Irrigation (1959)

Profiles St. Mary Dam, built between 1946 and 1951, under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, a unit of the Canadian Department of Agriculture. The dam was meant to provide a reliable source of water primarily to farmers in what is semi-arid Southern Alberta. Presenter Julian Biggs talks not only about the dam and the resulting reservoir themselves, but the channel of canals emanating from the dam and the subsequent ditches maintained by individual farmers on their properties from those canals. Steve Holden tells of what a boon having this reliable source of water is to farmers like himself, that water which is provided at what he considers a nominal cost.