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Rats are not native to North America. Coming over from Europe, they began chewing their way into the continent around the time of the American Revolution, starting out from places like New York or Halifax.

It took until 1950 that rats had migrated far enough inland that they began turning up for the first time on the southwest border of Alberta. It was then that the province made a solemn decision: They could either submit to the rodent hordes, or they could fight.

They chose the path of blood. Teams of armed men were mobilized to patrol a rat control zone on the border. Common citizens were enlisted to trap, poison and shoot rats wherever they could be found. Propaganda posters urged Albertans to give their rodent enemies no quarter. “KILL HIM!” reads this one from 1950.

And damned it if it didn’t work. Within a few years, the invasion had been repelled, and Alberta has remained rat-free ever since. The Alberta Rat Patrol still keeps watch on the eastern border, and whenever a rat rears its head in the province, a full-blown military response is raised to search the surrounding area and kill any rats they find. There’s even a rat-sighting hotline: 310-RATS.

So there you have it: The inspiring story of how a humble Canadian province set out to kill its way out of a problem, and succeeded fantastically. God Bless Alberta.