Keeping Canada British

Book excerpt: The Ku Klux Klan had its origins in the American South in the post-Civil War period. It was suppressed but rose again in the 1920s and spread into Canada, especially Saskatchewan, where it flourished. James Pitsula offers a new interpretation for the appeal of the Klan in 1920s Saskatchewan. He argues that the Klan should not be portrayed merely as an irrational outburst of intolerance and hatred but rather as a populist aftershock of the First World War. Fearing that the hard-won victory to keep Canada British was being undone by massive immigration from Central and Eastern Europe, many Saskatchewanians sought to reverse the trend. With its main goal of keeping Canada British, the Klan is revealed to be a slightly more extreme version of mainstream opinion. Keeping Canada British tackles a controversial issue central to the history of Saskatchewan and the formation of national identity. In seeking to understand the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in all of its strange complexity, this book shines light upon a dark corner of Canada’s past.