Community and Frontier

“There are all kinds of books about pioneering: first-person accounts from the actual pioneers; self-published works by local people with a love of an area’s history; and professional writers blending anecdote with existing research. Lehr provides both fresh and aggregated research, lightly mixed with anecdote. It’s a great addition to the canon of history and cultural books on Manitoba.”

– Bill Redekop, Winnipeg Free Press

“John Lehr has produced a work that deserves to be read by every serious student of the settlement process, the “frontier,” western Canadian history, ethnic history and – oh, yes – Ukrainian Canadian history.”

– Jim Machoruk, University of North Dakota, Great Plains Research

“Community and Frontier is an excellent cultural history, highly recommended.”

– The Midwest Book Review

“Community and Frontier focuses on one of the earliest settlements in Western Canadian history, the Ukrainian colony of Stuartburn in southern Manitoba. Author and University of Winnipeg geography professor John C. Lehr takes a unique approach to writing a community history, combining detailed social and economic analysis with lively anecdotes about colonists selling Seneca root to New Yorkers and frog legs to Minnesotans, and about the making home-brewed beer and whisky. Maps created by cartographer Weldon Hiebert illustrating the population growth of Stuartburn from its founding in 1896 into the early 1900s, as well as the transportation routes, trade, and settlement patterns throughout the region, add to Community and Frontier‘s unique effectiveness as a scholarly local history. Both an intelligent and entertaining read, Lehr’s book is an important addition to the history of early settlement in Western Canada.”

– Phil Koch & Jason Woloski, jury for the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction, 2012 Manitoba Book Awards.