"The Alberta Homesteader," in the DT, is the same song moved North to Canada.
When the Canadian government took over Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company, the Dominion Lands Act (1872) offered a free grant of a quarter-section of federally surveyed (160 acres) to anyone who would live on it for three years and start farming it. It was required that he farm 30 acres and built a permanent dwelling. Ten dollars was the fee for registering the claim.
Starting in the 1880's, 60,000 entered Manitoba but less than half stayed. Friction continued to increase with the Metis, who saw land that they considered theirs taken by the newcomers.
The Canadian Pacific RR, finished 1885, brought settlers into Saskatchewan and Alberta. Only 3000 had taken up land in Alberta by 1896. The Grand Trunk Railway between 1906-1919 had a line from Winnepeg through Saskatckewan, Alberta (Edmonton) and British Columbia to Prince Rupert on the Coast, later taken over by the government and becoming part of the Canadian National RR. Most available lands in SE Alberta and the west central 'Peace River block' were homesteaded, the last real push from veterans returning from WW2.
The Act was repealed in 1984.

Organized Ukrainian emigration and settlement, mostly from Galicia and Bukovyna, began in the 1890's, covering 2500 sq. mi. by 1916, and continuing strongly into the 1920's; their influence continues to be strong in east central Alberta.