Georgina Binnie-Clark | |
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| Born | April 25, 1871 Dorset, England |
| Died | April 22, 1947 (aged 75) London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Farmer; writer |
| Notable work | "Wheat and Woman" |
Georgina Binnie-Clark (April 25, 1871 - April 22, 1947) was a British farmer, lecturer and author, who became an ardent supporter of female farmers in prairie Canada.
Binnie-Clark was born in Dorset, England, on April 25, 1871. As a young woman, she impetuously purchased 320 acres of land in the Qu'Appelle Valley of Saskatchewan in 1905. Because she was a woman, she was not eligible for a free quarter-section of land from the Canadian government. However, through bank loans, she was able to purchase land. [1] A single, upper-middle class Englishwoman, Binnie-Clark represented the new generation of female farmers who were not widows or daughters of farmers, but who selected farming as a profession that would provide them with income and independence. [2]
Binnie-Clark tirelessly advocated for the female right to cultivate the land. She aligned herself with a group of women "who were fighting out the battle of our Empire with the pick and the spade on unbroken soil." [3]
She began to gain widespread attention and acknowledgement in 1908, when she published several articles in the Canadian Gazette that encouraged others to follow her lead, and move to the West. Binnie-Clark, perturbed by the inequality of land grants and the inaccessibility of land for women (unless they were widowed), drew upon her linguistic talents in an attempt to convince the government that women could perform tasks outside of what was typically thought of as appropriately feminine. She believed in the ability of women to sew the seeds of the British Empire in the New World. Although she pursued an occupation that was considered exclusively male, she maintained her femininity in her public life. She taught agricultural skills to young women on her farm, as well as published works and spoke publicly about the benefits of planting imperial seeds through working the land. She believed in the unique position and ability of British women to "play a critical role in the 'spade-work of British expansion." [2]
Eventually, she published two books entitled A Summer on the Canadian Prairie (1910) and Wheat and Woman (1914). The latter work summarized content from her speeches and previous publications, as well as including anecdotes from her early years of working the land. Her autobiographical works are full of details of her life in prairie Canada. She describes "the social life and customs, material culture, local politics, and the rhythm of daily farm life." [4]
She worked from both Saskatchewan and England, serving as a bridge between the Crown and its colony. With the outbreak of the First World War, she returned to England, where she managed crews of female agricultural workers in the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire districts. After the war, when her brother, also a farmer in Saskatchewan died, Binnie-Clark resumed her life on the Canadian prairies. After 1921, she shared the responsibility of farming with her sister. By 1930 the two women managed 275 acres. However, in 1936, Binnie-Clark returned to England, where she remained until her death. [5]
Decades later, Binnie-Clark is remembered as the fiercest advocate of the farming profession for British women at the turn of the century. She died on April 22, 1947, in London, England. [6]
Saskatchewan is a province in Western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the United States. Saskatchewan and Alberta are the only landlocked provinces of Canada. In 2023, Saskatchewan's population was estimated at 1,225,493. Nearly 10% of Saskatchewan's total area of 651,900 km2 (251,700 sq mi) is fresh water, mostly rivers, reservoirs, and lakes.
Palliser's Triangle, or the Palliser Triangle, is a semi-arid steppe occupying a substantial portion of the Western Canadian Canadian Prairies, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, within the Great Plains region. While initially determined to be unsuitable for crops outside of the fertile belt due to arid conditions and dry climate, expansionists questioned this assessment, leading to homesteading in the Triangle. Agriculture in the region has since suffered from frequent droughts and other such hindrances.
The Dominion Lands Act was an 1872 Canadian law that aimed to encourage the settlement of the Canadian Prairies and to help prevent the area being claimed by the United States. The Act was closely based on the U.S. Homestead Act of 1862, setting conditions in which the western lands could be settled and their natural resources developed.
The Canadian Prairies is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provinces are partially covered by grasslands, plains, and lowlands, mostly in the southern regions. The northernmost reaches of the Canadian Prairies are less dense in population, marked by forests and more variable topography. If the region is defined to include areas only covered by prairie land, the corresponding region is known as the Interior Plains. Physical or ecological aspects of the Canadian Prairies extend to northeastern British Columbia, but that area is not included in political use of the term.
Post-Confederation Canada (1867–1914) is history of Canada from the formation of the Dominion to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Canada had a population of 3.5 million, residing in the large expanse from Cape Breton to just beyond the Great Lakes, usually within a hundred miles or so of the Canada–United States border. One in three Canadians was French, and about 100,000 were aboriginal. It was a rural country composed of small farms. With a population of 115,000, Montreal was the largest city, followed by Toronto and Quebec at about 60,000. Pigs roamed the muddy streets of Ottawa, the small new national capital.
Canada is one of the largest agricultural producers and exporters in the world. As with other developed nations, the proportion of the population agriculture employed and agricultural GDP as a percentage of the national GDP fell dramatically over the 20th century, but it remains an important element of the Canadian economy. A wide range of agriculture is practised in Canada, from sprawling wheat fields of the prairies to summer produce of the Okanagan valley. In the federal government, overview of Canadian agriculture is the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food.
The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool was a grain handling, agri-food processing and marketing company based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Pool created a network of marketing alliances in North America and internationally which made it the largest agricultural grain handling operation in the province of Saskatchewan. Before becoming Viterra, SWP had operated 276 retail outlets and more than 100 grain handling and marketing centres. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool operated under the name of AgPro in the prairie provinces of Manitoba and Alberta. Begun as a co-operative in the 1920s, the company became a publicly traded corporation in the 1990s. After the 2007 takeover of its competitor, Winnipeg-based Agricore United, the Pool name was retired. The merged company operated under the name Viterra until 2013, when it was acquired by Glencore International.
History of Saskatchewan encompasses the study of past human events and activities of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, the middle of Canada's three prairie provinces. Archaeological studies give some clues as to the history and lifestyles of the Palaeo-Indian, Taltheilei, and Shield Archaic traditions who were the first occupants of the prehistoric era of this geographical area. They evolved into the history of the First Nations people who kept their history alive in oral tradition. The First Nation bands that were a part of this area were the Chipewyan, Cree, Saulteaux, Assiniboine, Atsina, and Sioux.
The history of Manitoba covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians thousands of years ago to the present day. When European fur traders first travelled to the area present-day Manitoba, they developed trade networks with several First Nations. European fur traders in the area during the late-17th century, with the French under Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye set up several trading post forts. In 1670, Britain declared sovereignty over the watershed of Hudson's Bay, known as Rupert's Land; with the Hudson's Bay Company granted a commercial monopoly over the territory.
Agriculture in Saskatchewan is the production of various food, feed, or fiber commodities to fulfill domestic and international human and animal sustenance needs. The newest agricultural economy to be developed in renewable biofuel production or agricultural biomass which is marketed as ethanol or biodiesel. Plant cultivation and livestock production have abandoned subsistence agricultural practices in favor of intensive technological farming resulting in cash crops which contribute to the economy of Saskatchewan. The particular commodity produced is dependent upon its particular biogeography or ecozone of Geography of Saskatchewan. Agricultural techniques and activities have evolved over the years. The first nation nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle and the early immigrant ox and plow farmer proving up on his quarter section of land in no way resemble the present farmer operating huge amounts of land or livestock with their attendant technological mechanization. Challenges to the future of Saskatchewan agriculture include developing sustainable water management strategies for a cyclical drought prone climate in south western Saskatchewan, updating dryland farming techniques, stabilizing organic definitions or protocols and the decision to grow, or not to grow genetically modified foods. Domestically and internationally, some commodities have faced increased scrutiny from disease and the ensuing marketing issues.
The economy of Saskatchewan has been associated with agriculture resulting in the moniker "Bread Basket of Canada" and Bread Basket of the World. According to the Government of Saskatchewan, approximately 95% of all items produced in Saskatchewan, depend on the basic resources available within the province. Various grains, livestock, oil and gas, potash, uranium, wood and their spin off industries fuel the economy.
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada–United States border namely British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The people of the region are often referred to as "Western Canadians" or "Westerners", and though diverse from province to province are largely seen as being collectively distinct from other Canadians along cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, geographic and political lines. They account for approximately 32% of Canada's total population.
The following is a bibliography of Saskatchewan history.
Margaret Brown Newton was a Canadian plant pathologist and mycologist internationally renowned for her pioneering research in stem rust Puccinia graminis, particularly for its effect on the staple Canadian agricultural product wheat.
The Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association (SGGA) was a farmer's association that was active in Saskatchewan, Canada in the early 20th century. It was a successor to the Territorial Grain Growers' Association, and was formed in 1906 after Saskatchewan became a province. It provided a voice for farmers in their struggle with grain dealers and the railways, and was influential in obtaining favorable legislation. The association initially resisted calls to create a farmer-owned marketing company. Later it did support formation of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company. The SGGA helped the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, a cooperative marketing organization, to become established in 1924. In 1926 the SGGA merged with the more radical Farmers' Union of Canada, which had earlier split from the SGGA, to create the United Farmers of Canada,
The Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company (SCEC) was a farmer-owned enterprise that provided grain storage and handling services to farmers in Saskatchewan, Canada between 1911 and 1926, when its assets were purchased by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
Violet Clara McNaughton was a Canadian journalist and agrarian feminist notable for co-establishing The Western Producer and contributing to its "Mainly for Women" pages from 1925 until her retirement in 1950. A settler and farmer of Harris, Saskatchewan, she was an active member of the Women's Section of the Canadian Council of Agriculture as well as the first president of the Women Grain Growers (WGG), a branch of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association (SGGA). McNaughton is considered the leader of women's suffrage in Saskatchewan and is recognized as the most influential Canadian farm woman of the 20th century. McNaughton was a known pacifist and supporter of women's suffrage and anti-war movements in Canada.
In the 16th century Samuel de Champlain and Gabriel Sagard recorded that the Iroquois and Huron cultivated the soil for maize or "Indian corn". Maize, beans (phaseolus), squash (Cucurbita) and the sunflower were grown throughout agricultural lands in North America by the 16th century. As early as 2300 BC evidence of squash was introduced to the northeastern woodlands region. Archaeological findings from 500 AD have shown corn cultivation in southern Ontario.
Sarah Alexandra Carter is a Canadian historian. She is Professor and the Henry Marshall Tory Chair at the University of Alberta in both the Department of History and Classics and the Faculty of Native Studies with noted specialties in Indigenous and women's history.
Imperial Plots: Women, Land, and the Spadework of British Colonialism on the Canadian Prairies is a 2016 book by Sarah Carter, professor of history at the University of Alberta. The book documents the history of female homesteaders on the Canadian Prairies and the relationship between that history and Canadian colonialism.
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