Muddling Through

When two thousand British bank clerks, butchers, housewives, saleswomen, remittance men and ex-Boer War soldiers followed the charismatic but inept Anglican minister, Isaac Barr, to the Canadian prairies in 1903 their rallying cry was “Canada for the British.”

Despite the Canadian government’s expectations and Barr’s assurances, however, very few of the colonists knew anything about farming. As the...