Calgary & Southern Alberta

One of many CPR advertisements promoting
the Canadian West
Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection

As Minister of the Interior from 1896 to 1905, Clifford Sifton orchestrated an extraordinary series of immigration campaigns. A Manitoban himself, Sifton combined his faith in the West's potential with a corresponding belief in the virtues of good business. Expanding population had by this time reduced settlement opportunities in the Western United States. Sifton's department was therefore able to advertise Western Canada as "The Last Best West" and the results were gratifying. Western Canada's population mushroomed. Alberta's population multiplied by 512 percent, from 73,000 to 374,000, between 1901 and 1911.

Although Sifton used a variety of techniques to attract immigrants, his most successful strategy was to issue immigration pamphlets full of glowing accounts and inviting images. The promotions extolled the benefits of the prairie climate. As a new twist, Sifton attempted to banish cold temperatures from prairie life, at least on paper. He tried, without success, to prevent newspapers from publishing the daily temperature. As director of Interior Department publications, he did, however, succeed in eliminating "snow" and "cold" from printed accounts by requiring department writers to substitute more positive terms, such as "bracing" and "invigorating". In this classic example of promotion, the pen had transformed the image of Rupert's Land from a frozen wilderness into a farmer's utopia.