In its essential features the story is by no means unique. In the spring of 1896 or 1897 there arrived at the then insignificant settlement of Rosthern on the Regina and Prince Albert Railway a Galician family, consisting of a man, his wife, and five children. When they alighted from the train they had no money, and when the woman looked round upon the open and unoccupied prairie, almost destitute of even a shrub, she went into hysterics. Then she fainted. A kind-hearted official went over to the inn and procured a glass of spirits, which he forced the woman to swallow. This brought her to her senses, but did not relieve her mind. Here she was with her young family in a desolate place without resources. She was a powerfully-built woman, accustomed to hard farm labour, but the conditions seemed to her hopeless. A farmer who was on the platform offered to take the whole family to his place. He did so, and found that the labour of the family was very ample to compensate for the cost of their subsistence. Within a week it was evident that they were worth much more than their food and shelter. He arranged with them for the wages customary in the neighbourhood. They remained with him about three months, and then found other employment. In the spring of the following year the man entered for a homestead for himself, and for another for his eldest boy. I visited this family five or six years after these events. I found that in addition to the homesteads they had acquired by purchase a whole section, or six hundred and forty acres, which they were bringing into cultivation. There was a good house thatched in the neat Galician manner. Very large barns and implement sheds indicated care and prosperity. I saw the mother of the family standing in her doorway looking with pride upon her extensive possessions. In 1896 I had met upon the prairies numerous "prairie schooners" or hooded waggons, in which families belonging to the Western States were touring the country in search of suitable land. At that time many of these intending settlers were returning to their homes in the United States without having been able to find what they wanted. They were, in general, frightened by the visible evidences of drought. In 1897 and in the immediately subsequent years the weather conditions improved, a dry cycle seemed to have passed away, and a wet cycle seemed to have come. Agents of the Canadian Immigration authorities were active in Nebraska and other States in which land had advanced sharply in value. Farmers were able to sell their lands in the United States for relatively high prices, and then to cross the line with ready cash and obtain for nothing their share of homestead lands, while if they chose they could invest a part of their capital in additional land. It was necessary for them to cultivate their homestead lands, but it was not necessary for them to cultivate their purchased land. They could keep it until an advance in price rendered sale expedient. Thus the American invasion began. Many of those immigrants from the United States who came between 1897 and 1904 were possessed of means. They often brought great quantities of stock, farm implements, and household effects with them. Their migration was caused by a combination of circumstances the coincidence of demand at high prices for land in Nebraska and the existence of a large area of land of at least fair quality available for homesteads practically gratuitously in Canada. These American farmers were, in general, readily absorbed into the mass of the agricultural population. There were some cases in which absorption was slow and difficult. All the American farmers who migrated into Canada were not of either American or British extraction. Many of them had come either directly or indirectly from various parts of Europe. Among these European immigrants who had come via the United States, having resided there for a longer or a shorter time, there was a large group of German Catholics from the Rhenish provinces. Persuaded by the plausible tongues of agents, they had migrated in a large group and had purchased land. In 1899 I made my second trip to the North-West, visiting especially the Yorkton region and the Qu'Appelle Valley. In the first part of this trip my principal interest was in the Doukhobors, and I have devoted a separate chapter to them. In the second part of my trip I visited particularly the Swedish and Finnish settlements. In 1896 I had witnessed the effects of drought, I now saw the effects of excess of moisture. The whole of the plains in the neighbourhood of Portage la Prairie were under water. Haystacks appeared as if they were floating, and the farmers in those cases in which they did not abandon their houses altogether, lived in upper storeys and went to and fro in boats. The elevators were also under water; in many of them the grain had been soaked and become swollen, and the distorted elevators had burst. The waters of the Assiniboine had become uncontrollable. On the Saskatchewan, Swan and White Sand Rivers bridges were down, and communication by railway, and even otherwise, was interrupted. I had arranged to drive into the Qu'Appelle Valley from Whitehills, a station on the Canadian Pacific Railway west of Brandon. I took with me a Swedish interpreter who knew the district. My principal object was to see the Finnish settlers before my departure for Finland. I arrived at Whitehills early in May. Our journey involved crossing the Qu'Appelle River, about thirty miles from Whitehills. When we arrived at the river the whole valley seemed to be under water, the bridge over which we had expected to go being covered to a depth of nearly three feet. It was inadvisable to attempt a crossing, the chief risk being at the end of the bridge where the approach might be washed away. We procured a farmer who undertook to ride across the bridge before us and report upon the conditions on the other side. All went well, and we accomplished that stage safely. Our next experience was not so easy. Some miles from the bridge and on the north bank of the river we encountered a tributary creek through which the trail passed. There was no bridge. Our driver proposed to ford the stream at the trail, but I did not like the look of the high banks and the torrential stream that was surging between them. I suspected that the bed of the stream, which normally was at no great depth, had been scoured into a V shape, and that if the horses once got their heads down nothing could save us or them. I decided to wait at the crossing, because I knew that the Finnish farmer whom we were going to see expected us, and that, being in all probability an intelligent man, he would be aware of the state of the crossing, and would be anxious about our passage. In that case he would be likely to ride out to meet us. Our driver became impatient, and insisted upon attempting to cross the stream. I warned him that the stream was in a dangerous condition, and told him that I should not be answerable for the consequences if he made the attempt. He was, however, very headstrong, and although I refused to enter the waggon, he went on. He had no sooner gone down the bank than he realised his mistake, the horses lost their footing, and horses, waggon and man were washed down the stream into still deeper water. Fortunately the horses swam, while the man, although much frightened, kept his head and maintained his hold of the reins. He sank up to the neck, lost his footing upon the waggon, and floated helplessly, the horses meanwhile struggling to gain the opposite bank. At that moment the farmer came up and assisted the unfortunate man to land. My interpreter and I afterwards crossed the stream upon a hayrack, sitting upon the topmost bar. The water at the ford was not less than ten feet deep. Our Finnish farmer had been the manager of a factory at Helsingfors. The owners of the factory became insolvent, and his means of livelihood disappeared. He had saved a little money, and he determined to emigrate with his family. He had built himself a house, and |