page_title: Block settlement
section_title: Norwegian
hierarchical_section_title: Block settlement / Scandinavian / Norwegian
context_page_description: A block settlement is a particular type of land distribution which allows settlers with the same ethnicity to form small colonies.
  This settlement type was used throughout western Canada between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some were planned and others were spontaneously created by the settlers themselves.
  The policy of planned blocks was pursued primarily by Clifford Sifton during his time as Interior Minister of Canada. It was essentially a compromise position. Some politicians wanted all ethnic groups to be scattered evenly though the new lands to ensure they would quickly assimilate to Anglo-Canadian culture, while others did not want to live near "foreign" immigrants and demanded that they be segregated. At the time Canada was receiving large amounts of non-British, non-French, immigrants for the first time, especially Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, and Ukrainians. The newcomers themselves wanted to settle as close as possible to people with a familiar language and similar customs. The government did not want the west to be fragmented into a few large homogeneous ethnic blocks, however.
context_section_description: Skaro, Alberta
  Birch Hills, Saskatchewan
  Torquay, Saskatchewan
  Ibsen, Saskatchewan
  Lake Alma, Saskatchewan
  Norge, Saskatchewan
  Lillestrom, Saskatchewan
  Rose Valley, Saskatchewan
  Simmie, Saskatchewan
  Leroy, Saskatchewan
  Norwegian Cove, Saskatchewan
  New Norway, Alberta
  Forestburg, Alberta
  Camrose, Alberta
  Oyen, Alberta
  Viking, Alberta
  Hagensborg, British Columbia
  Pemberton, British Columbia (originally Agerton)
caption: New Norway, Alberta circa 1915
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