Storied Landscapes is a beautifully written, sweeping examination of the evolving identity of major ethno-religious immigrant groups in the Canadian West. Viewed through the lens of attachment to the soil and specific place, and through the eyes of both the immigrant generation and its descendants, the book compares the settlement experiences of Ukrainians, Mennonites, Icelanders, Doukhobors, Germans, Poles, Romanians, Jews, Finns, Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes. It reveals how each group’s sense of identity was shaped by a complex interplay of physical and emotional ties to land and place, and how that sense of belonging influenced, and was influenced by, relationships not only within the prairies and the Canadian nation state but also with the homeland and its extended diaspora. Through a close study of myths, symbols, commemorative traditions, and landmarks, Storied Landscapes boldly asserts the inseparability of ethnicity and religion both to defining the prairie region and to understanding the Canadian nation-building project.

Frances Swyripa is a professor in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. She is the author of Wedded to the Cause: Ukrainian-Canadian Women and Ethnic Identity, 1891-1991 and Ukrainian Canadians: A Survey of their Portrayal in English-Language Works.

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“The ‘storied landscapes’ of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta demonstrate how local, regional, national, and diasporic narrations contribute to a complexity of layered and interacting identities. Well written, well referenced, and imaginatively illustrated.”

Choice Magazine, May 2011

“This is an important book that throws much needed light on the complex processes underlying the relationship between people, their identity and the places they create.”

American Review of Canadian Studies