Collection captures Prairie homesteader experience

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This article was published 03/09/2022 (1223 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For most Canadians, a life without running water, central heating and other modern amenities is associated with camping trips, not everyday life. Yet the stories in Tales from the Homestead: A History of Prairie Pioneers, 1867-1914 vividly describe a life without many of the comforts that we take for granted, where people experienced both hardship and joy, leaving a legacy of persistence and fortitude for future generations to admire and even emulate.

In Tales from the Homestead, Sandra Rollings-Magnussen has compiled a varied and compelling set of first-person narratives describing different aspects of pioneer life in the Prairie provinces. The influx of homesteaders to the Prairies during these years resulted from the Dominion Lands Act of 1872, which gave newcomers the chance to apply for 160 acres of land for farming.

Rollings-Magnussen, an associate professor of sociology at MacEwan University, has studied the homesteaders of Western Canada for over 30 years. She has a master’s degree from the University of Regina and a PhD from the University of Alberta. Her work includes contributions to academic journals and lectures on topics related to homesteaders, and she has written three previous books on the subject, including Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders: The Labour of Pioneer Children. She currently lives in Edmonton.

With free land as an incentive, thousands of people from Britain, the United States, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary, Scandinavia, France and elsewhere migrated to the Prairies to make new lives for themselves.

Their experiences included a harsh climate and the danger of prairie fires, but also the warmth of communities where people lightened each other’s burdens with visits, celebrations and more.

Overall, as these accounts show the homesteaders seem to have appreciated their experiences despite the hardships. For children, living on the Prairies offered the opportunity to explore the wide-open spaces and play with their friends once the chores were done.

Meanwhile, adults built up businesses, experienced the challenges of teaching in a one-room schoolhouse, visited friends and family and found ways of coping with their surroundings.

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One chapter relates the story of a bride changing to her wedding clothes in the train’s washroom, ready to join her groom at the station platform. Despite many difficulties, these homesteaders generally responded with hope for the future.

The stories in this collection cover a wide variety of people and situations, but readers can also find common threads running through the different accounts, including the homesteaders’ inventiveness and flexibility as well as the sense of adventure that is evident in many of the accounts. The editor introduces each chapter and ties the different accounts together in her conclusion, where she comments on some of the characteristics that helped the homesteaders through difficult times.

Rollings-Magnussen’s editing has made the different accounts consistent in style and vocabulary, which has made the volume easier to read, but has potentially masked linguistic and educational differences among the homesteaders that some readers might find interesting. More background information on the writers would have been helpful for understanding the various viewpoints and the range of people who chose to settle in the Prairie provinces, although that might have detracted from the theme of common pioneer experiences.

Tales from the Homestead is an interesting and engaging book for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of people in the Prairie provinces, especially Alberta and Saskatchewan. Whether for academic study or general information, this book is a good choice.

Susan Huebert is a Winnipeg writer and editor.