Trees Against the Wind

Many who, like me, grew up on the rural prairies will be able to relate to the experience of planting tiny trees around the perimeter of a home property, farm, or field — and watching them grow strong and tall over time. Across the prairies today, many such lines of trees still stand, disrupting protracted horizons and contouring the monotonous landscape with greenery. The shelterbelts, along with the copses of trees or bushes planted on farmyards and near houses, still help to protect roads, yards, and fields from snowdrift, while conserving moisture and preserving the soil, attracting pollinators, and enhancing biodiversity.

As William R. Schroeder shows in his new book, trees are themselves a living history that attests to the faith and diligence of their planters going back many years. Trees Against the Wind: The Birth of Prairie Shelterbelts tells the rich history of the federal government tree-planting program that continued from its launch in 1901 until it was shut down in 2013. Through that time, an astonishing 618 million trees were delivered for planting to prairie farmers.

Schroeder spent his thirty-five-year career as a research scientist at the experimental tree farm at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, and his passion for the subject is clear. The book is a delight of archival photos and a thoroughly researched fount of knowledge about the Prairie Shelterbelt Program founded by Norman M. Ross, who led the effort until his retirement in 1941.

It’s also a compelling and eye-opening story of earlier times and the unexpected difficulties experienced by immigrants due to the wide, inhospitable landscape and harsh climate. As homesteader Maria Klassen noted, “We had such fear of the weather.”

Ultimately, Trees Against the Wind is a tribute to the people who dedicated themselves to researching, cultivating, nurturing, and distributing the best-suited deciduous and coniferous saplings while tirelessly promoting the shelterbelt program to help early farmers improve and transform the land.