Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.06.1967, Page 4

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LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 1. JÚNÍ 1967
Cathedral. It has even been
suggested recently in the Pro-
vincial Legislature of Mani-
toba that his old residence be
purChased by the Province
and made into a memorial
shrine!
The other and more impor-
tant event, which helped to
advertise and unify the vast
territory of Canada, was the
completion in 1885 of the
Canadian Pacific Railway.
This helped to bring land
hungry multitudes from all
parts of the world into the
western part of Canada.
The two World Wars contri-
buted greatly to the cement-
ing of the Canadian nation-
hood. Canada emerged from
both of them with a new sta-
tus in the eyes of the world.
Following the first World
War, to which Canada sent at
least a half a million men,
from September 14th, 1914,
and on toward the close of the
struggle, Canada’s status with-
in the British Commonwealth
was shown by appointing a
Canadian minister to Wash-
ington in 1926. On September
lOth, 1939, a week later than
Great Britain, Canada declar-
ed war on Germany, and later
on Italy and Japan.
Canadian troops figured
prominently in allied victories
in Sicily, and on the mainland
of Italy. Canadian blood flow-
ed freely in the ill fated Diep-
pe raid. The first all Cana-
dian army, under General
Crerar, opened the battle for
the Ruhr in February, 1945.
The Canadian Navy contri-
buted to the success at sea by
assuming dangerous convoy
work on many seas.
The late Gen. George V.
Vanier, Governor General of
Canada, on his last visit to
Winnipeg, exchanged a few
words with the writer of this
article. Speaking of Canada,
and the many ethnic groups,
which constitute its citizens,
he remarked: “Canada is a very
young country.” This is, of
course, obvious to all except
perhaps the very young. We
realize that the vastly greater
part of the country as regards
civilized settlement and occu-
pation is but a thing of yester-
day. There are great cities
that within Iiving memory
were nothing but a few shacks
on a bald prairie. Our grand-
fathers walked on wooden
sidewalks where Portage Ave-
nue is now in Winnipeg, and
some of them perhaps parti-
cipated in the capture of Louis
Riel, who claimed by the grace
of God to be the real founder
and father of the Province of
Manitoba. Some of the cabins
of our first settlers are still
displayed on wheels on fes-
tive occasions, and the inscrip-
tion on the tomb stones of
some of the first white men
who were laid to rest in Cana-
dian soil, can still be easily
deciphered.
European aristocrats and in-
tellectuals often look upon
Canada as the last frontier,
and upon Canadians as ruf-
fians, devoid of culture. But
Canadians apologize to no
man for their youth. They
challenge any of the old coun-
tries of Europe, or Asia, to
show a comparable record, in
any field of endeavor, in any
one hundred year period in
their history.
Canada has experienced
great material prosperity and
progress in the one century of
her national existence. We
need only mention such enter-
prises as our railways, high-
ways, airways, seaways, our
industrial capacity, and our
annual production and ex-
ports
As the nation has enjoyed
material prosperity, essential
to the freedom of man’s spirit,
intellectual activity has flour-
ished, manifesting itself in in-
digenous literature. Generally
speaking Canadian writers
may be divided into four clas-
ses, on the basis of their re-
lationship and attitude to the
country: (1) Those whose re-
sidence in Canada was only
incidental and temporary; (2)
Those who came to Canada in
maturity, and retained an old
world point of view; (3) Those,
who though they came to
Canada in maturity, became
thoroughly Canadian in senti-
ment, and (4) Those who,
though foreign born, came to
Canada in their childhood and
grew up under Canadian in-
fluences. This applies to the
two “founding nations” — the
English and the French, as
well as to the many other
ethnic groups on the Cana-
dian scene. The authors in the
different categories, among
the various national groups,
are too numerous to mention.
It must suffice here to say
that Canadian literature com-
prises much miscellaneous
prose, fiction, and poetry of
high quality. Canada has also
made a very substantial con-
tribution, during the one cen-
tury of her existence, to the
arts and sciences. But above
all else, Canada has given the
world a worthy example of
international and inter-racial
co-operation, a lesson which
the “old world” has not yet
mastered. The story of Cana-
dian nationhood reveals many
differences, indeed, occasioned
by the immensity of the Iand,
and the wide ethnic and cul-
tural diversity of the people.
But the story reveals also
unity in diversity, idealism,
courage and faith, all of which
are necessary ingredients in
the future life of a great na-
tion.
DR. THORVALDUR JOHNSON:
Wheat In Canada -1867 -1967
In the drama of the devel-
opment of Canada in the cen-
tury since Confederation no
chapter is more spectacular
than the opening of the West
and the conversion of the
country between the Red
River and the Rocky Moun-
tains into the granary of the
world. The hoe-cultivation of
a few acres on the banks of
the Red River by the Selkirk
settlers in 1815, with a yield
of 400 bushels of wheat, was
the beginning of this chapter;
the 844 million bushels of com-
Dr. Thorvaldur Johnson.
bine harvested wheat in 1966
is not yet the end. Between
the two lies a vast human
drama, the epic story of the
immigrant men and women
who made this development
possible — a story in which
Icelandic immigrants played
their part.
But heroic as this human
effort was, the final achieve-
ment was possible only be-
cause of many favorable cir-
cumstances: a rapidly increas-
ing transatlantic demand for
wheat which resulted from
the increase of population in
nineteenth century Europe;
the fertility of the soil of the
open plains and parkland; the
development of transport fa-
cilities such as the Canadian
Paeific railway and steam-
ship navigation on the Great
Lakes; the immense improve-
ment of agricultural machin-
ery; and the production of
wheat varieties suitable to the
short summers of the Cana-
dian West — these were some
of the factors essential to the
conversion of the virgin lands
of the West into the grain-
basket of the world.
The relative failure of the
grain-growing efforts of the
original Red River settlers
resulted not so much from the
heart-breaking disasters of
grasshopper plagues, floods,
and the hostility öf the fur
traders as from their isolation
from markets and the conse-
quent lack of demand for the
grain they produced. Their
grain fields were narrow
strips extending a mile or two
inland from the Red and As-
siniboine rivers. The first
grain fields in the open plains
were those planted, about
1875, by the Mennonite set-
tlers; and hard on this, in
1876, took place a significant
event: the first shipment of
wheat out of Western Canada
— 875 bushels of Red Fife
wheat shipped to Ontario. At
that time the Canadian Paci-
fic railway was little more
than a promise — though a
promise that had started the
first trickle of immigrants into
the West. The grain had to be
shipped by steamboat up the
Red River to Fisher’s Landing
where it was transferred to a
railway car for shipment east
via Duluth. The full flood of
immigrant farmers, which
made large-scale wheat grow-
ing possible, had to await the
coming of the railways — the
St. Paul railway which en-
tered Manitoba from the south
in 1878, and the Canadian
Pacific which a few years
later gave regular communica-
tion with the East.
The Selkirk settlers and the
Mennonite farmers had shown
that the western plains were
suited to wheat production.
But wheat production could
be a success only if the wheat
produced satisfied the require-
ments of the European market
which for long had considered
that the softer, white fall
wheat of Europe was superior
to hard red spring wheat for
bread making purposes. For-
tunately for Canada, milling
improvements in France and
England in the 1870’s, espe-
cially the invention of the
‘purifier’, had demonstrated
for the first time the superior
baking quality of hard red
spring wheat. And fortu-
nately, again, the variety Red
Fife, which made up the
wheat shipment of 1876, prov-
ed to be superb in its baking
quality. As this variety was to
play such a big role in future
developments, it deserves
some attention.
About 1842, David Fife, a
Scots immigrant farmer near
Peterborough, Ontario, pro-
cured through a friend in
Glasgow, Scotland, a small
quantity of wheat which had
been obtained from a cargo
direct from Danzig, Germany.
The wheat proved to be fall
wheat, for, sown next spring
it failed to come into head ex-
cept for a single plant which
produced three heads. From
these he increased a stock of
seed and distributed it to
neighboring farmers who
found it to be superior in yield
and quality to the varieties
they had been growing. Grad-
ually the variety, now called
Red Fife, gained popularity in
Ontario and, by the 1860’s, had
spread into the United States
as far west as Wisconsin. In
the early seventies it had evi-
dently been introduced to
Manitoba. It is a point of in-
terest that many years later,
after the turn of the century,
Dr. Charles E. Saunders, then
Dominion Cerealist, obtained
from a seedsman in Germany
a variety identical with Red
Fife in all respects. This varie-
ty had come to him under the
name ‘Galician’, so named be-
cause it had originally come
from the Austrian province of
Galicia from which our first
Ukrainian settlers came.
The open plains of the West,
lacking timber for house
building and wood for heating
and often even water for live-
stock, were unsuitable for
settling unless some product
could be grown in quantity
to pay for the necessities of
life. But experience had
shown that they were ideal
for the growing of wheat; and,
since the land presented no
obstacle to the plow a large
acreage could be built up
rapidly. Two factors made
large-scale wheat growing
possible; the coming of the
railways which brought a
flood of settlers, and the rapid
improvements in agricultural
machinery which coincided
with the peopling of the
plains. Some of these im-
Massey Toronto Light Binder 1882,