I recently heard about the excellent Canadiana archive and have spent most of this morning and have been aimlessly reading old documents, journals, and newspapers. Particularly, I was reading an issue of "The West", a newspaper based in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, from Wednesday, December 19, 1906. I haven't really dug into the articles themselves, because what immediately captured my attention was the advertisements - both the sheer number of them and their content.

A page from the newspaper "The West", 1906-12-19 edition.

You can have a look for yourself, but I was caught so off-guard with how many ads were on every page of this paper. I thought things were supposedly better in the good old days! If I was born 120 years earlier I know I would have been cheesed off by this.

Anyways, let's have a look through some of these ads. Just like the idea of The Beatles being trapped in Zelda: Ocarina of Time has taken up the majority of my brain's real estate over the past couple of months, I really get a kick out of imagining old things in the wrong modern contexts.

TO CURE A COLD IN ONE DAY - Take LAXATIVE BROMO Quinine Tablets. Druggists refund money if it fails to cure. E. W. Grove's signature in each box. 25c.

Lol. Anyways, Google's AI search thing says 25 cents would be around $39.46 CAD nowadays. That plus the bowel evacuation makes this a pretty steep price to get over a cold quick, even with the refund guarantee.

Ideal Meat Market Broad Street - NOTICE TO FARMERS! Remember that we are Headquarters for Choice Beef and Fresh and Cured Meats of all kinds. When you want a choice quarter of threshing, give us a call; our prices are right. - A. Ehman - H. K. Gollnick, Manager

"Our prices are good, just trust me bro". I guess back then farmers would buy meat to eat specifically for threshing season? I'm so glad I live in an era where I don't have to do backbreaking labour every day.

Anyways, this ad is a little misleading. I've read Prairie Fairies and know that the real headquarters for choice meat and beef (prior to Scruff) was at the bar in the Hotel Sask.

Raymond Sewing Machines. For prices and terms apply to R. W. Beach - Sole Agent for the Regina District. Regina Assa.

Come on, at least tell people what street your office is on. It's hard to imagine how an ad like this could rack up conversions, but maybe there was a Yellow Pages-equivalent that people could use back then to figure out how to get in touch with R. W. Beach.

The man who selects a Stetson Hat knows a good thing when he sees it. He knows a Stetson will stand rough treatment. He knows the wearing confirms his judgement. He knows it is the standard of Fashion. We have the Stetsen Soft and Derby Hats in all the latest styles. "If it's in our Ad, it's so". You can get these HATS at the Semi-Ready Wardrobe - Strathcona Block, Scarth Street. Hindson Bros & Co. Strathcona Block, Scarth Street

Now here's an ad. This is one where I really wish I could go back in time, see someone read it, and ask them what they thought about it afterwards. "If it's in our Ad. it's so"? That's so nuts, there's no way someone bought a hat because of this ad.

ALL KINDS OF Soft Drinks - Special attention given to orders for family use. 'Phone 16 at any time and we will deliver promptly to any part of the city. - Thos. Watt, Regina, Sask.

Here's one for soft drinks. I don't know much about the history of telecommunications, but I'm assuming around this time phones must have only been able to be used locally, hence the 2 digit number. Free delivery is pretty nice, after a skim of Wikipedia it looks like in 1906 you couldn't just pick up a 6 pack of drinks from the store/pharmacy, so it beats going to the fountain. I guess family use is as opposed to business use?

Anyways, that's enough of that. It's wild to me that out of all of those ads, only one could include a price figure for a product. I wonder if any of these old companies would have their sale records archived anywhere, it would be cool to see if you could trace purchase patterns to these ads. Do you think any of them had UTM tags figured out back then?