Introduction

In 1891 the built landscape of Canada's settler society encompassed a wide variety of structures old and new. As cultural mixing occurred throughout the century, various house-building approaches gave way to a few regional prototypes. Their histories followed a typical sequence in which various immigrant housing forms, many of them based on old world folk-culture types, were tested and refined in response to regional and local experiences. By the end of the century the built landscapes of Newfoundland, the Maritimes, Québec, Ontario, and the West could be distinguished from one another.