Filling the West with Immigrants (under Sir Wilfred Laurier, around 1900)

Clifford Sifton’s Poster Campaign in Britain, the US, and Europe

Clifford Sifton – Sir Wilfred Laurier’s Minister of the Interior

This battered, ink-stained Canadian Atlas was one of the most successful advertising devices used to reach

potential British immigrants, through children in British schools

• In 1900 a Canadian essay contest open to students in every British school drew 90,000 participants. Each child received an atlas and a specially- commissioned text book. The first prize was five pounds sterling, and winners received bronze medallions embellished with Canada's coat-of-arms. It was an inspired idea, because children took the books home, where they were seen by parents. Names and addresses of Canadian agents in Britain appeared inside the cover of the atlas.

Norwegian promotional poster