Frontier Life In Canada In The 1850's

In the 1850’s, some pioneers began to choose to immigrate to Canada rather than the US. The land there was untamed and the terrain difficult compared to America, which had already been settled for around 200 years. The frontier life in Canada revolved around the basic needs. Pioneers built the country from the ground up, starting with simple log cabins. The long, cold winters and harsh wilderness kept it from being an overly popular frontier, and to this day, despite being larger than its southern neighbor, is over nine times less populous.

Most of the people settling Canada in the early years were single men, there to make a living in fur trading, lumber, mining or ranching. Women began to join them in the French territories in the 17th and 18th centuries, and became essential to the prairie homesteading and farming industries in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. This era was brought about by the Dominion Lands Policy of 1872, based off an American homestead legislation, allowing settlers to purchase land for around $10 and taking care of and farming the land. They divided the prairie lands into townships and encouraged building families there.

When faced with long winters, harsh wilderness, difficult terrain, and hardship, the pioneers of Canada persevered and built a nation from soggy, frozen ground and dense forest. Canada’s pioneers got the country started, and paved the way for the nation it is