*The Open Soil — Wyman, Marlena

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigrants were lured to the prairies by government propaganda promising a utopia that did not exist. In many cases, the men arrived first and did their best to build a “home” before sending for their wives, who left behind what was often a comfortable, civilized life to find a new home that greeted them with roughness, hardship and loneliness.

Inspired by Mary B. (Walter) Lawrence’s memoir of 1898-1907. Mary came from Rossville, Indiana, USA to the Fort Vermilion area of Alberta in 1898. (Glenbow Archives, University of Calgary, #B9/M3841)

“Imagine the average greenhouse flower transplanted to the sudden impartiality of open soil and you have in epigram all that follows”