A Thousand Miles of Prairie: The Manitoba Historical Society and the History of Western Canada

A.A. den Otter is a professor of history at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland in St. John’s. He is the author of The Philosophy of
Railways.

The last decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th
century were incredible years of expansion for Winnipeg and Manitoba.
Although periodic economic downturns tested its citizens, the era of
unprecedented growth spawned a spirit of unbridled optimism and
confidence in human knowledge and science. Imbued with this dauntless
zest, a group of Winnipeg men in February 1876 founded the Historical
and Scientific Society, and its periodical, Transactions, with the
purpose of preserving the history of the North West by means of
publications, a library, and a museum.

In anticipation of the 125th anniversary of the Manitoba Historical
Society (its more commonly used name), Jim Blanchard has ably collected
and edited a number of representative articles from the Transactions.
While it published submissions in a variety of disciplines, Blanchard
has chosen mainly historical topics. He has included essays by
well-known late 19th- and early 20th-century Manitoba personalities such
as George Atkinson, Charles N. Bell, George Bryce, Marion Bryce,
Sigtryggur Jonasson, John McBeth, John W. Dafoe, Archbishop Samuel
Matheson, Gilbert McMicken, John C. Schultz, Ernest Thompson Seton, and
Michael Sherbinin. Their topics range from a description of the prairie
chicken and the location of the several forts at the Forks to the Battle
of Seven Oaks and the 19th-century floods.

Typical of the period in which they were written, most of the papers
reflect the accomplishments of the European settlers in Manitoba, with
virtually no reference to the Métis and none to the Aboriginal
inhabitants of the region. The value in their republication at this
time, therefore, lies not in the contributions they make to current
historical knowledge but as primary sources for an understanding of
establishment thinking in the early years of Manitoba as a province.