What's Your nationality?
I was born in Saskatchewan in the twenties and received most of my schooling in a one-room country school. Three times during that period we were required to fill out a questionnaire about ourselves because the province wanted to know who was in the schools.

The first time would have been in the early thirties when I was in grade 3 or 4. After the usual list of questions for name, address, grade, we came to the question, which asked for our 'Nationality'. Someone asked if we could put down 'Canadian'. The answer was no, the government wanted to find out where everyone came from. My dad came from England and my mother's family came from Germany via the United States. I was told to put down where my father came from.

The second time was a few years later, probably about the time I got into high school. This time the question asked for the 'Racial Origin'. This was clear but still presented some problems. One girl said that her father came from the United States so she must be American. She was told that she had to put down the country in Europe that he came from. She had to go home and ask him and he said to put down Irish because he was sure that he had some Irish somewhere in his background.

The third time was when I was registering for first year university. This time the question was back to its original wording asking just for your nationality. Darn! What do I do? I decided to ask, so I looked over the counter to see who was there. There was one girl, who looked to be no older than I was, but she was behind the counter. There was no one else so I asked her if I could put down Canadian. She said 'yes of course', so I put down Canadian.

That was the day I became a Canadian. Actually, it was several years later that Ottawa passed a bill establishing Canadian Citizenship replacing the previous designation of 'British Subject living in Canada'. I guess that no one in Canada had to be told that they were Canadian.

In the thirties Saskatchewan was still a young country and it was of interest to the government to know where every one came from. They decided to use the schools to survey the population. I guess that it worked for them but it was rather disturbing for the pupils.

Summary

In the thirties the Saskatchewan government surveyed the school population to determine where the population came from. They asked us to fill out forms that included a question about nationality. Only European countries were acceptable as answers. This was disturbing to us because we all thought of ourselves as Canadian

by Dr. Harry Moody

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Polo, The Galloping Game
by Tony Rees

Polo was a cowboy sport in the Canadian West long before the advent of the organized rodeo with its bucking horses and chuck-wagon races. Played there within twenty years of its introduction to Britain, it flourishes today.

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