Creating a Modern Countryside

In the early 1900s, British Columbia embarked on a brief but intenseeffort to manufacture a modern countryside. The government wished toreward Great War veterans with new lives: settlers would benefitfrom living in a rural community, considered a more healthy and moralalternative to urban life. But the fundamental reason for the landresettlement project was the rise of progressive or "newliberal" thinking, as reformers advocated an expanded role for thestate in guaranteeing the prosperity and economic security of itscitizens. James Murton examines how this process unfolded,and demonstrates how the human-environment relationship of the earlytwentieth century shaped the province as it is today.