"Last Best West" was a phrase used to market the Canadian prairies to prospective immigrants. The phrase was used to advertise the Canadian west abroad, and in Eastern Canada, during the heyday of western settlement from 1896 until the start of the First World War in 1914 when few could leave Europe. The program was so successful that little more than nine years later the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were formed out of enormous North-West Territories of Canada.