Canada Question

PrairieVoice

Banned
I'm not Canadian but I have travelled there and read some on Canadian history.

Quite frankly Canada in the 1800's was never the wild west that America was. There were no major battles with indians, no towns with a wild reputation like Abilene or Dodge City, and no colorful characters like Jesse James, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, or Billy the Kid.

So here is the question, how could Canada have had a "Wild West" era? Would it just be better weather? A different attitude?
 

blackmath

Canada did have a Wild West era, just the same as the United States except Hollywood has publicized the American experience so much it overshadows everything. We had a gold rush, just the same as the US, we had land speculators who, with the help of the British government rounded up Natives and put them onto reserves. We had wild towns with nearly no law, namely Dawson City, and we had Indian rebel leaders and massive horse mounted tribes who were armed to the teeth with guns. Sitting Bull came up to Canada in the last years of his life to live with the Assiniboine in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Our great plains are nearly twice the size of those of the United States, but the journey out to them was also nearly twice as long for settlers - so the Canadian West was far less populated than the United States.

Also, back then the border wasn't really paid attention to by anyone, especially out West, so this notion of the "American" or "Canadian" West was really a non issue and irrelevant to the people who lived on that hard land at the time - settlers and Natives.
 

Just Leo

Canada had Sam Steele. Canada didn't have the pulp press to turn him into a celebrity. Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson pale by comparison. Canada's Davey Crocketts and Dan'l Boones just got rivers named after them. Radisson and Groseiliers were immortalized in a CBC TV series in 1957& '58. We should be due for another iconization on TV in a few years.
 

pompejus

Just Leo

Maybe this would be closer.

imagesF.jpg
 

PrairieVoice

Banned
I do know you had the Red River rebellion by the Metis, the closest thing Canada's ever had to a Civil War. And the red suited mounties going after lawbreakers in the gold mining areas and logging camps did make for some good stories.

But really with the intense cold, especially back then, I think that dampered many a spirit and people thought only of survival plus it made it impossible to have cattle drives or wagon trains.
 

phx1138

The real reason there was no "Canadian Wild West" was the likes of Sam Steele. NWMP did the job the Army did in the States, but inverted: it protected the Indians from the settlers. That's one reason there weren't towns like Tombstone all across the Prairies. (Dawson was a special case, being a gold rush town.) Pierre Berton makes the weather argument (hard to have gunfights in the depth of winter in Moose Jaw), & he's right, except it wasn't a bunch warmer in winter in Abeliene. And there's a cultural attitude at play. Canadians trace to Loyalist roots, to the "law abiding" crowd, & "law, order, & good government" have been a mantra for decades here. Between the two...
 

GreatScottMarty

PrairieVoice said:
But really with the intense cold, especially back then, I think that dampered many a spirit and people thought only of survival plus it made it impossible to have cattle drives or wagon trains.
Click to expand...

There were Cattle Drives north to Pembina and into the plains. Just as it was said there was less demand because of a smaller population. The truth the money and grass were better if you drove south to Abilene than north to Abilene. Made an earlier Cross country railroad.
 

foresterab

There's also some great stories of places such as Rat Portage where both Manitoba and Ontario claimed to own the town...at one point the police force from the one province arrested the other and put them in jail so they could have their way...

I do know you had the Red River rebellion by the Metis, the closest thing Canada's ever had to a Civil War. And the red suited mounties going after lawbreakers in the gold mining areas and logging camps did make for some good stories.

But really with the intense cold, especially back then, I think that dampered many a spirit and people thought only of survival plus it made it impossible to have cattle drives or wagon trains.
Click to expand...

Or what about the Northwest Co. and HBCo. wars...the fur trading forts they burned down of each others had impacts on how the area developed.

Logging camps really didn't exist in western Canada until the late 1800's...well past the wild west days partly because the peopel weren't there. The other big thing was because there was so much land brought open at once (basically Manitoba to BC) you didnt' have situations like the great Oklahoma land rush and families were able to settle on pre-surveyed lands allowing for less boundary disputes. Water rights in southern Alberta remain contraversial to today but I don't think it ever got as far as the Arizona sheep/cattle disputes IIRC.

Many of the early settlers including the first wave of the NWMP did travel by wagon trains....only we called them Red River Carts. These were used for overland travel for many many years until superceeded by the railroads.
 
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