So the emblem of the West
Our bright Maple Leaf is bless'd
To its children of the goodly open hand;
All the nations of the earth
Are now learning of its worth
And are flocking to this wealthy, promised land. - The Sugar Maple Tree Song, 1906

In 1906, the Sugar Maple Tree Song was just one example of the rhapsodic pieces that touted the Prairie West as the -promised land.- In the formative years of agricultural settlement from the late nineteenth century to the First World War, the Canadian government, along with the railways and other Prairie boosters, further...