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The Food Issue
2017
Grains
West
6
AS OUR COUNTRY CELEBRATES ITS
150th birthday, there are many people,
places and things that make us proud to
be Canadian. In December 2016, Abacus
Data, an Ottawa-based research group,
compiled a list of 78 items that Canadi-
ans are proud of. The results included
a wide variety of pride-inspiring Cana-
diana, but one important item on the
list was No. 17: Canadian wheat. That’s
right—the humble cereal grain that is
synonymous with the Prairies scored
higher than Queen Elizabeth II, Sidney
Crosby, Justin Bieber, Drake, Alberta
Beef, Lululemon, the Roots brand and
Air Canada. So, how is it that wheat
has wiggled its way into our collective
hearts? To answer that question, you
must go back a quarter-millennium.
During the voyages to Canada begin-
ning in the 17th century, led by the likes
of John Cabot, Jacques Cartier and Samuel
de Champlain, one of the items that kept
making its way across the Atlantic Ocean
was wheat. Wheat was first planted on
Canadian soil around 1605 in Nova Scotia,
near Annapolis Royal near the Bay of
Fundy. Within 15 years, wheat was being
produced near Quebec City. By the 1640s,
the settled portions of Canada were reg-
ularly producing wheat, and 1654 marked
the first export of Canadian wheat. But
while there had been many attempts to
grow wheat on the Prairies by the middle
of the 18th century, there wouldn’t be a
viable crop until 1815—grown by Scots-
man Thomas Douglas, the Earl of Selkirk,
and his company in Manitoba after two
successive crop failures.
How the West was won with wheat
CANADA TURNS 150WITH PROSPERITY THANKS TOAGRICULTURE
BY TREVOR BACQUE
EDITOR’S
MESSAGE
By the time of Confederation in 1867,
Canada’s population was around 3.4
million. The West, however, was a still a
mysterious and rugged expanse, largely
untouched and a point of intrigue for
Prime Minister John A. Macdonald as he
began his quest to build a nation. In order
to have a functioning colony in the West,
Macdonald knew that coast-to-coast trans-
portation and new settlements were the
answer. Promotion of Canada as a granary
of the world ensued, and Canada was mar-
keted to European would-be settlers with
the promise of free land and a shot at a
self-made life. It worked. Beginning in the
19th century, Europeans journeyed across
the Atlantic Ocean, then travelled thou-
sands of kilometres across the country just
for the chance to break acre after acre of
wild Prairie. As sod houses were erected
across the West, crops were planted and
new cultures formed. Macdonald’s vision
was unfolding as he planned—the great
westward expansion and Canada’s growth
as a nation had begun.
Pre-Confederation farmers had a rela-
tively scarce supply of seed varieties for
the primary crops of barley, oats, peas and
wheat. The varieties they did have access
to were fairly forgettable and often had
issues since they were not well adapted to
Canada’s hardy northern climate. How-
ever, in 1842, one man singlehandedly
kick-started Canada’s agriculture industry
and set us on the path to becoming an
agricultural powerhouse.
Turn to page 24 to continue reading the
history of wheat in Canada and learn how
this grain became the country’s top crop.