Starting a Farm in the Bow River Valley, Southern Alberta, Canada. Winter Wheat and Alfalfa Farms in Southern Alberta

Canadian Pacific Railway Company Colonization Department - [1909?]

This attractive brochure emphasized the CPR’s three-million–acre irrigation block, located east of Calgary. Begun in the 1890s during a period of dry years, the scheme involved a series of canals that brought water to farms in the region, acting as an insurance against the weather (see CPR, Irrigation Project). Contrasting the vast potential of land-owning rural life with the oppression of renting a farm or laboring in the city, the brochure encouraged settlers to find their independence as farmers. Though the CPR professed that its principal intention was to raise funds by increasing railway traffic, the sale of the land, the cost of participating in the irrigation scheme, and the opportunity to purchase services such as breaking and fencing no doubt brought in a tidy profit as well. The brochure’s final pages offer a useful snapshot of food prices in the Calgary area around 1909, with soda biscuits selling at nine cents per pound, coffee at twenty-five cents per pound, and tinned beef at twenty cents per pound or thirty-five cents for two pounds.