Merry Christmas

 From our house to yours.
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

December Book Tuesday!

 Welcome to another Book Tuesday offering for you.

Enjoy
Victorian Society of Alberta

They Came
-by Billie Milholland

 European settlement of Western Canada was both rapid and dramatic. People came from all over the world to take advantage of cheap land ($10 for 160 acres/64.7 hectares). Women most often came with parents, or followed husbands and brothers. They traded extended family life in familiar landscapes imbued with ancient histories for life in an undeveloped country with few roads and rough, new communities full of people from diverse cultures, speaking dozens of different languages.

We know the stories of men who settled and developed the West, but of the women, except for a handful of rich and famous, we know little. They Came tells the heroic stories of 113 women who came to Western Canada from somewhere else between 1890 and 1950. Following each story is a recipe, something their children and grandchildren remember fondly....

Neighbours and Networks, the Blood Tribe in the Southern Alberta Economy
-by W. Keith Regular

Neighbours and Networks explores the economic relationship that existed between the Blood Indian reserve and the surrounding region of southern Alberta between 1884 and 1939.

The Blood tribe, though living on a reserve, refused to become economically isolated from the larger community and indeed became significant contributors to the economy of the area. Their land base was important to the ranching industry. Their products, especially coal and hay, were sought after by settlers, and the Bloods were encouraged not only to provide them as needed, but also to become expert freighters, transporting goods from the reserve for non-Native business people. Blood field labour in the Raymond area's sugar beet fields was at times critical to the functioning of that industry. In addition, the Bloods' ties to the merchant community, especially in Cardston and Fort Macleod, resulted in a significant infusion of money into the local economy.

Keith Regular's study fills the gap left by Canadian historiography that has largely ignored the economic associations between Natives and non-Natives living in a common environment. His microhistory refutes the perception that Native reserves have played only a minor role in regional development, and provides an excellent example of a cross-cultural, co-operative economic relationship in the post-treaty period on the Canadian plains.