The Peace River Country is considered by many to be an appendage of the great central plain of North America. It is also the last region on the continent to have been thrown open for agricultural settlement on a broad scale. Between May 1910 and December 1914, over 6,750 applications for land were taken at the Dominion Land Offices at Grouard and Grande Prairie. During these years, the farming frontier of North America was extended to its most northerly extremity. The files in this database deal with these and earlier non-First Nation settlers who attempted to establish farms in the region in advance of the arrival of the railway, which occurred in 1916.

The first dispensations of Crown land in the region had been made by Treaty 8 and Half-breed Scrip Commissioners in the summer of 1899. As well as concluding Treaty with the First Nations and distributing scrip to other people of Aboriginal descent, the Commissioners verified the declarations of those Euro-Canadians who had, by this time, occupied and improved parcels of land. Provided that they remained on the land, these early settlers would subsequently be given title to their holdings as free grants to the extent of 160 acres apiece. Following the Treaty signing, reserves were surveyed for the First Nations, while certain holders of land scrip staked their claims to the extent of 240 acres apiece. When the Dominion Land Surveyors began to subdivide settlements and mark out quarter-sections, they, too, verified the declarations of people who were then occupying and had improved parcels of land as squatters. These squatters were given the right of pre-emption of the quarter-sections or settlement lots they occupied provided that they filed for title within three months of the land being declared open for settlement. Finally, in the spring of 1910, 20 full and 15 partial townships recently surveyed on the Grande Prairie were declared open for settlement by homesteaders or scrip holders.

When filing for Crown land, the homesteaders or scrip holders (or their surrogates) filled out application forms at the Dominion Land Offices at Grouard, or, after June 1911, Grande Prairie. (See Appendix---). There was also a Sub-agency at Shaftesbury. Occasional occupancy declarations continued to be taken by Dominion Land Surveyors in the field as more land was subdivided. (See Appendix---). These application forms and subsequent documents were then forwarded to the Dominion Lands Branch of the Department of the Interior in Ottawa. Here, they were collated and filed according to land location. As the process of determining entitlement continued, other documents were added to the files until a land patent was either granted to the applicant or denied.

To gain title, an official application for title was made by the applicant. (See Appendix---). Upon approval of this by the Dominion Land Agent in the area and the Dominion Lands Branch, title would be confirmed. If it was denied for some reason, the applicant was either instructed to fulfill the homestead duties by a certain date or advised that the application was canceled. If it was canceled, another applicant could then file for the same quarter-section or settlement lot. If this was done, the same procedure would be followed, and similar documentation would be added to the same file. In 1930, when Alberta and Saskatchewan gained control of their Crown land, and British Columbia was given jurisdiction over its Peace River Block, the files were split into three groups and transferred to the custody of these provinces. Those files pertaining to the Peace River Country are now held by the Provincial Archives of Alberta and the British Columbia Archives & Records Service. Here, they are available for consultation on microfilm. Each record in this database contains the land file number at the top which should be used as reference when consulting the files.

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