09/23/2025
"The Inconvenient Husband": Women & Homesteading in Western Canada
Many of us are descendants of homesteaders who moved to this region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Few of us are aware that homesteading in Canada was legally a male opportunity then and that women, unless they were widowed with children, were denied it. Despite such barriers, women did become homesteaders, farmers and ranchers although according to one female critic it seemed like you needed to get rid of an inconvenient husband to qualify for a homestead.
These women, the obstacles they faced and how they overcame them will be the focus of a presentation, hosted by the Historical Society of Medicine Hat and District, by Dr. Sarah Carter, recently retired as Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Chair Emerita in the Department of History, Classics and Religion, and the Faculty of Native Studies of the University of Alberta. Originally from Saskatoon, she is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Manitoba and has taught at the University of Winnipeg and the University of Calgary before joining the University of Alberta in 2006. She is the author of several historical important works on Western Canada including Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy; “Ours By Every Law of Right and Justice:” Women and the Vote in the Prairie Provinces; and Imperial Plots: Women, Land, and the Spadework of British Colonialism on the Canadian Prairies.
This presentation will take place at Medicine Hat’s historic Monarch Theatre on Thursday, September 25, 2025 following a brief business summary which begins at 7:00 PM. Memberships can be renewed or obtained for $10.00 at the door and refreshments are available upon entry. For additional information please contact R.B. Shepard, President, Historical Society of Medicine Hat and District at [email protected] or by calling 403-527-5440.
