Canada -- Department of the Interior -- Archives -- Catalogs, Archives, Land settlement -- Western Canada -- History -- Sources -- Bibliography -- Union lists, Western Canada -- History -- Sources -- Bibliography -- Union lists, Frontier and pioneer life -- Western Canada -- Sources -- Bibliography -- Union lists, Natural resources -- History -- Sources -- Bibliography -- Union lists, Union catalogs -- Canada, Canadian Northwest -- History -- 1870-1905 -- Sources -- Bibliography -- Union list, Prairie Provinces -- History -- 1905- -- Sources -- Bibliography -- Union list, Canada -- Department of the Interior, Frontier and pioneer life -- Sources, History -- Sources, Prairie Provinces -- History, Canadian Northwest -- History, Western Canada -- History, Union catalogs, Western Canada, Canadian Northwest, Prairie Provinces 

"In any attempt to achieve a better understanding of the character and progress of the frontier of settlement in western Canada, the records of the old federal Department of the Interior (1873-1936) are of fundamental importance. They have been difficult to find since their dispersal when, in 1930, the three prairie provinces were at last put on the same footing as the other provinces in relation to their nature-given resources, and when, in 1936, the Department was abolished.

Partly by reason of this difficulty in finding these essential records, the pattern of settlement in the part of the country that now constitutes the three prairie provinces of Canada is still not fully understood. This is despite the admirable pioneer work done by many scholars reviewed by T.D. Regehr, notably A.S Morton and Chester Martin, W.A. Mackintosh, the contributors to the multivolume publication Canada and Its Provinces, and by the more recent work of a number of contemporary scholars. This existing body of work will be reviewed briefly in the first part of this publication. The second part contains a discussion of the problem of research in the widely dispersed, and as yet incompletely traced and poorly understood, records of the Department and related bodies."--Back cover. 

xii, 198 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm. 

Includes index.