A block settlement (or bloc settlement) is a particular type of land distribution which allows
settlers with the same
ethnicity to form small
colonies. This settlement type was used throughout
western Canada between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some were planned and others were spontaneously created by the settlers themselves. As a legacy of the block settlements, the three Prairie Provinces have several regions where ancestries other than British are the largest, unlike the norm in surrounding regions.
The policy of planned blocks was pursued primarily by
Clifford Sifton during his time as
Interior Minister of Canada. It was essentially a compromise position. Some politicians wanted all ethnic groups to be scattered evenly though the new lands to ensure they would quickly assimilate to Anglo-Canadian culture, while others did not want to live near "foreign" immigrants (as opposed to British immigrants who were not considered foreign) and demanded that they be segregated. At the time, Canada was receiving large numbers of non-British, non-French, immigrants for the first time, especially
Italians,
Germans,
Scandinavians, and
Ukrainians. The newcomers themselves wanted to settle as close as possible to people with a familiar language and similar customs. The government did not want the West to be fragmented into a few large homogeneous ethnic blocks, however, so several smaller colonies were set up where particular ethnic groups could settle, but these were spaced across the country.[1][2]
Similar to Block Settlements in Canada, the United States had several
Ethnic Group Settlements across the Great Plains, which were founded by European settlers across the 1880s. These were towns of Czechs, Norwegians, Germans, Russians, and religious groups that were allotted land to create homesteads and farms.
[1]
Hutterites are
German-speaking
Anabaptists who live in communal agricultural colonies. They have 188 colonies in Alberta, 117 in Manitoba, 72 in Saskatchewan and 3 in British Columbia. These Canadian colonies began with 18 colonies founded in 1919.[4][5]Map
In Saskatchewan Doukhobors, numbering 7,500, settled in three blocks in the
North-West Territories (now in Saskatchewan) from 1899 to 1918. They established 61 communal villages on 773,400 acres (3,130 km2).[16] (
Map)
North Colony (1899-1918) contained 69,000 acres (280 km2) in the
Pelly-
Arran area settled by 2,400 settlers in 20 communal villages.(
Map)
South Colony (1899-1918) contained 215,010 acres (870.1 km2) in the
Canora,
Veregin and
Kamsack area settled by 3,500 settlers in 30 communal villages. (
Map)
Good Spirit Lake Annex (1899-1918) contained 168,930 acres (683.6 km2) in the Good Spirit Lake and
Buchanan area settled by 1,000 settlers in 8 communal villages. (
Map)
Saskatchewan Colony (1899-1918) contained 324,800 acres (1,314 km2) in the
Langham,
Blaine Lake area settled by 1,500 settlers in 15 communal villages. (
Map)
Grand Forks-
Castlegar-
Slocan Valley (1909-1938) was an area of 19,000 acres (77 km2) settled by 8,000 Doukhobors from Saskatchewan in 74 communal villages. (
Map)
Rat River settlement (Saint Labre, Saint Pierre Jolys, Saint-Malo)
Red River settlement (Saint Boniface, Saint Vital, Saint Norbert, Saint Germain, Cartier, La Salle, Saint Adolphe, Glenlea, Sainte Agathe, Tourond, Aubigny, Dufrost, Saint Jean Baptiste, Sainte Elizabeth, Saint Joseph, Letellier)
Seine River settlement (Dufresne, Giroux, Ile des Chênes, La Broquerie, Lorette, Marchand, Richer, Saint Raymond, Sainte Anne des Chênes, Sainte Genevieve)
Whitehorse plain settlement (Elie, Fannystelle, Saint Eustache, Saint François Xavier, Saint Laurent, Saint Ambroise)
German settlement began in the prairie provinces in the 1890s and continued until the 1920s during the homesteading period. Some also came to the region after the end of
World War II. Canadians of German ethnicity remain numerous in the prairie provinces. Most of these settlers were Catholics and Lutherans, with minorities of Mennonites and Baptists.
St. Peter's Colony in Saskatchewan.[29] founded in 1903 in Saskatchewan was 4,662 square kilometres (1,800 square miles) in size.[30] It included 50
townships; townships 35 to 40, ranges 18 to 22, and townships 37 to 41, ranges 23 to 26 of the
Dominion Land Survey west of the 2nd
Meridian.[31] 8,000 settlers had arrived in the colony by 1910[32] and by 1930 it was home to 18,000 Roman Catholics. Most were German Catholics.[33]
Between 1903 and 1925 parishes were established at
Some French settlements were founded by Francophone Métis from the
Red River settlement in
Manitoba. Many began as Métis
hivernants buffalo hunting camps from the 1840s to the 1870s.[34][35]
Vatnabyggd was an Icelandic settlement of about 2,000 square kilometres in Saskatchewan south of
Fishing Lake and the
Quill Lakes. By 1911 it had attracted over 1,600 Icelanders.[36][37] Vatnabyggd included the settlements of Kristnes, Saskatchewan (1903),
Dafoe (1905),
Kandahar (1905),
Wynyard (1904),
Mozart (1903),
Elfros (1903),
Leslie (1907), Holar, Saskatchewan (1905), Mount Hecla, Saskatchewan (1904) and
Foam Lake (1892). (
Map)
Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village is a living history village 50 km east of Edmonton, Alberta which focuses on the experiences of Ukrainian immigrants and the block settlements.