Alexander Duncan Mc Rae - Land Speculation in Saskatchewan

Land Speculation in Saskatchewan

Land in Saskatchewan between Regina and Saskatoon had been surveyed in 1882. Railway companies were compensated with land grants for the cost of railway construction. The railway companies rejected much of the land between Regina and Saskatoon as unfit for settlement and court proceedings began. McRae and the Davidsons thought otherwise. In 1902 they bought land surrendered by the Cree and Assiniboine people under Treaty 4, which the government had assigned to the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railway. Their first purchases were 870,000 acres (3,500 km2) for $1.53 an acre and a further 250,000 acres of Treaty 4 land from the federal government for $1 per acre. They bought a further 100,000 acres (400 km2) from the Saskatchewan Western Railway. They agreed to terms that required them to actively seek settlers for the land. They were also appointed land agents for the Great Northern Railway owned by Donald Mann and William Mackenzie in 1902. By the time they were done these and other purchases, their syndicate and the various companies it consisted of owned about 5 million acres (20,000 km2) of land which they sold between $2.25 and $12 per acre netting about $9 million.

In the summer of 1902, Davidson and McRae organized two promotional train tours from Minneapolis through to Prince Albert. Each of these journeys saw eight Pullman cars plus dining and baggage cars traveling through hundreds of miles of unbroken and uninhabited prairie lands. The passengers were wealthy investors from the United States. The promotion was a success. Large tracts were purchased and word spread in the business communities leading to further investment. The company developed a network of land agents to sell land to settlers which advertised and maintained sales offices in many locations. In 1901 the population of the North West Territories (which then included Alberta, Saskatchewan and most of Manitoba) was 158,940. In five years it had grown to 443,175. Under their colonization scheme 50,000 people settled in Saskatchewan.

The purchases of railway reserves required approval of the government. Those approvals and the purchases from the government were negotiated secretly with the Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton. A raging controversy arose in the House of Commons but the opposition was unable to make much of it even though McRae and his colleagues made a staggering profit in the transactions because the land had stood empty for years (the railway companies didn't want it), the government had insisted on terms that required the settlement of these vacant lands and overall the effort succeeded in rapidly filling vast areas of vacant land with settlers at a time when there was concern about American expansion into the territory.