The First Dutch Settlement In Alberta

Translated for the first time from Dutch to English, this collection of letters offers a unique perspective on the early pioneer years of the Dutch community in southeastern Alberta. Based on extensive research, the book also includes maps, archival photographs, and an appendix listing all the Dutch settlers in the region between the years of 1903 and 1914. The First Dutch Settlement in Alberta is an invaluable and fascinating collection of primary source material that offers a wealth of information for genealogists and historians, and celebrates the pioneering spirit of Alberta's early Dutch community.

In 1910, twenty Dutch immigrants called the Dutch Twenty arrived in Medicine Hat, Alberta and were the first of their countrymen to apply for the "free" homesteads which were advertised as the "last best west" by the Government of Canada. This book describes how the people tried to farm this arid region. They came together to build a church, later salvaging what they could when they decided to leave for good after their short settlement. The people lived and grew spiritually by giving thanks to God when they could have cursed the government, the land, and their situation. They instead chose to lead lives filled with thanksgiving, integrity, courage, and faith in a sovereign God who they believed had brought them to Canada despite their initial belief that this land would be the "last best west." Bio Robert Westra was an active elder of the Reformed Churches in Alberta for more than fifty years, and president of the Classis of the Canadian Prairies for two three-year terms. This experience has given him the knowledge and experience of the policies, theology, and people of the Reformed Churches of Canada and the United States. As a boy growing up in an agricultural community, and in a Dutch church which was also involved in the settlement of Dutch immigrants during the 1950s, he is well acquainted with the difficulties of the early Dutch immigration experience in Canada. Robert is a retired scientist (BSc., MSc. Ph.D.) and consultant in the agricultural and financial sciences. He lives in Rochester, Alberta with his wife Vyrle Elaine, with whom he has been married for more than fifty-four years. They have four daughters and eleven grandchildren.

Immigration and Settlement, 1870-1939 includes twenty articles organized under the following topics: the "Opening of the Prairie West," First Nations and the Policy of Containment, Patterns of Settlement, and Ethnic Relations and Identity in the New West. The second volume in the History of the Prairie West Series, Immigration and Settlement includes chapters on early immigration patterns including transportation routes and ethnic blocks, as well as the policy of containing First Nations on reserves. Other chapters grapple with the various identities, preferences, and prejudices of settlers and their complex relationships with each other as well as the larger polity.

Images of Canadianness offers backgrounds and explanations for a series of relevant--if relatively new--features of Canada, from political, cultural, and economic angles. Each of its four sections contains articles written by Canadian and European experts that offer original perspectives on a variety of issues: voting patterns in English-speaking Canada and Quebec; the vitality of French-language communities outside Quebec; the Belgian and Dutch immigration waves to Canada and the resulting Dutch-language immigrant press; major transitions taking place in Nunavut; the media as a tool for self-government for Canada's First Peoples; attempts by Canadian Indians to negotiate their position in society; the Canada-US relationship; Canada's trade with the EU; and Canada's cultural policy in the light of the information highway.

Margaret Butcher served as a missionary nurse and teacher at the Elizabeth Long Memorial Home, a residential school in Kitamaat, British Columbia. This collection of letters, written to family and friends, offers a compelling glimpse at her experiences among the Haisla people.

In the fall of 1913, Laura and Earle Smith, a young Iowa couple, made the gutsy—some might say foolhardy—decision to homestead in Wyoming. There, they built their first house, a claim shanty half dug out of the ground, hauled every drop of their water from a spring over a half-mile away, and fought off rattlesnakes and boredom on a daily basis. Soon, other families moved to nearby homesteads, and the Smiths built a house closer to those neighbors. The growing community built its first public schoolhouse and celebrated the Fourth of July together—although the festivities were cut short because of snow. By 1917, however, the Smiths had moved back to Iowa, leasing their land to a local rancher and using the proceeds to fund Earle’s study of law. The Smiths lived in Iowa for most of the rest of their lives, and sometime after the mid-1930s, Laura wrote this clear, vivid, witty, and self-deprecating memoir of their time in Wyoming, a book that captures the pioneer spirit of the era and of the building of community against daunting odds.

The migrant letter, whether written by family members, lovers, friends, or others, is a document that continues to attract the attention of scholars and general readers alike. What is it about migrant letters that fascinates us? Is it nostalgia for a distant, yet desired past? Is it the consequence of the eclipse of letter-writing in an age of digital communication technologies? Or is it about the parallels between transnational experiences in previous mass migrations and in the current globalized world, and the centrality of interpersonal relations, mobility, and communication, then and now? Influenced by methodologies from diverse disciplines, the study of migrant letters has developed in myriad directions. Scholars have examined migrant letters through such lenses as identity and self-making, family relations, gender, and emotions. This volume contributes to this discussion by exploring the connection between the practice of letter writing and the emotional, economic, familial, and gendered experiences of men and women separated by migration. It combines theoretical and empirical discussions which illuminate a variety of historical experiences of migrants who built transnational lives as they moved across Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the United States. This volume was originally published as a special issue of The History of Family.

Using, for the first time, data from the 1871 Census of Canada in conjunction with data from the 1971 Census, Madeline Richard delineates the general patterns of ethnic intermarriage in 1871 and 1971 and specifically considers the trends for the English, Irish, Scotch, French, and Germans. Choosing a number of characteristics, such as level of literacy, nativity, age, and place of residence, for the husbands, the author determines the odds for their marrying outside their communities. She also examines the socio-demographic characteristics, such as group size, sex ratio, per cent urban, and level of literacy of each group to determine the marriage patterns of the husbands.