Calgary & Southern Alberta

American immigrants travelling to Canada
Courtesy of Parks Canada

The Dominion land policy, in theory, offered free land to homesteaders. In the 1871 land policy, request for homesteads of 160 acres (a quarter-section) were accepted for a fee of ten dollars and a residence requirement of five years. In the Dominion Lands Act of 1872, the residence requirement was reduced to three years in order to compete with similar American offers. While most homesteads were assigned in this manner, some 60 million acres were available by purchase through the joint claims of the CPR, the HBC, and school lands. The survey system designated even-numbered sections as open to homesteads, with the odd-numbered sections being left available for sale. The resulting process of pre-emption, which allowed the homesteader to file an interim claim on adjoining quarter-sections, and land sales served to encourage the formation of large farms. The withholding of extensive tracts of land for speculation by the HBC, the CPR, and other colonisation companies greatly frustrated potential settlers. It often seemed to homesteaders that the CPR held their lives in its hands. While the CPR represented nation-building to some, others believed that the CPR symbolised all that was wrong in Western Canada.