Editing Frontier (section)

==Canadian frontier==

[[File:Cold night camp on the inhospitable shores of Lake Winnipeg.jpg|thumb|Swiss immigrants camped on the shores of [[Lake Winnipeg]] in the autumn of 1821]]
A [[Canada|Canadian]] frontier thesis was developed by the Canadian historians [[Harold Adams Innis]] and [[J. M. S. Careless]], who emphasized the relationship between the center and periphery. Katerberg argues that "in Canada the imagined West must be understood in relation to the mythic power of the North" (Katerberg 2003). Innis's 1930 work ''The Fur Trade in Canada'' expounded on what became known as the Laurentian thesis: the most creative and major developments in Canadian history occurred in the metropolitan centres of Central Canada, and the civilization of North America is the civilization of Europe. Innis considered place to be critical in the development of the Canadian West and wrote of the importance of metropolitan areas, settlements, and indigenous people in the creation of markets. Turner and Innis have continued to exert influence over the historiography of the American and Canadian Wests. The Quebec frontier showed little of the individualism or democracy that Turner ascribed to the American zone to the south. The Nova Scotia and Ontario frontiers were more democratic than the rest of Canada, but whether that was caused by the need to be self-reliant on the frontier itself or the presence of large numbers of American immigrants is debated.

The Canadian political thinker Charles Blattberg has argued that such events ought to be seen as part of a process in which Canadians advanced a "border," as distinct from a "frontier," from east to west. According to Blattberg, a border assumes a significantly sharper contrast between the civilized and the uncivilized since unlike a frontier process in which the civilizing force is not supposed to be shaped by what it civilizes. Blattberg criticizes both the frontier and the border "civilizing" processes.

===Canadian Prairies===
The pattern of settlement of the Canadian Prairies began in 1896, when the American Prairies had already achieved statehood. Pioneers then headed north to the "[[Last Best West]]."  
Before the settlers began to arrive, the [[North West Mounted Police]] had been dispatched to the region. When the settlers began to arrive, a system of law and order was already in place, and the Dakotas' lawlessness that was famous for the American "Wild West" did not occur in Canada. The federal government had also sent teams of negotiators to meet with the indigenous peoples of the region. In a series of treaties, the basis for peaceful relations was established, and the [[American Indian Wars|long wars with the Natives]] that occurred in the United States largely did not spread to Canada.

Like their American counterparts, the Canadian Prairies supported populist and democratic movements in the early 20th century.<ref>Laycock, David.  ''Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910 to 1945.'' 1990; Seymour Martin Lipset, ''Agrarian Socialism''  (1950).
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