The Great Depression of the 1930s saw much deprivation among the nomadic Métis population of Alberta, estimated at about 11,000 in 1936. A royal commission was formed to investigate the living conditions of Alberta's "half-breeds", who were then squatting on road allowances with no ready sources of cash income, or trapping in remote areas without access to education or health services. Métis children in urban areas were driven away from public schools by the ridicule and humiliation of white pupils, with an estimated 80% of the provincial Métis population receiving no education whatsoever. This Ewing Commission saw agriculture, particularly stock-raising, as the means by which the Métis could be made into "self-supporting citizens". Farm colonies, in which the Métis themselves would provide most of the physical labour, would be a suitably inexpensive relief scheme for the cash-strapped Alberta government to implement. Following these recommendations, the 1938 Metis Population Betterment Act enabled unoccupied Crown land to be set aside for the creation of new Métis settlements. Eleven were originally created by Order-in-Council through 1938 and 1939 – Wolf Lake, Utikuma Lake, Cold Lake, Marlboro, Keg River, Big Prairie, Touchwood, Goodfish Lake, Elizabeth, Fishing Lake, and East Prairie. Caslan was the final addition, reserved for Métis veterans returning from World War Two before being thrown open to general settlement in 1951. Settlement at Paddle Prairie progressed rapidly. A 1941 report of the Alberta Bureau of Public Welfare recorded nineteen heads of families resident in the area, with a total population of 72. The settlement's central village was established at its approximate geographic center, the Paddle Prairie proper, an area of open land and productive soil, where a lumbering operation produced 91,372 board feet of rough sawn lumber. From here, of road was cleared to a landing on the Peace River, suitable for the unloading of supplies.
Geography
The largest and most northerly of Alberta's Metis settlements, Paddle Prairie consists of approximately seventeen townships. It is bounded by the Peace River on its eastern border, where the La Crete ferry still operates.
The exact boundaries of the Paddle Prairie settlement, as described in its enabling legislation, are as follows:
Demographics
As a designated place in the 2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Paddle Prairie Metis Settlement recorded a population of 544 living in 185 of its 240 total private dwellings, a decline of 3.2% from its 2011 population of 562. With a land area of, it had a population density of in 2016. As a designated place in the 2011 Census, Paddle Prairie had a population of 562 living in 182 of its 225 total dwellings, a growth of 160.2% from its 2006 population of 216. With a land area of, it had a population density of in 2011. The population of the Paddle Prairie Metis Settlement according to its 2009 municipal census was 1,089.
