McManus, Curtis R. Happyland: a History of The "Dirty Thirties" in Saskatchewan, 1914-1937. Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, c2011.

Summary: “Dirty Thirties” is the sobriquet commonly applied to the agricultural crisis in the dry lands of southern Saskatchewan in Canada that coincided with the Great Depression, and it is generally assumed that prior to this period healthier, normal conditions prevailed. In Happyland, Curtis McManus contends that the “Dirty Thirties,” actually began much earlier and were connected only peripherally to the Depression itself. McManus has mined the rarely consulted records of Rural Municipalities in Saskatchewan, as well as government documents, ministerial correspondence, local community histories, newspapers, and publications of relevant government departments, to tell this story that has not yet been told — a story of a quarter-century of stubborn persistence, but also of absurdity, despair, social dislocation, moral corrosion, and inconsistent and often inept government policy.

Marchildon, Gregory P., editor. Agricultural History. Regina, SK: Canadian Plains Research Center, 2011.

Summary: The 18 essays selected for this volume of the History of the Prairie West Series all focus on the agricultural history of the Canadian Plains. They cover a detailed survey of First Nations agricultural practices, agriculture during the fur trade era, and the history of ranching and its evolution as fenced-in farm settlements supplanted the open range. The emergence of wheat as the region's premier crop after the turn of the 20th century is also examined, a development which led the Prairie Provinces to become known as the "breadbasket of the world." Further studied are mechanization and other adaptations to dryland farming, as well as changes to how the Prairie's cattle and crops were transported and marketed abroad. Finally, the essays cover the rise of farmers' organizations and their attempts to receive fair treatment and fair prices from the grain companies and the railways.