Manitoba
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Homesteading in Manitoba

Many families from the United States, Britain, and Europe chose to immigrate to the Canadian West, attracted by the availability of land and the promise of land ownership. Emma Louisa Averill was among the many that left England with her family to homestead near Clanwilliam, Manitoba. In her journal, Emma describes the challenges her family faced as they embarked on their homesteading adventure.

To encourage settlement in the prairie provinces the Dominion Government offered free homesteads of 160 acres. The Department of the Interior undertook an extensive land survey to ensure all lands within its jurisdiction were assessed, measured and recorded prior to the arrival of settlers in the West. The surveyors marked off the sections, townships, and ranges in anticipation of the wave of settlement.

Find out more… search Emma Averill in the Keystone Archives Descriptive Database.