Frontier Farewell: The 1870s and the End of the Old West.

Norma Hall is a historian who specializes in colonial era settlements in
Newfoundland and Manitoba at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Garrett Wilson has added a fourth title to his ongoing examination of the play of power in the Canadian West, a topic he has explored since the publication of his first book in 1985. In Frontier Farewell, Wilson provides an opportunity to re-evaluate longstanding myths about settlement on the North American Great Plains.

The text is packaged attractively and promoted honestly on the dust cover and flaps; what is promised is delivered. The title states Wilson’s thesis succinctly and the work convincingly portrays the 1870s as a defining decade for the West. Pictures, maps, and footnotes further illuminate, while sidebars handle informative digressions. In addition, there is a bibliography, index, and timeline of events. The last is useful as Wilson adopts a thematic, rather than chronological, approach to detail a series of crises and demonstrate their impact on people, places, and aspirations.

This was a decade of famine, fire, and pestilence. “Last stands” and new endeavours were undertaken, with varying support, for and against: surviving strands of buffalo herds, peoples, and their cultural heritage; the establishment of boundaries and transportation routes; and the centralized control of space, policing, and economies by Eastern Canadian and American governments. Throughout, Wilson weaves storylines tracing encounters, conflicts, and alliances between such compelling individuals as Sitting Bull of the Sioux Nation, James Walsh of the NWMP, and Edgar Dewdney of Canada. Along with frustration and frailty, readers encounter compassion and hope, but more especially a sense of how connection to a place such as Wood Mountain transcends landscape appreciation or real estate ownership.

In the course of examining historical people and places, Wilson raises questions and suggests hard answers. Ultimately, the book challenges present perceptions: what happens to our idea of Canadian heritage if unfortunate consequences of change have not been entirely unforeseeable accidents? What if we conclude that power has been more consistently set against benevolence than wielded with it? If, in past quests for power, callous opportunism shaped a divisive social legacy, how shall we respond?