund, the Women’s Grain Growers Association, the Rotary Club, the Legion branches (once they were established), local churches, and various branches of the provincial or federal government, such as the Soldier’s Civil Re-Establishment scheme. Chapman argued that “this is the long suit in the [Home Branch’s] methods. ... Seldom, when they have fully carried out their campaign, do they fail to find sympathy and help.”80 The ability to link with other organizations allowed a fuller measure of help, support, and information to the soldier settler’s wife.