1885 Rebellion and Dry Farming

The development of dry farming methods, were imperative for farming in the Canadian West, especially as the optimistic reports of those such as Henry Youle Hind, were far from the mark in terms of precipitation.  A.S. Morton noted in his History of Prairie Settlement (1938), Hind, touring the West in 1855-56, reported 82 inches of precipitation, while normal rates were closer to 20-25 inches.  Morton notes that the development of summer fallowing, a key dry farming method, may have been influenced by happenstance and the 1885 Rebellion.

Transport train en route from Swift Current to Saskatchewan Landing with supplies for General Middleton and Lt. Col. Otter. Photo donated by Reg. No. 4072, ex-S/Sargeant White.

RCMP Museum, Regina 34.25.III

Summer fallow ploughing on Indian Head farm of Francis, J. H.

Credit: Topley Studio / Library and Archives Canada / PA-026134

The Bell farm near Indian Head, where one of the major experimental farms would evolve, lost a number of horses to the service of General Middleton's column.  Because of this, much of the ploughing had to wait until June.  In 1885, many of the fields were left on summer fallow as these were too late to plant.  Crops on these fields in 1886, a drought year, were remarkably productive, and summer fallow would later be proven to hold soil moisture for the following year.

Charles Mair: Red River Rabble-rouser, 1868

Charles Mair

Tensions in the Red River settlement rose to a feverous pitch in the years leading up to the transfer of Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Dominion government.  The premature survey of the road from the Lake of the Woods to Red River in 1867 proved to be an event which exacerbated tensions between the Metis and the growing number of Canadians.  Arriving with the road crew was a literary figure who would add fuel to the growing fires on the banks of the Red.  That man was the expansionist, Canadian nationalist and "warrior bard", Charles Mair.

Mair's letters home were published in that great liberal rag the Toronto Globe, and his condescending chauvinism was not in favour with the people of Red River.  Arthur S. Morton wrote in the language of his time that the letters, "brought the indignation of the settlers to boiling point, for in the Settlement the half-breeds were a respectable middle class, rather than the outcasts the Canadian public envisaged by the term.  Governor Mactavish's wife was an educated half-breed of remarkable grace and dignity, and he protested in indignant terms that she was fit to grace any table."  (Morton, History of Prairie Settlement, 41)

Charles Mair

As George Stanley wrote in his classic The Birth of Western Canada, "the female part of the population, about whom Mair had made many uncomplimentary remarks, was particularly angry.  One pulled his nose, another his ears, while a third, the wife of a leading citizen of the Settlement, drove him from the Post Office with a horse whip!" (Stanley, 1992, 1936, p.55).  Drought and grasshoppers would further aggravate the citizens of Red River, whose resistance against the expansionist Canadians could best be symbolized by Louis Riel standing on the surveyor's chains, and preventing the measurement for the meridian line.  Mair was paymaster for the original road crew, and would be sentenced to death by Riel and his followers before escaping and fleeing to Minnesota.

Buffalo Wool at the Selkirk Settlement

Merino Ram.  Powerhouse Museum 1953 Samuel Sidney.

The problems of transportation and production were major factors in the slow start of Lord Selkirk's Red River Colony.  Early frosts and drought meant that, in the words of A.S. Morton, "transforming the prairies into fields of golden grain" was not an option. (Morton, History of Prairie Settlement, 26)  Morton notes that wheat and flour were much too bulky, and their low price not worth shipping back to Britain. Attempting to get a herd of cattle established proved equally difficult. Selkirk turned his mind to wool, as industrial machinery in England had outpaced supply, and it was fetching a good price.  Merino sheep from Spain had, at this time been sent to Austrailia, and Selkirk would attempt to export some to his far distant colony.  Morton claims that the lack of industry and intelligence of the settlers, however, led to the experiment's ruin.

George Back Sketchbook 1820-21  Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1994-254-1.53R

An attempt to use the resources at hand is observed in the founding of the Buffalo Wool Company to use buffalo hair as a weavable garment.  Morton notes that the mix of fine and coarse hairs made weaving difficult, and the wool's dark colour would not dye easily.  Chester Martin in his "Dominion Lands" Policy (1938) wrote that the Buffalo Wool Company was "the first and surely the most bizarre industrial venture of the West.  Lady Selkirk introduced the buffalo wool shawl into Scottish society but though remarkably soft and durable it would not take the vegetable dyes of those days." (Martin, 206)  The idea was eventually abandoned.  Interestingly, a modern company seems to have taken up the name, and sells buffalo yarn and garments, noting the institution was established in 1812, and re-established in 2011.

Further attempts to get sheep to the settlement met with disaster.  When a flock of over one thousand  was purchased in Kentucky and driven across country, they travelled through country rife with spear grass.  As Morton notes "the spears entered their flesh in such quantity as to make the whole body a festering sore.  The carcasses of the dead marked the way across the plains northward." (Morton, 27)   Morton sums up these efforts with a grim assessment: "all attempts to find an exportable product thus failing, the colony was necessarily reduced to playing the modest part of handmaid to the furtrade."

Beasts of the Selkirk Settlement, 1813

Stock-raising is an important facet of subsistence farming, especially when the nearest market is hundreds of miles away.  At the Selkirk Settlement on the Red River, an early attempt at an agrarian settlement in Western Canada, the first livestock were transported by the legendary fur-trader and explorer Peter Fidler. A.S. Morton, in his classic History of Prairie Settlement (1938) notes, the bull and two cows "must have been brought in as calves in the canoes.  They would be taught to jump in and out, and would be driven over the portages." (Morton, 10)  One can only wonder of the difficulties of transporting cattle in this manner.

Selkirk Settlement. National Archives of Canada / C-008714

Getting cattle to the colony proved near impossible.  Another bull and heifer were brought in by Miles Macdonnell, who picked them up from the Hudson's Bay Company at Oxford House.  Morton describes the ill fortune of these animals once arriving at the colony. He notes that Fidler's bull,

"proved vicious and was killed, though the scarcity of food may have had as much to do with its end as its viciousness, and, calamity upon calamity, the first, now the only remaining, bull was drowned while drinking at the water-hole in the ice on the river.  Selkirk urged Miles Macdonell to send out horsemen to drive quietly into the settlement a herd of heifer buffalo (they grazed apart from the bulls except in the rutting season), and to attempt a cross with a European bull.  This surely was a counsel of despair." (Morton, 16)

150th Anniversary Stamp. Credit: Library and Archives Canada  Copyright: Canada Post Corporation (stamp)
Copyright: Isobel M. Assad (cover)

Little did Morton realize that crossing cattle with buffalo was indeed feasible, however, the successful hybrid took much experimentation in animal husbandry to perfect.  By some accounts success was not gained in the endeavour until 1957.

It was not until 1821 that a substantial herd of cattle was brought in from the United States.  Livestock numbered 3 bulls, 6 oxen, 45 cows, and 39 calves with a number of sheep, horses and pigs as well.  As Morton notes, it took eleven years and much suffering to establish a healthy herd of livestock at the Selkirk Settlement.

The Conservatives attack the Siftonian cult, 1905

Clifford Sifton

Nothing compares to the blood lust of a parliamentarian when sensing an opponent's weakness.  In 1905, when Clifford Sifton resigned from the Laurier cabinet, it was thought that the time had come for the Conservative wolves to move in for the kill.  D.J. Hall's biography of Sifton, notes that his position at the helm of the Liberal machine, his penchant for cutting debate, and a questionable record of profits and patronage, meant that Sifton was natural prey for the circling pack.  Without his protection in the cabinet as Minister of the Interior and sensing some loosened bonds to the Liberal party, it was prime time to lunge at the wounded Grit.


In a debate over Sifton's clandestine immigration bureau, the North Atlantic Trading Company (NAT) (an agency which gave bonuses to immigration agents who sent settlers to Canada), the Conservative George E. Foster laid into Sifton's profits and patronage:

"The] Siftonian cult...is a kind of modern Pilgrim's Progress - not to a spiritual but to a material Paradise.  Your novice enters it a pauper - he comes out a millionaire.  He goes in a poor pilgrim, leaning on his staff and with modest garments, he comes out a pampered prince, clad in fine raiment, riding in liveried chariots.  Whiskey permits, Treadgold concessions, claim lifting in the north; land looting, timber, coal scrip, wire fence graft in the middle areas.  Immigration frauds everywhere - crowned by a million dollar contract with a headless, houseless, homeless monstrosity [the NAT Co.], a sort of fugitive maw into which the Siftonians pour Canada's hard earned taxes." (Hall, Clifford Sifton, V.2, p 184)

Ukrainian Language poster from Sifton's North Atlantic Trading Company which advertises 160 free acres of land in Canada.

Despite the best efforts of the Conservatives, Sifton would remain active in politics until 1917.  While his wealth was obvious to his contemporaries, the extent to which he profited off his political position still remains a mystery.