Last Best West

The phrase was used to advertise the Canadian west abroad, and in Eastern Canada, during the heyday of western settlement from 1896 until the start of the First World War in 1914, when few could leave Europe.

[1] One of the key considerations for the government in this recruitment of settlers was the fear that Americans would stream North and settle the southern parts of what would become the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The goal was to encourage families, and therefore make it hospitable for women who could edify and purify the frontier.

[2] The program was so successful that little more than nine years later the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were formed out of the enormous North-West Territories of Canada.

However, even though the frost-free season is shorter in Canada, a less arid climate compensates for this and the Canadian prairies have long been more productive than those of the Dakotas and Wyoming.