Frontier Farewell: The 1870s and the End of the Old West
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by Garrett Wilson
Canadian Plains Research Center, Regina, 2007
525 pp., illus., $29.95 paperback
Garrett Wilson’s Frontier Farewell: The 1870s and the End of the Old West is a thought-provoking lament on a tumultuous period from Canada’s past. It’s also a great read that shatters the mythology surrounding the “taming” of the West while breathing new life into epic events that helped shape our nation.
During the late 1800s, European diseases swept like prairie fire across the West, decimating entire aboriginal populations. Millions upon millions of buffalo were slaughtered to near extinction, with starvation and ruin following for many of the First Nations that depended upon the animal for survival.
From the roots of the Red River Rebellion to the long march west by the Northwest Mounted Police, Wilson weaves fact and narrative into a compelling tale of Canada’s expansion into the West — a story that has somehow been marginalized and even forgotten over the past century.
— Mark Collin Reid (Read bio)
Mark Collin Reid is the Editor-in-Chief of Canada's History.