How Did The Great Depression Affect Canada

The Great Depression, also known as The Dirty Thirties was an outstanding worldwide economic crisis. It left millions of Canadians unemployed, hungry and often homeless. Hardly any countries were affected as severely as Canada, more specifically the Prairies. This merciless time period in Canadian history brought several years of drought and grasshopper epidemics upon the farmers that occupied the Prairies. Canada’s Prairies suffered the most during the Great Depression due to the unforgiving drought, the grasshopper plague, and the rapidly increasing unemployment rate.

Following the Stock Market Crash in 1929, Canada and the rest of the world reached all time low economic statuses. Farmers occupied Canada’s Prairies at the time predominantly

The combined effects of economic collapse and prolonged drought meant that the Depression was endured more severely in the Prairies than any other part of Canada. The drought terminated the majority of the crops the farmers had worked so hard to maintain. Prices of the remaining products were dropping due to the economic collapse; this directly caused unemployment rates to skyrocket. Without rain, everyday was just too hot to do keep up with hard work. It was too hot to sleep at night in the summers and the farmers were physically drained of energy. As for the wind, there were blizzards in the winter and dust storms in the summer. It made the hard work that was required to maintain crops unbearable and unforgiving. For many farmers, abandoning their farms was the only way to deal with this catastrophe at hand. The Saskatchewan government even instituted a program to help farmers who wanted to leave their farms.

Along with the farmer’s crops rapidly diminishing, the unforgiving weather and the drought they faced, an unusual epidemic arose in 1932. This was the year when grasshoppers plagued the land. They came in swarms of millions and would eat entire fields in hours and even household items. Without fields there would be no hay to feed the livestock and Farmers would be forced to start eating the animals or leave them to starve. They could live off of their livestock for a year at most but the drought lasted far longer than that. The drought provided an ideal climate for the grasshoppers; dry and hot. It was difficult for women, since the men were out and always saw each other. The women stayed at home, isolated and constantly in fear of the disasters occurring around them. The radio was the only way people in the Prairies could contact the outside world. Some women went to mental hospitals because they suffered from depression. The grasshoppers were a leading cause of the depression native to the Prairies as they demolished crops, which led to the increase in the unemployment rate, and they ate the farmer’s only clothes off their backs leaving them without money or