A Scandinavian Heritage. Joan Magee

that when such country people emigrated they tended to do so not only as families but as communities, remaining as close as possible to others who understood their dialect and customs. They settled in America with others from the home community, and continued there to maintain their language and traditions, while learning to adapt to a new country. They also kept their ties with friends and relatives back home in Norway, by letter and through the news brought by each newly arrived emigrant from the home community.

      By the mid-1860s most Norwegian emigrants landed at Atlantic ports of the United States and travelled directly west rather than by the Canadian route. As a result, although emigration from Norway reached its peak during the last decades of the nineteenth century, for many decades few passed through or settled in Essex County. During the 1860s nearly 98,000 left Norway for America, a number that far exceeded the total over the preceding 40 years. A particular inducement was the generous land policy in effect after the American government passed the Homestead Act of 1862. After a slight decline in the 1870s, emigration peaked in the 1880s with more than 186,000. Following another brief decline in the 1890s, more than 190,000 left Norway in the first decade of the twentieth century. About 12 years later, in the early 1920s, mass emigration came to a halt. Relatively few Norwegians have emigrated during the past 60 years. Yet so many, over 800,000, did take part in the “Great Migration” of 1825-1920 that there is a Norwegian saying that “every Norwegian family has relatives in America.” At present, these relatives are likely to be distant cousins, many of whom retain a strong interest in Norway and an interest in their Norwegian background and its colourful customs. And some of these “American cousins” are actually Canadian, for in the past 100 years although the American midwest remained the focus of Norwegian influence because of the great numbers of emigrants who had settled there, more recent emigrants turned to Canada as a destination. Among them were some who chose to settle first in the Canadian west and then moved east to Essex County, in particular Windsor.

       Essex County warden Shannon Olson holds daughter Sherilynn, 6. In January 1985 he was elected to the office of warden after serving since 1977 as reeve of Rochester Township. He has been a school principal for 23 years, and has taken a particular interest in helping children with either special abilities or with disabilities. His grandparents, Samuel and Sophie Knutson, emigrated from Norway and settled in Joliet, Illinois. In 1920 they moved to a farm near Staples.

      In order to attract such settlers, as early as 1873 the Canadian government was advertising in nearly all the newspapers of Scandinavia, following the methods which the Americans had used with such great success. Canadian agents tried to convince the Norwegians to emigrate directly to Canada. In particular, they tried to attract young farm workers and their families, and so concentrated their efforts in the rural districts. There they lectured, giving glowing accounts of all the advantages of settling in the Canadian Northwest. When the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885 opened up the Canadian Northwest for settlement, these efforts were increased dramatically. In only a single year 20,000 pamphlets in Norwegian were given out by special Canadian emigration agents and by representatives of the transportation companies involved in the profitable business of bringing emigrants to the Canadian Northwest. One such pamphlet reads:

      Free Homes

      Lands Awaiting for the Settler to go in and Occupy them — Fertile Homesteads Free to All in the Canadian North-West:

       In Manitoba and the North-Western Territories of Canada there are over eighty millions of the finest wheat raising land upon the face of the globe, and these lands are to be had by any man for the asking.