The Ku Klux Klan had its origins in the American South in the post-Civil War period. It was suppressed but rose again in the 1920s when it enjoyed widespread support throughout the United States and spread into Canada, especially Saskatchewan, where it took root and flourished. There it won widespread support and helped bring down the Liberal government and elect the Conservative party in the 1929 provincial election.

James Pitsula offers a new interpretation for the appeal of the Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Saskatchewan. He argues that the Klan should not be portrayed merely as an irrational outburst of intolerance and hatred but rather as a populist aftershock of the First World War. Fearing that the hard-won victory to keep Canada British was being undone by massive immigration from Central and Eastern Europe, many Saskatchewanians sought to reverse the trend. The Klan represented a slightly more extreme version of mainstream opinion and, although a racist organization, it eschewed violence, followed constitutional methods, and eventually rejected robes and hoods.

Keeping Canada British tackles a controversial issue central to the history of Saskatchewan and the formation of national identity. In seeking to understand the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in all of its strange complexity, this book shines light upon a dark corner of Canada’s past.