Ruthenians. “Raw material in the making of Canadians” from Maclean’s 1910.
There was a debate about who would make the best home-steaders. Northern Englanders were generally deemed most preferable, (well, after Americans); second on the list, other hardy Northern Europeans, Scandinavians at the top of that group.
However, one article I read suggested that these Yorkshire farmers were slow learners and set in their ways and used to being protected by the feudal system, so poor pioneering material. City people, who were adaptable, would make better Canadians, the same article claimed. That point of view was not Canadian policy: the LAST people on earth Canada wanted was the wretched poor from Britain’s overcrowded cities, weaklings and criminals all. One hardy farmer type not wanted in the West, either, was the American Negro.
In 1910, Herb Nicholson was transferred from Saskatoon to Regina.
The King’s Hotel Regina Canada
Oct 15, 1910
Dear Father,
I arrived here last night. Am going to start work here Monday with the Northern Crown Bank as teller. I worked in the Saskatoon branch for about ten days as teller. They have a nice building of their own here and a large office. I was out looking for a room this morning saw a lot of them but they are very expensive. Did not see any for less than 12.00 and they were small and some not very clean looking. This is the finest city that I have seen yet in the West with the exception of Winnipeg which is I think the makings of the finest and best in Canada. The streets are very wide and also very clean. I am to get 700 salary which is not enough to keep me in the West. That is I do not think I will stay out here for the money very long as living is more expensive and I think I can get as much as that in the East. “
And here’s a bit from the 1910 Maclean’s about the West.
“The people of the West are the chiefest of its outward differences. They are more varied than the climates, more picturesque than the mountains. Nowhere else is all the world can be found such an assortment of human beings, such differentiations of the human element… The tramp of the incoming multitudes is not poetry alone. There is fact for it. Nor is this movement of people merely a stage in the process of a land settlement: it is a chapter in world history and a study in world psychology. Can you explain it – the drawing, the gripping, the tearing-up, the moving, the settling down, the new living? To know the inner workings of the average immigrant mind, before and after, would be as entertaining as a day with Dickens. 40 different languages may be heard in the course of a walk on the streets of Winnipeg. The Englishness of Winnipeg is still pre-dominant, but it has its Babel, as has every other city in the West. The Whole West, indeed, is a Babel.”
Many of the women graduating from McGill Normal School went out west. (English teachers were definitely needed!) The Nicholsons even considered it. Edith wanted to go, for a summer a least, but she did not have a diploma.
