Help Us to a Better Land: Crofter Colonies in the Prairie West

Louis A. Knafla is a history professor at the University of Calgary.

This is an original study of the Imperial Colonization Board (ICB), and
the crofter settlements in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the late 19th
century. The author uses a wide range of original sources in Scottish,
Canadian, Manitoban, and Saskatchewan archives to tell how Scottish
authorities in the highlands sent people considered “troublesome” to
the Canadian prairies, and that Canadian authorities were virtually
unprepared to assist in their settlement.

In 1888, the first group of 98 islanders settled in two colonies near
Pelican Lake at Killarney and Argyle, in southwest Manitoba; the
following year, a second group settled in two colonies (King and
Lothian) southeast of Yorkton, Saskatchewan. The colonies were bitter
disappointments, and the ICB soon abandoned such attempts. The settlers
were ill-prepared and ill-serviced to meet the demands that the terrain
placed on them.

Although Norton divides his work chronologically into chapters, the
distinctions between the various colonies are not always clear. Four
appendices contain all the names of the original settlers, together with
their geographical location and eventual disposition of their land.