by Merle Massie
Soldier Settlement in Historical Perspective
The dominion government canvassed overseas soldiers fighting in France to find out what the men wanted the government to provide when they returned to Canada at the war’s end to help them readjust to civilian life. One of the most popular ideas was that the dominion should provide loan support and land for ex-soldiers to become established farmers. A preliminary plan of action was put in place in 1917, creating the Soldier Settlement Board (SSB). Because of unprecedented and unexpected demand, an expanded version was passed in 1919.29 The most important change between the Soldier Settlement Act of 1917 and that of 1919 was that the loan capacity of the SSB was expanded. As a result, soldiers could access loans to purchase title to farmland in any of the nine provinces. Soldiers could emigrate or return to Canada and take up farms wherever they chose or use the money to improve or expand farms already owned. They were not kept strictly to the remaining Crown land of the western interior. In fact, just one-sixth of the total number of soldiers who received land through the Soldier Settlement Board took the dominion homestead plus the soldier grant—and those men would have been spread across the western interior on any remaining Crown, school, or otherwise unalienated land.30 Nonetheless, soldier settlement opened millions of acres of Crown land along the forest fringe.
Historical opinion on the soldier settlement scheme has been blunt: soldier settlement overall was a “disappointing failure.”31 It was expensive, many soldiers abandoned their holdings despite extensive and intensive support from the SSB, and conditions in places were harsh. Because soldier settlement was a national endeavour, and soldiers were placed on (or returned to) agricultural land in all of the provinces, historical analysis has favoured a national or even an international perspective. An exception is James Murton, whose detailed investigation of soldier settlement in British Columbia provides a distinct provincial focus and a varied assessment of “success.” While stump farming at Merville on Vancouver Island is painted as rather unsuccessful, the orchard communities of the Okanagan Valley experienced more success. Frustratingly, Murton’s work does not delineate between the federal Soldier Settlement Board schemes and the provincial manifestation through the Land Settlement Board in British Columbia, where Crown land was a provincial, not a federal, responsibility. Murton situates soldier settlement as an example of a “new liberal order framework,” an activist form of government interested in providing for the general welfare of citizens, often through extensive social and environmental reform projects. Farmable land was scarce in British Columbia; the new liberal order framework allowed the government to push forward massive environmental engineering projects, such as draining Sumas Lake, stump farming at Merville, and various irrigation schemes in the Okanagan to create farmable land. In this work, tracing soldier settlement experiences across the BC landscape gave Murton a chance to reflect on the interwar period as an example of the turn to the new liberal order. Despite its breadth and depth, the disconnection between dominion and provincial soldier and land settlement policies makes comparison difficult.32 Murton characterizes the 1919 changes to the SSB loans policy, which significantly expanded loan potential so that soldiers could create opportunities across the dominion, as “essentially just a bank.”33 Conversely, a national viewpoint without recognizing distinct provincial characteristics is equally problematic. The three western interior provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta fell directly under federal authority. Soldier land settlement in each of the other provinces had to be mediated between provincial and federal land agencies. Because Saskatchewan soldier settlement fell under federal jurisdiction, as did homesteading, federal policies had a direct impact.
Soldier settlement on agricultural land fired the imaginations of many across the country at the tail end of the war. Editorial pages, letters to the editor, and advertisements in newspapers heralded the scheme.34 The 1919 Soldier Settlement Act provided for three land settlement options. If a soldier already owned agricultural land, he could obtain a loan to clear “encumbrances” (usually mortgages, liens, and taxes), to purchase livestock and implements, or to erect permanent buildings. A soldier could alternatively purchase land through the SSB, which acted as both realtor and bank, setting the land price and holding the mortgage and title until the loans were paid off. He would also qualify for a loan to purchase stock and erect buildings. Loans secured by the returned men were to be paid back over the course of twenty-five years.35 During that time, the soldier settler would continue to be advised and supported by the SSB. Finally, a soldier could take free dominion land within the western provinces (usually a soldier grant and a homestead) and qualify for a smaller loan to purchase livestock and equipment or erect buildings.36 The soldier settlement scheme was, as a result, both nimble and unwieldy. It could respond on an individual level to a soldier’s needs, but it became difficult to manage its strengths and weaknesses at the aggregate level.
Historical analysis of soldier settlement, in large part because of the individual nature of the loans and land process, has been fundamentally flawed. To compare the experiences of a soldier who returned to his farm and took modest loans for improvements and pre-empted his “soldier grant” quarter to secure a larger land base, with those of another soldier who purchased expensive farmland and took large loans to buy stock and equipment, with those of another soldier who chose free dominion land and qualified only for smaller loans, is problematic at best. The differences among provinces, due to their differential rights over Crown land, are also important. Climates, soils, and agricultural capacities at the regional level also played major roles. Finally, it is critical to recognize that, in the western interior, soldier land settlement policies, in large part, were reactions to the shocking inadequacies of dominion homestead policies and marked a turn toward a different kind of land settlement. Soldier settlement, when viewed on a deep time scale, marked a critical transition point in dominion land policy direction.
Historical discussion of soldier settlement has produced a second problem. There has been an overall tendency to rely on negative stories, easily found in newspaper files or government records of those who needed help. Too often the most disastrous and unfortunate examples have been used to explain broader trends. For example, though the majority of returned soldiers across the dominion purchased or returned to developed farms (such as David Dunn and James Stoddart), historical analysis has favoured the study of block settlement schemes on remote, undeveloped, forested Crown lands. These remote forested settlements are easier to trace as distinct examples of soldier land settlement. For the most part, they are considered failures.37 As a result, perception of the success of soldier settlement has been skewed.
Describing soldier settlement at the forest edge as settlement on “scrub” land, incapable of productive agricultural development, frames the story in a particular way. Men become “forced” to take off-farm employment in regional industries or to hunt, trap, or fish to help feed their families. The lure of mixed farming, the strong forest economy, and access to both a homestead and a soldier grant have been downplayed. Off-farm opportunities, however, were more of a draw than a detriment, as I discuss in the next chapter. Local history books from forest edge communities indicate that both on-farm and off-farm opportunities drew soldiers. Even government files show what soldiers were looking for and asking about. Canadian Expeditionary Force soldier Roger Picand, of the 67th Battery 52nd Artillery Regiment, wrote to the Saskatchewan Department of Agriculture from Angéloûme, France, on 30 September 1916. Picand requested information regarding settlement in northern Saskatchewan. Was the Saskatchewan River navigable, he wondered, and how long were the winters? Can wheat and oats be grown north of the North Saskatchewan River? And, finally, what were the game and fish like in these parts? His letter, anticipating land resettlement concessions, outlined questions typical of northern homestead development. Picand was interested in transportation, climate, potential agricultural crops, as w
ell as off-farm products of the local landscape.
In contrast, academic studies have characterized soldiers as little more than pawns, tricked into taking poor land in a larger game orchestrated by federal and provincial governments. It was a game “designed to open up vast new areas of land,” whether that land was fit for settlement or not—and the narrative consistently suggested that the Crown land available for settlement, particularly in western Canada after the war, was not fit for agriculture.38 This storyline is problematic, in part because it fails at the local level.39 In the north Prince Albert region, soldier settlement overall was a success and a critical aspect of regional development.
Soldier Settlement Regulations
Soldier settlement ushered in a new era of assisted settlement on a scale not seen before in Canada. It was highly regulated. The soldier had to apply to the program and be approved. Between one-quarter and one-third of applicants were rejected.40 The SSB required soldiers with no farming experience to undergo practical training through courses and/or with a farmer (as hired help) to learn the business of mixed farming. In contrast, dominion homestead regulations did not evaluate homesteaders. By 1921 in the Prince Albert district, over 1,300 soldier settlers had been placed on farms, forty had been recommended for training, and of those twenty-five had been placed “with the best farmers in the various districts, and the wages have been satisfactory to all the settlers in training.”41
The land also had to be approved. Land assessment was the cornerstone of the soldier land scheme, according to the SSB: “If the first maxim is that the man must be ‘fit to farm,’ the second maxim is that the land must be ‘fit to farm.’ They were of equal importance.”42 To that end, the SSB hired inspectors to oversee land purchases and to evaluate and approve or reject improved farms or unimproved “wild” land.43 One of the founding principles of the Soldier Settlement Act was that soldiers should not be asked to go to farms many miles from service centres or transportation facilities. The SSB literature insisted that “the board does not contemplate the settlement of soldiers as pioneers in remote locations or under isolated conditions, removed from markets, in virgin forest areas.”44 As a result, the SSB pushed itself to place soldiers primarily on land in established farming districts, within fifteen miles of a railway. Agricultural surveys conducted in western Canada throughout the latter part of the war years showed a relative scarcity of dominion land, particularly in contrast to the amount of land that had been available prior to and during the major settlement era between 1896 and 1910. What was left was either in the forested regions or in the Palliser Triangle. Any remaining productive prairie land had been alienated from the government, owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company, railway and colonization companies, private speculators, school boards, or Indian bands. The monthly agricultural magazine, The Saskatchewan Farmer, deplored the fact that there were millions of acres of unoccupied land within easy reach of settlements and railways that were in the hands of speculators. “The Government has in the past commandeered part of our wheat crop. Why not commandeer this vacant land? …Surely something can be done to compel the owners of our vacant lands to…sell it at a reasonable figure, so as to allow returned soldiers or other purchasers to cultivate it.” A forced purchase scheme was infinitely better, the magazine noted, than offering homesteads in remote, northern, timbered districts without rail lines or established service centres.45 To bring land back under the auspices of the federal government for the soldier settlement scheme, it had to be purchased. Prices were negotiated with farmers who decided to sell their holdings to the Soldier Settlement Board, such as the Gatskys, a Ukrainian family in the Paddockwood district who had proven their quarter by 1920, when they sold it to the SSB.46 Companies, private individuals, or Indian bands were squeezed to find land for soldier settlement.
When demand still exceeded supply within these limitations, soldier settlement was promoted in places likely to get a railway soon or in “specially approved districts along projected lines where general settlement is well developed.”47 The restriction to land within fifteen miles of a railway did not match practice. Special allowances were made to settle in certain areas, including the Porcupine Forest Reserve in east-central Saskatchewan or the Merville region of British Columbia. These areas, contrary to the stated intent of the SSB, were “virgin forest areas.” The north Prince Albert region, with the fledgling communities of Alingly, Henribourg, Albertville, and Paddockwood, and a promised branch railway line, was both “virgin forest area” and “special approved district.” It offered a landscape of opportunity: an edge ecotone that, at the end of the war years, retained nearby lumber opportunities for fuel and building supplies and showed promise for mixed farming. Quarter section surveys, including soil assessments, were done on every piece of land bought through the SSB, in an attempt to direct soldiers onto land suitable for mixed farming.
Mixed Farming and Soldier Settlement
The first report of the SSB declared mixed farming as the soldier settler’s route to established success. Using clichés typical of the most ardent mixed-farming advocates, the SSB declared that “settlers are not encouraged to embark on a scheme of farming in which ‘their eggs are all in one basket.’ ... The impulsive direction is towards mixed farming, because it is based on sound economic principles.” Those principles showed that “where several important crops are grown and several classes of animals are kept they are not all likely to meet adverse conditions of climate or market in the one year.”48 Operating a mixed farm, with cows, pigs, poultry, and a good vegetable garden, soldier settlers would be assured of a “healthy livelihood.”49 Mixed farming promoted not only resilience and profit over time through diversification but also a large measure of self-sufficiency. Soldiers were encouraged, even outright directed, to engage in mixed-farming practices. The report continued that “different crops and different classes of animals make for better distribution of labour throughout the season. Waste is lessened because the product from one crop or animal is utilized by another class of animal. Fertility is conserved because manure rich in plant food is returned to the soil. Income is steadier and better distributed throughout the seasons; consequently there is less likelihood of contracting a great number of small debts.” In response to years of promotion—and the advice of federal scientists and surveyors—the mixed-farming directive encouraged soldiers to file on homesteads and soldier grant lands (or purchase farms through the SSB) in parkland and forested areas suited to mixed farming. Although the SSB would never have admitted it, it seems reasonable to assume that the board was not interested in creating a wealthy class of successful wheat farmers who had time in the winter to meet and agitate for change. It supported a scheme that kept soldiers busy—and the heavy demands of a mixed farm fit the bill.50
Figure 12. Thirty million acres of fertile and idle land. This political cartoon has done much to propagate the idea that soldier settlement on forest land (where the wolf was near to howl at the door) was a poor way to repay soldiers for their sacrifices. Many newspapers, including The Saskatchewan Farmer, lamented the amount of good land owned by speculators. Under the 1919 regulations, the SSB could purchase alienated land, mitigating somewhat the push onto forested and remote lands.
Source: SAB, R-A19420.
When the first trickle of soldiers began to arrive during the winter of 1918–19, Prince Albert advocates sprang into action. The soldier settlement scheme was popular, though there was disgruntlement in Prince Albert when Land Settlement Boards were announced for Regina and Saskatoon. The Prince Albert Board of Trade angrily pointed out that “not one of the men selected to perform the vital duty of securing land for the returned soldiers was familiar with the northern part of the province where hundreds of the soldiers desire to locate.”51 There were real differences, both the Board of Trade and the Daily Herald editors cautioned, between wheat farming on the prairie and mixed farming in the north: “the principle of loaning money that applies on th
e prairies” simply would not apply. Local veterans met with SSB representatives to plead their case. They called for “a plan that will give the prospective mixed farmer of northern Saskatchewan an even break with his neighbour in wheat raising on the prairie.”52 Given the stated aims of the SSB in regard to mixed farming, the board had little choice but to give in. Soldier settlement policies, including the amount of money needed for loans, the kind of land required, and other issues were different in the local context. After several letters, meetings, and hot debates, the SSB relented and agreed to establish a local Land Settlement Board at Prince Albert. Saskatchewan was the only province to have three boards.53
As soldier settlers poured into the north Prince Albert region, calls for a railway north of the city were renewed. The influx of soldiers gave added regional pressure to the railway push. If Paddockwood was to be a preferred soldier settlement area, promoters argued, then it needed a railway. The Prince Albert Daily Herald reported demands coming from the original settlers, the soldier settlers, businesspeople, and the Prince Albert Board of Trade. The headlines for 13 March 1919 read “New Railways for Prince Albert. CNR Gives Promises of North Line. CPR Is Keen on the Northern Territory.” The paper reported a “definite promise” of immediate construction of a line north to Paddockwood, and held out hope that it would go even farther, to “usher in a new era of prosperity for a country of unlimited possibilities in agriculture, lumbering, fishing and mining.”54 Boosters of the north Prince Albert edge landscape automatically melded the agricultural story with potential forest resources. No one knew exactly how far north the limits of agriculture might be, but resource industries were expected to provide equal, if not greater, opportunities. Marketing the local landscape meant defining opportunities for soldier settlement in two directions: pointing out the advantages of the ecotone as a mixed-farming paradise, and directing attention to off-farm economic potential.