The Passing of a frontier: ranching in the Canadian West, 1882-1912
Download
evans1976.pdf (56.33Mb)
Embargoed until: 2200-01-01
Accessioned
2017-03-27T22:59:26ZAvailable
2017-03-27T22:59:26ZIssued
1976-05Lcsh
Ranches - Northwest, CanadianCattle trade - Northwest, Canadian
Ranch life - Northwest, Canadian
Frontier and pioneer life - Northwest, Canadian
Land use - Northwest, Canadian
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
This study is concerned with the industry which dominated the land use pattern of the Canadian west for a thirty year period between the disappearance of the buffalo and the arrival of large numbers of homestead settlers during the first decade of the twentieth century. It seeks to describe and analyse the establishment, growth, and eventual demise, of the range cattle industry in western Canada. Geographical description concentrates on the location and extent of the area occupied, the intensity with which the land was utilized, and the relative importance of production units of various sizes. An attempt is made to identify some of the variables promoting change in land use on a nineteenth century frontier of settlement. Government attitudes and legislation, economic cycles, technological developments, and the physical environment, are envisaged as interacting to produce a complex "behavioural environment" which was subject to interpretation by a heterogenious group of entrepreneurs and ranchers with widely different goals. Little attention has been paid to the range cattle industry in Canada, in spite of the voluminous literature on the topic in the United States. This study suggests that a robust Canadian variation of the American "cattleman's frontier" was established in Alberta and Assiniboia, and this unique tradition was only partially swept aside by an influx of cattle companies and farmers from the United States during the first decade of the twentieth century.Bibliography: p. 341-357.
Citation
Evans, S. M. (1976). The Passing of a frontier: ranching in the Canadian West, 1882-1912 (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/12980Collections
University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.