In my last Postcard Memories column, we learned how the Holland Marsh was painstakingly drained over a period of five years in the 1920s.
But that’s only the beginning of the story, not the end. Reclaiming the soil from wilderness was only the first step in creating the bountiful cropland we know today. Farmers still had to be found to successfully cultivate the land. Sounds easy enough in retrospect, but in fact it was anything but.
Muck farming is a very specialized form of agriculture and Canadian farmers had very little experience in it. As a result, initial efforts were disappointing. John Snor, the Canadian representative of the Netherlands Emigration Foundation, figured he had a solution. Why not resettle Dutch farmers from other parts of Ontario to the Holland Marsh? The Dutch certainly had the required expertise. They had centuries of experience in muck farming as much of the Netherlands consists of land reclaimed from the sea.
Dutch-Ontario farmers would also have the motivation. It was the height of the Depression and there were rumours that landless and unemployed immigrants might be sent back to their countries of origin. There were many farm labourers of Dutch origin who had been thrown out of work and felt threatened with deportation.
The government agreed to Snor’s plan. In 1934, 15 Dutch families were resettled in the marsh, forming the village of Ansnorveldt (literally ‘On Snor’s Field’, in honour of John Snor).
Each family received a five-acre plot of land valued at $90 per acre, a $600 government grant to cover the expense of building, and living expenses for 12 months as they got started. Beyond that assistance the settlers were left to succeed or fail on their own merits.
The first years were full of endless toil, men and women working side-by-side, dawn until dusk. The farmers had to build homes (small, 20-foot by 20-foot cabins built atop stilts in case of flooding) and ready the black, spongy soil for planting. At nightfall they could do no more than flop into their beds. For almost a year this was their daily routine.
Even once homes had been built and farms established, there were tough times ahead. At one point, it is said that the families were so destitute that they resorted to eating stewed groundhogs.
Yet, through skill and determination, as well as the natural richness of the soil, things turned around and by 1938 the farms were producing a wealth of crops. Within another decade, the Holland Marsh’s black fields were among the most bountiful in Ontario, fulfilling the promise originally envisioned by Dave Watson and Professor Day decades earlier.
Many descendants of these original farmers still work the Holland Marsh, building on the dream of their ancestors.
