Perspective: Cost of Immigration

As Lyle Dyck has pointed out in his study of the Abernethy district in Saskatchewan, timing determined many of the settler's long-term chances of success. Original settlers to the area chose the best land at minimal prices and enjoyed comparatively lower costs of living. Those coming to the area in the 1910s and 1920s, during the immigration boom, ended up with poorer land and lower yields. They purchased that land at a higher price and often had to find banks to take mortgages on land and equipment. By the First World War, the rapid movement into expensive farm machinery and the poor economies of scale on struggling, small farms

meant that late-comers often experienced the highest numbers of cancellations on their homesteads and farm failures.

A study of 832 families who arrived from continental Europe in the early twentieth century found that half of them had no money and 42 per cent of them had less than $500. Requirements to build homes and construct fences on land were most onerous on such settlers. They often turned to railway construction, seasonal manual labour, or work as farm hands to gather enough money to "prove up" a homestead.

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