Throughout the late 1800s, waves of immigrants came over from Europe to North America, their arrival serving a dual purpose. On the one hand, the immigrants were seeking a better life for themselves and their families. On the other hand, the Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial governments were seeking to populate their territory in a bid to maintain sovereignty over the land and to develop it for agriculture. Among these immigrants were the Hungarian and Western Slavic settlers who founded the Esterhaz Colony, which later became known as the Kaposvar and Kolin districts, in southeastern Saskatchewan. A key figure in the founding of this colony was the enigmatic Count Paul O. d’Esterhazy, a.k.a. Janos Baptiste Packh. As an immigration agent for the Canadian and American governments, he worked tirelessly not only to promote immigration to the Kaposvar and Kolin districts but also to improve the lives of the immigrants who settled there. Although d’Esterhazy was not without his detractors, this book takes pains to emphasize the sincerity of his vision of a “Little Hungary on the Canadian Prairies” and the many challenges that he and other proponents of the colony faced as they sought to see that vision fulfilled. Meticulously researched and documented, this book offers a treasure trove of insight into not only the Esterhaz colony and surrounding area but also the myriad and often conflicting forces involved in the founding of Canada as a nation.

The Prairie Provinces cover Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Immigration and Settlement, 1870-1939 includes twenty articles organized under the following topics: the "Opening of the Prairie West," First Nations and the Policy of Containment, Patterns of Settlement, and Ethnic Relations and Identity in the New West. The second volume in the History of the Prairie West Series, Immigration and Settlement includes chapters on early immigration patterns including transportation routes and ethnic blocks, as well as the policy of containing First Nations on reserves. Other chapters grapple with the various identities, preferences, and prejudices of settlers and their complex relationships with each other as well as the larger polity.

Johann Baptist Packh was born in Esztergom, Hungary in 1831. He later changed his name to Paul O. Esterhazy, became an immigration agent in Canada in 1885, and founded the town of Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, settled by Hungarian immigrants. He died in 1912.

In this first full-length study of labour in Canadian prairie agriculture during the period of settlement and expansion, Cecilia Danysk examines the changing work and the growing rural community of the West through the eyes of the workers themselves.

The oil sands. Global warming. The National Energy Program. Though these seem like modern Canadian subjects, author Mary Janigan reveals them to be a legacy of longstanding regional rivalry. Something of a "Third Solitude" since entering Confederation, the West has long been overshadowed by Canada's other great national debate: but as the conflict over natural resources and their effect on climate change heats up, 150 years of antipathy are coming to a head. Janigan takes readers back to a pivotal moment in 1918, when Canada's western premiers descended on Ottawa determined to control their own future--and as Margaret MacMillan did in Paris 1919, she deftly illustrates how the results reverberate to this day.

"Making Western Canada challenges uncritical historiies of a peaceful, orderly and anglocentric Canadian West. Collectively, its authors suggest the potential of more inclusive histories based on the social relationships that knit the region's history..." Elizabeth Jameson, Department of History, University of Calgary