Promise of Eden: The Canadian Expansionist Movement and the Idea of the West, 1856-1900Through the last half of the nineteenth century, numbers of Canadians began to regard the West as a land of ideal opportuniy for large scale agricultural settlement. This belief, in turn, led Canada to insist on ownership of the region and on immediate development. Underlying the expansionist movement was the assumption that the West was to be a hinterland to central Canada, both in its economic relationship and in its cultural development. But