In 1966, historian James H. Gray conducted 18 interviews (for a total of 24 hours) for his “Great Depression on the Prairies” project. Here are some excerpts from that exceptional collection, held today at the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan.

Baden Campbell was an agrologist in the Canada Department of Agriculture. He spent time stationed at the Swift Current Research Station.

• Part I
  Baden Campbell describes his work from 1937 onwards doing grass surveys, estimating community pasture grazing capacity, and overseeing re-seeding experiments, particularly with Crested Wheat Grass; the PFRA and Agricultural Improvement Association’s coordination with farmers to distribute the grass and how farmers learned to seed it; the importance of using fall rye to get stubble to plant Crested Wheat Grass; his work organizing, surveying and determining the use of Community Pastures; and work with farmers in the Community Pasture Organization; wind tunnel experiments; the economic stimuli offered in community pastures being set aside and fenced.
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  Part I
• Part II
  Baden Campbell describes farmers and community pastures; whether much was learned from community pastures; their carrying capacities; how to boost their capacity with crested wheat grass and better management; long term management strategies for using different grasses in reseeding; effects of pasturing strategies; trend to larger farms, fewer farmers and better management; future of farming; difference between peasant and modern family farms. [Note: tape is blank after 12:40].
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  Part II

P. Janzen worked at the Canadian Department of Agriculture’s Swift Current Research Station.

• Part I
  P.J. Janzen recounts his work as a Senior Research Liaison Officer at Swift Current from 1933; the different conditions of specific areas of the southern province; the succession of bad prices to poor quality crops, the grasshoppers arriving in the wetter conditions of 1933; descriptions of the first lands to begin desertification; organizing the Agricultural Improvement Association; the hot dry climate of 1936 and beginnings of big dust storms to 1937; organizing the Agricultural Improvement Association work with farmers; equipment loans and attacking the edges of desertification; descriptions of listers and other equipment used to “tie down” the soil, including how to deal with exposed subsoil; organization and work of criddle mixing stations in Saskatchewan and Reclamation Stations and their techniques in reclaiming soils badly blown of their soil.
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  Part I
• Part II
  P.J. Jazen continues to discuss summerfallowing innovations; 1937-38 reclamation projects alongside Agricultural Improvement Association projects. Areas of desertification “breaking out like a rash”; need for soil cover to stop blowing; 1938 rains benefiting reclamation work; 1935 organization of Illustration Substations; drifting on ranching; seed distribution from Swift Current; machinery used (listers) to stop wind erosion; discussion of farmer mechanical innovations, weeders, disk plows, listers, and summerfallowing.
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  Part II

L. E. Kirk had a career in agronomy that took him from the University of Saskatchewan, to the Canadian government (where he worked through much of the 1930s), back to the University, and then to the United Nations.

• Part I
  Dr. L. E. Kirk discusses his development of crested wheat grass (Fairway) as the crop to stop desertification and stabilize fields, including his first use of seeds from the US and Russia; 1917-1918 experiments with grasses; successful seed production at an experimental plot in 1931 and subsequent expansion of grass seed from other farms in Saskatchewan. Fairway’s spread to US; Ithaca International Conference of Genetics (1932) and meeting with Russian geneticist Nicolai Vavilov; move to Ottawa with research; subsequent career.
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  Part I
• Part II
  Ranchers and crested wheat grass; problems of native grasses in Palliser Triangle and farming; use of fertilizers in dry areas of western Canada; certificate training in agronomy in high schools: pilot project in Moose Jaw; University appointment; growing body of opinion in Eastern Canada about shutting up Palliser’s Triangle; 1939 US travelling seminar of 100 agricultural scientists in 30 cars from Canadian border to Texas, to show American success in tying down drifting soil and success of using rye; summary of Kirk’s comments before taping began.
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  Part II

Gideon Matte was in the 1930s Commissioner of the Northern Settlers Re-Establishment Branch under Saskatchewan’s Department of Municipal Affairs.

• Part I
  Gideon Matte, in charge of land re-settlement in Saskatchewan describes his early career as merchant and later appointment to government work; supervising the Board of Revenue Commissioners in relief auditing; taking charge of Saskatchewan Relief Commission work and Premier Water John Patterson appointing him to consolidate farmers’ debts from various relief organizations; Northern Settlers’ Resettlement Branch work assisting 10,000 families that had moved by the end of 1936; description of where and how settlers abandoned farms in southern areas and moved to the north to take new lands; social and economic profile of those making the “trek” north; farmer demoralization; need for administrators to apply social worker skills; individuals exploiting system of relief; southern farmers forming squatting settlements: the Saskatoon Settlement; Moose Jaw Settlements; assistance and land provided to newcomers; problems at some of the resettlement blocks; consolidation of squatting settlements around towns to blocks; organizing new homesteading through cooperation and equipment loans; [tape blank after 31:40]
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  Part I
• Part II
  Gideon Matte continues discussing equipment innovations for clearing northern lands; lack of equipment slowing the breaking land on farms; program was to provide subsistence farming to give “penniless” farmers “a start”; new lands changing hands to successful farmers by 1938; inactivity of farmers on new northern plots; demoralization of some of those on relief, not among others; some taking more relief than others in same condition and Municipal Council attitudes to giving relief; inspectors dealing with demoralized farmers on relief and their desperation; trekkers taking private land purchased by CPR or HBC; specific relief given to families to help clear lands they took up privately; 500 – 800 arriving without any planning and becoming squatters in unorganized and un- surveyed areas needing to organized on lands; relocated farmers needing more than just help to establish themselves: requiring some form of local government within organized municipalities.
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  Part II

R. Painter was an entomologist with the Canadian federal government. He was heavily involved in fighting grasshopper outbreaks.

• Part I
  R. Painter describes his Macdonald College agricultural training at McGill and MA studies before being appointed in 1932 to entomological branch in Ottawa; becoming Norman Criddle’s assistant in 1932, when Manitoba grasshopper outbreak began; early development of Criddle’s grasshopper bait (Criddle Mixture); character of country where outbreak was occurring; 1931 outbreaks bad in three areas of Manitoba; how grasshoppers fed in morning on manure; Criddle using Paris Green in manure and spreading by hand in the morning; first used by Criddle in 1885; Criddle’s ability to survey areas for their species of grasshoppers; Criddle as an artist; Criddle’s home and laboratory with two or three students employed in Manitoba; how baiting stations organized; Painter’s appointment to oversee stations; travel to and from them in Manitoba; problems with mixers hired on wages making mixtures without poison; use of lemon, oranges, banana extracts; his job to see poison was handled properly; use of bran and sodium arsenate; weight of drums; working long hours; effects of grasshoppers on fields in a single day contrasted with a field applied with Criddle Mixture; how farmers spread it; farmers’ best practices applying mixture; grasshopper behavior along railways; need to screen doors and radiators; grasshoppers eating sweaters; pitch fork handles being chewed for salt; road allowance grasshoppers; field grasshoppers; ditch bank grasshoppers; Criddle’s 1933 Manitoba survey of grasshoppers by car and his population estimate technique; Saskatchewan and Manitoba campaigns after 1934.
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  Part I
• Part II
  R. Painter continues his description of the grasshopper campaign; 1936 rust and behavior of grasshoppers; Southwest Corner of Manitoba (Melita area) as a centre of concern; description of impact of grasshoppers on land; Grey’s visit of Souris Valley in Free Press car; declining Manitoba problem after 1936; 1938 Regina outbreak; survey work in Alberta in 1938; description of dustbowling, soil drifting along fences; “hardware” disease in cattle; his work beginning in 1940 with ranchers; abandonment of Melita, Manitoba brick farmhouses; geographic containment of grasshoppers; mosquitos and sleeping sickness in 1936; infantile paralysis after heat wave of 1936; liaison between experimental farms and farmers; entomology within work of experimental farm system and his work as entomologist at field day events among ranchers.
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  Part II

Asael Palmer spent much of his career at the Canadian Department of Agriculture’s Lethbridge Experimental Station. He was a specialist in dry land farming.

• Part I
  Asael Palmer describes his work on the Soil Drifting Committee of the PFRA; the creation of field days at District Experiment Substations working on select farms; Agricultural Improvement Association (AIA) working with Palmer’s extension experts; four in Southwestern Manitoba described; wind erosion on ranges; Special Areas Board worked with abandoned land, the AIE on land with farmers still on it; entomologists dealing with cutworms and grasshoppers while he worked with wind erosion; seeding brome in road allowances as a first step to reclaiming land; work with Crested Wheat Grass (Fairway); PFRA work in promoting Crested Wheat Grass; work after 1937; the measures used by farmers between 1911 and 1917 to stop drifting providing a basis for control measures in the 1930; trash cover being promoted by 1935; development of information bulletins in 1935 on land reclamation that eventually used all over the world; strip farming, trash cover, use of listers, and straw scattering on drifting areas; how straw cover worked to stop soil drifting; description of wind effects on erosion; changing emphasis of Information Bulletins; combatting pessimism over the Palliser Triangle’s recovery; key individuals who advocated recovery instead of land abandonment; importance of substations in changing attitudes and practices; extent of moldboard ploughing; work to overturn traditional farming with soil conservation techniques.
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  Part I
• Part II
  Asael Palmer continues to discuss changing farming practices; community pastures; irrigation to dry areas; Rolling Hills settlement and extent of support and subsidies to farmers who moved there; Scandia described as a centre for farmers moving to new land by 1939; arrival of equipment, tractors, haying equipment by rail and left in piles; District Experiment Substations and the $600 offered to farmers to provide a portion of land for controlled substation work and to host field days; differences between Experimental and Illustration Farms; promotion of stubble mulch summerfallow technique at Kindersley; overcoming farmer attitudes in order for them to keep trash cover on their soils; Teddy Emerson described; “mental blockade” of Depression Era and need to accustom government workers to the idea of spending PFRA money. [tape ends 23:47]
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  Part II