This attractive pamphlet was published during the time of the Federal Liberal government in 1896 under the direction of the Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton. The title "Canada West" refers to the view of this territory as seen and understood from Eastern Canada. It was after all Eastern Canadians who were the voters and tax payers, who were promoting settlement of the West, and had given power to the House of Commons to legislate the authority to colonize the vast North West Territories of Canada. Two main pieces of Legislation mobilized the settlement of the West: the Dominion Lands Act of 1872 and a companion stature The Immigration and Colonization Act. The title of this pamphlet "Last Best West" tells Eastern Canadians, Americans and with translated versions, various nations of Western and Eastern Europe that the American West is settled, and it is time to take advantage of the remaining lands of Western Canada-that here it was still the "new frontier."
More next week on settlement of the West.
Contact Terri Lefebvre Prince, Heritage Researcher,
City of Yorkton Archives, Box 400, 37 Third Avenue North
Yorkton, Sask. S3N 2W3
306-786-1722 [email protected]
