History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 277

While many of the first Belgians left the district to take up homesteads further west or
south when they became available, most of them were satisfied to remain in the
district which they had already traveled a few thousand miles to reach. They now
owned farms which they could never have owned in Belgium, and eventually, as
conditions improved with better housing, roads, and availability of education, they
never regretted coming to Manitoba. As the years went by more land was purchased
by Belgians in the surrounding districts of South-Central Manitoba. Today most can
trace their ancestry to the families who settled in St. Alphonse and Bruxelles over one
hundred years ago.

Further Reading
From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Belgians/Cornelius J. Jaenen

Background information on Belgium is available in a number of studies including Koen
Mattijs and Michel Draguet, The Belgians (Tielt, Belgium, 1992); Kenneth D. McRae,
Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies: Belgium (Waterloo, Ont., 1986); Els
Witte, La Flandre: des origines à nos jours (Brussels, 1983); and Els Witte and Jan
Craeybeckx, La Belgique politique de 1930 à nos jours: les tensions d’une démocratie
bourgeoise (Brussels, 1987).
Emigration from Belgium is the subject of the work by Ginette Kurgan and E.
Spelkens, Two Studies on Emigration Through Antwerp to the New World (Brussels,
1976); Jean Puissant, “Quelques témoignages sur l’émigration hennuyère, 1884–
1889,” Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, Bulletin des séances, vol.3
(1973), 443–63; Jean Stengers, Émigration et immigration en Belgique au XIXe et au
XXe siècles (Brussels, 1978); and Jean Everaert, “L’Émigration en masse,” and Eddy
Stols, “L’Émigration des cerveaux,” in La Belgique: sociétés et cultures depuis 150
ans (Brussels, 1980), 248–52.
At present the only national overview for Belgians in Canada is Cornelius J. Jaenen,
The Belgians in Canada, Canada’s Ethnic Group Series, no.20 (Ottawa, 1991). A
useful collection of comparative studies is G. Kurganvan Hentenryk, ed., La Question
sociale en Belgique et au Canada (Brussels, 1988). Regional studies of Belgian
settlement in Canada are Joan Magee, The Belgians in Ontario: A History (Toronto,
1987), and Keith Wilson and James B. Wyndels, The Belgians in Manitoba (Winnipeg,
1976).
Read more at : http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~blanch/ManBelgHist/Manitoba/

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