CHAPTER XVINORTHERN ALBERTA

SUN DANCE OF BLACKFEET INDIANS

Canon Stocken told me next about Old Wolf Collar, the veteran who once was a mighty warrior, a great hunter of the buffalo, and the “medicine man” of paramount fame and influence in the tribe. “When he became a Christian, in March, 1899,” the missionary related, “Old Wolf Collar was nearly sixty years of age—older than any other man I had baptised. At that time, as I afterwards found, he had not given his whole heart to Christianity. He had been impressed by religion as the power that made white men lead good lives. He had become a Christian for the sake of material advantages. Well, one day I was trying to make my congregation see that if Christianity were anything at all to a man, it went right down into his inmost life, and he must cherish no evil thoughts and attempt to keep no secrets from God. That caught Old Wolf Collar; and he came to me in sorrow, bringing a collection of the charms that had been part and parcel of his former distinction as a medicine-man. At his conversion he had surrendered a number of such things into my hands, and I had not suspected that he was keeping some back. Full of penitence, he now said he did not know the religion of God was so searching. ‘I’ve still got these things,’ he said. ‘Take the whole business,’ and he handed me all those charms, some of which I afterwards sent to the museum at Banff, others going to England. Having unburdened his conscience in that way, the dear old fellow breathed more freely. ‘Now, go ahead,’ he said, ‘and tell me all the things you know about God.’ From that time Old Wolf Collar has been full of zeal. You will have heard that the one trouble with the Indians is that they are lazy. But Old Wolf Collar is not lazy. In those days we had Miss Collings withus, and at his eager request she taught him to play the auto-harp, and she taught him the syllabic system. I ought to tell you that these Indians had no literature of their own. They had to depend solely upon memory for their knowledge—a fact, by the way, that made the missionary’s responsibility a very heavy one, since, if there were any laxity on his part in presenting a truth, the consequent misconception in their minds went uncorrected by the printed Word. That danger has largely passed away with the dissemination of the syllabic system, whereby the Blackfoot language is reduced to terms that the hand can write and the eye can read.

“Old Wolf Collar proved a quick pupil, and as soon as he had obtained a tolerable mastery of the system he got together of an evening some ten or twelve young Indians, to whom he imparted his new knowledge by writing the characters again and again on a large sheet of paper. It was good work well begun; and to-day, I think, there isn’t a single family on the reservation that has not at least one member who can read and write the syllabic. With the aid of the system, Old Wolf Collar taught, and partly prepared for baptism, several men to whom I had seldom, if ever, spoken personally; and when he thought their preliminary instruction was sufficient, he sent them up to me.

“I will give you an idea of what the old man’s faith was like. But first you must know that originally he had two wives, and when he became converted he put one away, providing for her, and married the other by Christian rites. He won all his family to Christianity; and then a series of terrible bereavements befell him. First, one of his two daughtersdied, then his only son, after that his second daughter, and finally his wife, so that the old man was bereft of all who were near and dear to him; though, presently, with my concurrence, he married the wife he had put away, and she is still spared to him. What I was going to tell you was this: At the time of his heavy bereavement I visited him one day, when he took his pipe from his mouth and said: ‘Why is it, do you think, that a man, when he becomes a Christian, should have sorrow and trouble which he never had before? Before I became a Christian I had all my family complete, and I had no sadness. Now I have all this trouble to bear. What is the reason?’ I said: ‘You are not the only one who has asked that question. There are lots of problems that we cannot solve. But do you remember what I was teaching you about Abraham?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you mean about offering up Isaac? Ah, do you think that’s it?’ I replied: ‘I’m not saying it is. I don’t know. I’m just asking you to bear it in mind.’ ‘If you think God is testing Old Wolf Collar,’ was his reply, ‘He won’t find I will go back on Him.’ Old Wolf Collar is a minor chief, and he exercises his authority wisely, like Running Rabbit, the gentle old fellow of seventy-four who at present occupies the supreme position.”

In the case of young men, Canon Stocken explained, the conferring of high tribal rank sometimes reacts prejudicially on character. In this connection he told me more about Axe, to whose personality he had already afforded some clues.

“Young Axe,” he said, “used to talk more than others about the Holy Spirit, but I could see he didn’t grasp it, and I wished he wouldn’t. He was constantly producing his copy of the Scriptures in theBlackfoot Roman characters, and saying, ‘I will read it. That is hard for us to do.’ He was very conceited, but very clever—in fact, he had learnt the book by rote. He used to get hold of the bishop, and say: ‘I want you to come here and sit down and hear me while I read this.’ And very soon he would begin dogmatising. I remember once the bishop made a very useful remark. Axe had said to him: ‘What do you think, Bishop—wouldn’t it be a good thing if I found out all the evil that is going on in this reserve, and let you know?’ ‘No, thank you—don’t,’ said the bishop. ‘But why not?’ persisted Axe. ‘How can we get rid of it unless we get to know about it?’ ‘Well,’ said the bishop, ‘did you ever happen to notice that you’ve got two parts to your eye—an eye and an eyelid? Did it ever occur to you that God gave you eyes and eyelids so that you should see some things, while others are shielded from your vision? We are not to go about and search for our brother’s faults. If they are discovered, we must help our brother.’

“Axe was of very powerful physique, and one day when he was engaged in carrying logs, he came to me and said: ‘Running Wolf, those of us who work very hard need whisky.’ I said I did not think God ever made any constitution that required whisky. ‘I know God does,’ insisted Axe; ‘and if you do the right thing you will keep whisky here and dole it out to me.’

“The Government offered a present of so many head of cattle to those Indians who cared to take them and commence ranching. Axe very promptly stated his readiness to accept as many as he could have; and I think the Government gave him twenty. The chiefswere in a great state, because they thought the Government would stop the rations, and would believe that the Indians, now they had accepted cattle, would be self-supporting. When the commissioner next visited the reserve he gave through me a message to Axe. It was that the Government were very pleased with him because he had taken cattle and given up gambling, and, therefore, the Government wished to make him a minor chief, and to give him a present of a cook’s stove. He was trying to patch up his old stove at the time. Axe said to me: ‘Why do the Government look among the boys’—he was about twenty-six at the time—‘to find a chief?’ I said: ‘Partly because you’ve done what they wish, and you’ve shown the sort of spirit that they desire to encourage; and partly because, being young, you are likely to be energetic in doing their wishes.’ He said: ‘I think it is a mistake looking to boys for chiefs.’

“A few months afterwards the commissioner came along and appointed two new minor chiefs—namely, Axe and Calf Bull, who was another young and progressive Indian. Axe very soon began to show his importance. He felt that, since the Government wanted him to carry out their wishes, it would, of course, be the right thing to suppress evil. He was anxious to use compulsion and violence in recruiting the Church membership, and he was so troublesome about it that someone from the south camp went to the Indian agent and said that Axe was trying to make people Christians by force, and at my instigation! His own attendances at church, I am sorry to say, have fallen off since he became a minor chief, and he has not been to Holy Communion for two years.”

Then the conversation reverted to Paul, who, Ilearnt, has preached the Gospel among his people with untiring zeal and remarkable success. He had an early trial, it seemed, in his young wife’s indifference to Christianity. “She fell grievously ill,” Canon Stocken related, “and we had her brought into our house, a parlour being turned to account as the sick-room, where Paul and the invalid’s mother took it in turns to watch by the bedside. One night the dying woman had a beautiful dream, and when she awoke in the morning she said: ‘Your changed life, Paul, and what God has shown me in a dream, have made Christianity real to me, and I’ve made up my mind to become a Christian.’ It was a great joy to Paul and to all of us; and on the following Sunday (May 20th, 1898) she was baptised. We had a solemn little baptism service in our sitting-room. My wife had a dear friend from Japan staying with us, and she helped. The poor invalid, though very weak, insisted on getting up. Her Indian name was Pretty Nose. We baptised her Sarah. When Paul was leading her back to bed, he stooped down—she was a short woman—and kissed her, and said: ‘Never mind; it won’t be for long; we shall meet again.’ She did not live long after that, and when the end came she spoke very cheerfully of her hope in Christ and her freedom from fear.

“About two months later Paul had a dream that deeply impressed him. He was sitting alone in his brother’s house, reading in the syllabic, when he must have fallen asleep, for a vision came to him of a figure standing in the open doorway. It was that of a young woman wearing a loose yellow garment, which was caught together at the neck with a brooch that sparkled like a star. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and her face was radiant. She smiled and said: ‘Paul, don’tyou know me? Don’t you know your own wife?’ He jumped up to seize her hand, and she continued: ‘God has sent me to you because He loves you, and He bids you to persevere. Do not be in doubt about me, for I am very happy.’ Then she vanished.

“And now,” continued Canon Stocken, “I must tell you about Naomi, who is Paul’s present wife. She was the widow of Black Boy, who was Big Road’s brother. One day she said to me: ‘My husband, Black Boy, had wanted to become a Christian, but he was never asked by a missionary.’ It was sad to hear this when Black Boy was dead; but I had made it a rule never to ask any Indians to become Christians. There was always the fear in my mind that they might consent, not through any earnest desire on their own part, but because they wished to please. It has always seemed to me that one must teach them all one can, and point out the evil of sin, but that the actual request for baptism must come unprompted from their own hearts and lips.

“When Black Boy had been dead six months or so, Handsome Otter Woman—that was the name of his widow—said to me: ‘Running Wolf, if I marry again, I’m going to marry a Christian.’ Later, she said: ‘Paul is the man I want to marry.’ Paul had said: ‘I’m never going to marry again; I’m just going to work.’ She kept sending messages to Paul to say she would like to marry him; and Paul eventually agreed, because his brother Timothy was so keen for it. Indian marriages are usually arranged by relatives, the principals having very little voice in the matter. Thus, a mother or father will say to a chief: ‘My girl is old enough to be married. Whom do you suggest?’ The chief might say that So-and-So would make a goodson-in-law. Then the question would arise: How many horses might the girl’s parents expect from the family of the suggested husband?

“After Paul and Handsome Otter Woman were married, their tempers rather clashed. Paul would come round to my house, and be very silent, and then say: ‘H’m! My wife has gone away.’ ‘What is the matter?’ I would ask. ‘She gets most dreadfully cross,’ he would tell me; and then take his departure. In a little while his wife would be sure to arrive, and explain: ‘Paul is so dreadfully cross, you know.’ ‘Yes,’ I would point out, ‘we all have our failings; but we must learn to control ourselves. You can do so if you try.’ After one or two little tiffs of that sort, they settled down to be a most affectionate couple. In the work of spreading Christianity among their people, they now labour hand in hand, helping and stimulating one another. After she was baptised—receiving the name of Naomi—it was her eager wish to become a Bible-woman. In those days she could not read the syllabic system; but she would not let that temporary disability stand in the way of her work. She got me every week to prepare brief notes of some truths, and these she caused to be read over and over to her until she had the words by heart. In that way she entered upon labours to which she has since devoted her life. Naomi’s teaching, sympathy, and self-sacrificing ministrations have indeed been a blessing to the Indian women on this reserve.”

What need of further evidence? The red man is revealed as in all essentials like unto the white man, with a conscience responsive to the knowledge of goodand evil. Great profit has crowned the self-sacrifice of the men and women who have devoted their lives to Canada’s aborigines. To a triumphant end have the C.M.S. and other bodies endured anxieties and sustained the financial burden. Human blessings now reward the self-denial of their devoted subscribers. Already in the Indian reserves missionary effort is giving place to ministrations purely pastoral.

Concerning the present state of Fenimore Cooper’s scalping savage, two words remain to be spoken. The missionaries having made him a Christian, the Government is making him a farmer. It has been up-hill work, necessitating much thought and patience, a large staff, and heavy expenditure. But at last the red man is successfully growing fruit in British Columbia and raising grain and stock in the Prairie Provinces.

As to one matter, however, still his mind urgently needs enlightenment. He must be taught the paramount importance of thoroughly ventilating his dwelling, alike in the winter and the summer. For, alas! the tribes suffer a heavy mortality from consumption, whereof the preventive and cure is fresh air.

CHAPTER XVINORTHERN ALBERTA

That part of Saskatchewan (more than half the province) lying north of occupied, or at any rate surveyed, territory, I have been tempted to describe as “Unknown Saskatchewan”; and certainly the clues we possess to its character are slight, even though they carry a definite and comprehensive assurance of the country’s suitability for settlement.

Concerning the northern half of Alberta, the word “Unknown” would be comparatively inapplicable. In this case chance has, I find, provided us with a good deal of information. Nay, as will be seen, we have clues to agricultural possibilities in regions far to the north of the northern boundary of Alberta.

It is strange how persistently the public imagination goes astray concerning matters of latitude. Nine years ago I found Calgary shrugging its shoulders over a city called Edmonton, situated some two hundred miles to the north. Daring pioneers up there were understood to be making praiseworthy efforts in the direction of grain-growing; “but no, sir,” a farmer of the Calgary district solemnly assured me, “it isn’t reasonable to suppose crops’ll growth that far north.” It will, I think, be superfluous to mention that last year, on visiting Edmonton—healthy, handsome, and sunny Edmonton (which is between 53° and 54° latitude)—Ifound the district producing immense quantities of the best quality hard wheat that averaged over twenty, and sometimes reached forty, bushels to the acre. “You see,” as a local expert pointed out to me, “the Edmonton district is just right for growing things. Everything is in our favour. We’ve got much longer days than people have in the south. Why, at midsummer the sun is shining for eighteen hours a day, and that lets the crops go ahead fine. Then, too, we’re particularly lucky in having such wonderful, rich soil. Added to that, we can always count on enough rain—and not too much.”

EDMONTON: DISTANT VIEW FROM STRATHCONA

EDMONTON: EAST END OF JASPER AVENUE

Those complacent words applied to the district immediately north of Edmonton—in other words, to what is practically the limit of settled Alberta. I will now invite the reader to ascend a sort of ladder of latitude.

Our first short stride takes us to an old post on the Lesser Slave Lake, which is nearly two hundred miles to the north-west of Edmonton, the line of latitude (which is the special matter that concerns us at the moment) being something less than one hundred and fifty miles to the north. I find travellers and missionaries unanimous in testifying that wheat, oats, barley, potatoes and various kinds of vegetables are grown to perfection at Lesser Slave Lake.

We now mount to Dunvegan (lat. 55.9°), about fifty miles further north (and one hundred miles to the west), concerning which place we learn from the Rev. D. M. Gordon that, on going there in 1880, he found a great variety of vegetables growing, including cucumbers; while he was informed that wheat was raised at the post as far back as 1828.

Another northward step of about fifty miles brings us (far away in eastern Alberta) to Fort McMurray (lat. 56.7°), on the Athabasca River; and concerning FortMcMurray it is recorded that “Professor Macoun, on the 8th of September, 1875, saw tomatoes, cucumbers, wheat and barley under cultivation, together with all vegetables found in kitchen gardens of Ontario. He spent ten days there, and obtained specimens of wheat and barley which have astonished everyone to whom they were exhibited. Many of the ears contained one hundred grains, and the weight of both wheat and barley was nearly ten pounds above the ordinary weight per bushel. These grains had been raised on soil comparatively poor—very poor for the district—and lying only a few feet above the level of Lake Athabasca.”

So here we are over two hundred miles to the north of Edmonton, and reports of vegetation tend to become more, instead of less, satisfactory.

Next we jump an interval of about a hundred and fifty miles, and pause at Fort Chipewyan (lat. 58.7°), where, I learn, Professor Macoun obtained in 1875 fine samples of wheat and barley, the former weighing 68 lbs. to the bushel and the latter 58 lbs. He learnt that at a French Mission, two miles above the Fort, oats, wheat and barley were all cut by the 26th of August. But a still more remarkable fact has to be recorded. The Rev. D. M. Gordon was in a position to say that samples of wheat and barley raised at Fort Chipewyan were sent to the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, where they won a medal in open competition with the world.

Let us take a further stride, to a point some two hundred miles further north—to Fort Providence (lat. 61.4°). Here we are about one hundred miles north of the northern boundary of Alberta; and perhaps this is as good a place as another to mention that the province of Alberta is considerably larger than France or Germany. Please note how far we have travelled—FortProvidence is over seven hundred miles north of Calgary. And what do we find at Fort Providence—Polar bears and perpetual frost? Not a bit of it. Listen to this quotation from a report by Mr. Elihu Stewart, who, as superintendent of forestry for the Dominion of Canada, visited those northern lands in 1906: “On July 15th, the garden at Fort Providence contained peas fit for use, potatoes in flower, tomatoes, rhubarb, beets, cabbages and onions. Besides vegetables, there were cultivated flowers and fruit, such as red currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and saskatoons. But most surprising thing of all was a small field of wheat in the milk, the grain being fully formed. This was stated to have been sown on May 20th, and it was harvested before July 28th—slightly over two months from sowing.”

Oh, the marvellous potency of the long days of sunshine. What a rush there will be for the Great North Lands—that agricultural El Dorado—when the world understands their value.

No further evidence is, I think, needed; but, by way of completing the ascent of my “ladder,” I will invite the reader to move in imagination some thirty miles nearer the North Pole, to Fort Simpson (lat. 61.8°)—the most remote point from which I have been enabled to glean any gardening news. Mr. Hardisty, the late chief factor in charge of the Hudson Bay post, told Mr. Macoun that melons, if started under glass, ripened well there, frost seldom doing them harm. Barley, Mr. Hardisty added, always ripened at Fort Simpson. Another witness is accessible in the person of Mr. William Ogilvie, the explorer. “While at this post,” he reported, “we enjoyed the fine potatoes, carrots, parsnips, cabbage and peas grown in the Hudson BayCompany’s garden. They were as large and as fine flavoured as the best in any part of the country.”

The facts being as I have stated, no wonder some enterprising pioneers have “gone in advance of the railway,” and settled in that part of the Peace River district lying around Lesser Slave Lake and to the west of it.

News of the high farming value of the Great North Lands will, I think, come upon the public as a surprise. Yet, as has recently been pointed out by Mr. R. E. Young (Canada’s Superintendent of Railway Lands), the truth of the matter has for long been demonstrated inferentially by the experience of another quarter of the globe. On a map of Western Canada, Mr. Young has superimposed the highly productive Russian province of Tobolsk, in its accurate position as to latitude; and, behold! the main southern boundary of Tobolsk occurs (on the map of the Dominion) a good deal north of settled Southern Alberta, while northern Tobolsk extends right up the Canadian mainland, crosses Coronation Gulf, and spreads some way over Victoria Island. Recent statistics about the Russian province are not available to me; but in 1906 it was supporting a population of over a million and a half, in 1907 it was producing 30,770,000 bushels of wheat, rye, barley and oats, it raises many million head of livestock, and from one district alone (Kurgan) there was exported in 1902, largely to Great Britain, 19,711,446 lbs. of butter. I may add, on the authority of the British Blue Book from which the last-named figures are taken, that dairy-farming in Tobolsk promised, at the date of publication (1905), a marvellous development.

BOW RIVER, ALBERTA PROVINCE

As I have already mentioned, certain enterprisingand discerning mortals have gone into the productive North Lands ahead of the locomotive. Mr. Alfred Von Hamerstein, for instance, who was on his way to the Klondike in 1897, changed his mind, and opened a store at Athabasca Landing. He traded with the Indians, and it is interesting to learn that his customers were keen to buy different kinds of seeds; so he added flower-seeds to his stock, “and some lovely flowers were raised.”

Afterwards he made extensive explorations up and down the country, and took up with mining and with petroleum-boring.

Asked about the Peace River Valley, Mr. Von Hamerstein said it is “a good country for agricultural settlement—as good as any country in Alberta.” He described both the Athabasca and Peace River regions as “marvellous for the growth of small wild fruit,” adding: “At the end of July, or the first part of August, there are strawberries, followed by raspberries and blueberries. Then come the saskatoons, choke cherries, white plums and berries of every description. They are found all over the country and they all have a very nice flavour indeed.”

From this gentleman’s experiences I take the following interesting facts: He has seen trees in the neighbourhood of McMurray that would make 1,000 feet of timber. The missionaries and natives catch a quantity of fish, including a creature called the “inconnu”—the unknown—which weighs from 40 to 50 lbs. Sometimes on a walk of fifteen miles he has seen as many as twenty or thirty bears, which are quite harmless. The long list of Alberta quadrupeds includes the wolverine—a gigantic skunk with stripes on his back and known out West as “the devil.” Among the birds are severalvarieties of the eagle, a little wild canary, and the Canadian jay, commonly called “the whisky jack.” Along the northern boundary of Alberta, around Salt River, the cariboo, the moose and other game congregate to lick the salt, “and there are quite a few buffalo” to be seen. Ducks and geese assemble around Lake Athabasca in enormous numbers, “and when killed their stomachs are found full of cranberries.”

Mr. Von Hamerstein has done a good deal of gold-mining in the Athabasca and Peace River districts. “I took out gold,” he said, “at a little bar right opposite the mouth of the Lesser Slave River in the Athabasca. I worked it for part of two summers. I would take out enough to last me for the winter and then quit. It is hard work.” He mentioned that the Indians have “gold and diamonds on the brain,” and they have brought him “rocks containing very nice garnets, but they were very mysterious about them.” He explained that there is “very good gold-mining” on the Peace River, a little below Battle River. “But the gold is so very fine that for every dollar you save there, about four and a half go away.” He also referred to many good seams of coal, and mentioned that one season, at Fort McKay, he “took out about twenty tons right on the river bank.” It was a good quality of bituminous coal. At McMurray “150 feet of salt was found,” and the Hudson Bay people “come down and take it with shovels.”

With regard to natural gas, Mr. Von Hamerstein ventilated a grievance of the backwoods. It seems that an experimental bore-hole at Pelican Portage struck “a very large volume of gas, and the well has never been plugged.” He considered it an actual sin to leave it like that, as “the gas has now been escaping for elevenyears.” It is robbing the whole district of gas that might be used in the future. It seems that the Government prospectors who made the well were boring for petroleum. The tremendous flow of natural gas interrupted their work. They left the gas alight, and returned to the spot in the following year, hoping the flow would by that time be exhausted. Instead, they found it still burning; so they went away, and never returned; and during the eleven years that have since elapsed it has continued to burn. Once when Mr. Von Hamerstein went there, the column of flame was 40 feet high; afterwards he found it had been reduced to 18 or 20 feet.

He mentioned that he has expended more than £12,000 in “punching holes through the ground.” There is no doubt in his mind that “petroleum will be found all through the country from Athabasca River to the Peace River.” It seems that, in connection with their prospecting, mining and boring operations, Mr. Von Hamerstein’s parties use a good deal of natural gas. “We light our camps with it,” he said, “and do our blacksmith’s work with it, and it comes in very handy.”

Mr. Von Hamerstein remarked: “As far as petroleum is concerned, I have all my money put into it, and there is other people’s money in it, and I have to be loyal. As to whether you can get petroleum in merchantable quantities, that is a matter about which I would not care to speak. I have been taking in machinery for about three years. Last year I placed about $50,000 worth of machinery in there. I have not brought it in for ornamental purposes, although it does look nice and homelike.”

He explained that there are sulphur beds and springsbetween McMurray and Lake Athabasca, and on the Clearwater River first-class medicinal springs. “It is a very nice, picturesque country,” this interesting witness added, “and the natives go up there and doctor themselves.”

CHAPTER XVIINEW TRANS-CONTINENTAL LINES

Often the miner, and sometimes the farmer, enters a territory before trains have superseded the canoe and the ox-wagon; and in our chapter on Northern Alberta we have glanced at the romantic life of a pioneer who, if lacking modern means of access to his market, has a delightfully free hand to tap the overflowing natural resources of the landscape surrounding him. A finer career that, I think, for young and muscular manhood than the daily sitting on a stool in smoky London City. But it is for the adventurous, resourceful, self-contained men who need no companions but their own healthy thoughts.

There is another and more popular phase of pioneerdom—that of the early settlers in a district which the railway will reach, not some day, but soon; and in this connection—let me add in a warning parenthesis—one thinks of bachelors with energy and forethought rather than of middle-aged men with nerves and a family. The farming forerunner is apt to figure in a few years as the “old-timer” with a big balance at the bank and some stories worth listening to. And note that, when he has made good progress with his tillage, the construction gangs of the on-coming track will pay high rates for his accumulated store of grain, besides offering him opportunity to earn substantial wages with his horses, his pick and his shovel.

I need attempt no enumeration of the railways being laid in Canada To-day, and to be laid in Canada To-morrow. But I will write about two of them, and about regions they will open up, since the information may well serve the reader’s personal interests.

An earlier chapter showed how the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway put a belt of prosperous civilisation across Canada. There is still only that one completed trans-continental line within the Dominion. But two others are in progress—two others that promise national advantages comparable with those that followed the making of the C.P.R. The one project—the Grand Trunk Pacific—was deliberately conceived under Government auspices; the other—the Canadian Northern—sprang spontaneously from the brains of two sagacious men.

From 1888 to 1896 no railways were constructed in Western Canada. During that period the country was “catching up,” in the matter of development, to the magnificent transit facilities provided by the C.P.R. In 1889 there was a promise of new transportation enterprise, powers being granted to a “Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company.” But for seven years its charter remained unused. Meanwhile, east of Lake Manitoba, a premature beginning was made with a railway to connect Winnipeg with Hudson Bay—the momentous development which as explained in an earlier chapter, is now about to occur. The next fact to be noted is that the inhabitants of Western Canada included two men—Mr. W. Mackenzie and Mr. D. D. Mann—who had helped as contractors to construct the C.P.R., and who, sharing an enthusiastic faith in the prairie country, became business partners. They took over the dormant charter, and made a line into theDauphin Valley; and such was the humble birth of the great system subsequently to be christened the Canadian Northern. The fortunes of that company are to-day guided by Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, acting in association with Mr. D. Blyth Hanna, who was in charge of the initial line from Gladstone to Dauphin, which was inaugurated in December, 1896.

The last-named gentleman is indirectly responsible for the following record of an incident in the early life of a great undertaking: “A train on which he happened to be travelling to Dauphin ran over a heifer and broke her leg. On the train also were a couple of butchers on their way to a construction camp at the then terminus of the line. Mr. Hanna stopped the train, had the butchers kill and dress the heifer, whose carcase, thirteen minutes after the accident, was loaded in the baggage car, and was presently sold to the contractors. The hide was sent to Winnipeg, the farmer’s claim was paid in full, and a profit of four dollars and sixty-five cents included in the first balance-sheet of the railway.”

During the past fourteen years the Canadian Northern has grown at the rate of a mile a day. To the east, the Manitoba capital was linked with Port Arthur, and of the 1909 crops the Canadian Northern carried over 37,000,000 bushels to the head of navigation. The expansion of the system in the plains is proceeding upon a plan destined to result in five principal lines running east and west of Winnipeg, with certain north-westerly deflections that will feed the new Hudson Bay route. The Canadian Northern, indeed is now opening up an acreage of land no less fertile, and more extensive, than that which has given Manitobaand Southern Saskatchewan their pre-eminence in wheat-growing.

The British Columbia Government guaranteed bonds up to £7,000 per mile to secure the expansion of the Canadian Northern from Alberta to the Pacific coast. On the passing last year of the sanctioning Act, construction was promptly started from the mouth of the Fraser River at New Westminster, so that, as provided by the statute, British Columbia shall receive its second direct communication with the Prairie Provinces in the year 1914—the year of the proposed World’s Fair at Winnipeg.

The Canadian Northern Pacific will ascend the Fraser River cañon to the Thompson River, which it will follow to Kamloops. Thence it is to strike north-westerly through the valley of the North Thompson, reaching Edmonton by way of the Yellowhead Pass, which is the easiest route through the Rocky Mountains. From Edmonton the track is already advancing to meet the British Columbia section.

Deflecting from Fort Frances, two hundred miles east of Winnipeg, the Canadian Northern has entry to Duluth, the principal United States port on the Great Lakes; and therefore the Pacific extension will afford connection between Puget Sound and Duluth on a mileage almost identical with that of the Northern Pacific—the pioneer railway across the north-western States—with the advantage that, whereas the Northern Pacific has to climb three summits (of which the highest is nearly 6,000 feet), the Canadian Northern Pacific has to climb only one summit (a mere matter of 3,700 feet).

The project for connecting the head of Lake Superior with Canada’s eastern coast was undertaken piecemeal. By far the greater part of that distance has been covered,and, as I write, remaining gaps are being surveyed. To the question, “When will the Canadian Northern extend as an unbroken system between the Atlantic and the Pacific?” I have received this answer: “A very few years will see completion.”

BUILDING THE G.T.P.R.: THE TRACK-LAYING MACHINE AT WORK

Meanwhile the Canadian Northern, following the example of the C.P.R., has inaugurated a superb trans-Atlantic steamship service between Bristol and Canada. A fleet of steamships on the Great Lakes is also controlled by the company that owes its greatness to the genius of three men.

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, incorporated by an Act of 1903, is under agreements with the Federal Government for the construction and operation of a railway, wholly within Canadian territory, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Its main line is to be of an estimated length of 3,600 miles, and there will be several branches of considerable length and importance.

This system, while traversing what is believed to be the richest mineral region of Eastern Canada, will open up an attractive area of Quebec Province and pass along the great clay belt in New Ontario (where a section has already been constructed, in connection with the Provincial Government’s line that affords access to the rich silver and nickel districts).

Concerning the prairie section lying between Winnipeg and the Rocky Mountains, Professor Thomas Shaw, formerly of Ontario Agricultural College, remarks: “The lands are of three kinds. They may be classed, first, as having special adaptation to the production of grain; second, as having such adaptation to mixed farming of which live-stock will form an important feature; and, third, as being mainly adapted to theproduction of live-stock only. The third class is not very large, the second is much larger, and the first is by far the largest.”

“The splendid native grasses,” observes Mr. E. S. Bayard (editor ofThe National Stockman and Farmer), “the good grain, the apparently favourable conditions for the growth of alfalfa and other clovers, peas, vetches and barley, and the abundance of water, all look good to a man who is interested in live-stock.” “The country pierced by the Grand Trunk Pacific in the Canadian West,” we learn from Professor E. E. Faville (editor ofSuccessful Farming), “presents opportunities not to be excelled in any part of Canada.” And this is the testimony of yet another agricultural editor: “Conditions along the Grand Trunk Pacific are generally suitable for grain-growing, including a rich soil, reinforced with a vast quantity of vegetable mould, a sufficiency of rain during the planting and growing season, bright sunshiny days during the ripening season (hastening maturity), an absence of rust (due to the dry period at time of harvest), and an apparently total absence of all insect pests.”

In May, 1906, Professor J. Macoun, of the Government Geological Survey, received instructions to make an inspection of the country, on both sides of the line, between Portage la Prairie and Edmonton. From his report I take the following facts:

All the land from the Assiniboine westward to Touchwood, and over twenty miles beyond, is more or less covered with timber, although there are often great stretches of prairie interspersed with it. Ponds, marshes, rich bottoms and numerous lakes are scattered without order throughout the country. Everywhere the soil is rich—chiefly black loam. At the Indian missionnear Touchwood, Mr. Macoun found excellent wheat, and in the garden at the post all the vegetables were of the highest quality. There is practically no bad land. On these extensive prairies, the settler’s first work is the erection of a turf house and the digging of a well; then he is established. South of Tramping Lake, many houses could be seen. The settlers met with were invariably from the United States, and all seemed pleased with their prospects.

I may mention that the company, who have no agricultural land for sale, published last June a list indicating the situation of 8,000 free homesteads available along the line.

As to the mountain section (which is now being rapidly pushed forward from both the east and the west), the country it traverses is said to be unequalled in North America for natural resources. Where the conditions do not lend themselves to agriculture, there is mining or lumbering to be developed, and in the rare districts in which those possibilities fail, there is at least trapping and hunting.

Last year I spoke with members of a party who, on behalf of the company, had just traversed the railway route across the mountains. On the beauty of the country they could not sufficiently dilate. At Yellowhead Pass, they said, you enter a vast, wild, unsubdued Alpine wonderland. It has been dedicated for ever to the use of the nation as the Jasper National Park—an expanse of indescribable grandeur, with an ocean of majestic virgin peaks comprised within the numerous well-defined ranges, snow-capped and glacier scored, which tower above a continental watershed wherein are the headwaters of five mighty rivers—the Saskatchewan, the Athabasca, the Thompson, the Columbia, and theFraser. Also I heard of forest-clad slopes, flower-strewn passes, impressive solitudes, vast snow-fields and exquisite lakes.

Far above the explorers’ heads was Roche à Miette—an imposing, sphinx-like head with a swelling Elizabethan ruff of sandstone and shales. To the east the party saw a cluster of mineral springs, two of which boil out of a mountain side in a wild secluded little valley, and have a temperature of 116 degrees.

Farther on they saw Mount Geikie towering inaccessible, its summit lost in azure at a height of 11,000 feet. To the south-east lay Simpson’s Pass, in which the mighty Athabasca is born in a region of perpetual snow and a succession of glaciers. Within that pass is the “Committee’s Punch Bowl,” whereof Sir George Simpson has written: “The relative position of the opposite waters is such as to have hardly a correlative on the earth’s surface, for a small lake sends its tribute from one end to the Columbia and from the other to the Mackenzie.”

Presently they arrived in sight of Mount Robson, the King of the Rockies, which had been recently scaled by the Rev. G. R. B. Kinney, of the Alpine Club of Canada. Impressions of that eminence must be given in the words of its hero. “The first party of white men (of which I was one),” says Mr. Kinney, “ever known to reach Mount Robson was organised by Dr. Coleman, of Toronto University. . . . Our first camp was in the deep shades of the cedar and hemlock on the Grand Forks, within a mile of where the branch coming in from around the north of the mountain joins the one from around the south. Because of my roving disposition, I became the explorer of the party, and my first discovery was that of the beautiful lake that bearsmy name. Nestling at the very foot of Mount Robson on the west, walled in on every side by majestic glacier-bearing peaks, this forest-fringed emerald gem, sentinelled by the highest and grandest mountain in all the Rockies, will rival Lake Louise for splendour. The feeling of being the first white man known to walk its shores, and looking for the first time on the glories of its brand-new wonders, filled me with a sense of awe.”

The party failed to climb Mount Robson in 1907, so they returned to the task in the following summer, when again their efforts were unavailing.

Hearing in 1909 that an American party were about to seek the coveted prize, Mr. Kinney got together a pack train of three horses and three months’ provisions, “and left Edmonton alone to capture the mountain, hoping to pick up a companion on the trail.” At the place where he swam his horses across the Athabasca, he fell in with Donald Phillips, a young Ontario guide, and enlisted his companionship. They worried their packs to an altitude of about 10,700 feet, where they succeeded in making a bed on a snow-covered shelf. “For hundreds of miles,” says Mr. Kinney, “the peaks lay at our feet. Scores of miles of the Fraser valley lay open below us like a map, and the mighty Fraser was but a tiny, crooked thread of silver. Then the valleys disappeared, and we were alone with the stars and the snow-white peaks and the grinding avalanches.

“Friday, August 13, dawned clear and cold, and by the time the sun rose we were on our way to the peak. The many cliffs we had to climb were only from ten to a hundred feet high, but those hard, smooth, icy slopes between were tipped at an angle of from fifty to seventy degrees. One slip on the part of either of usmeant a fearful slide to death thousands of feet below. The storm-clouds of sleet swept down and engulfed us while we were at little more than eleven thousand feet altitude. We had not enough provisions for another two-days’ climb. This was our last possible chance, and we despaired of ever reaching the peak. Fortunately, though the clouds were very dense and cold, but little snow fell. The storm was a blessing in a way, for though it spoiled our chance of getting pictures, it shut out of view those fearful sheer slopes below.

“In five hours of steady work we reached the peak. The clouds broke open for one brief minute, revealing to us a wonder world, with the Fraser more than eleven thousand feet beneath us; then the storm swept in worse than ever. It took us seven hours to return to our ‘highest-up’ camp, so dangerous had the softened slopes become on account of the storm, and by the time we reached our camp in the valley the climb had cost us twenty hours of hard work—but we had finally captured Mount Robson for our country and the Alpine Club of Canada. Our provisions were gone, we were hundreds of miles from civilisation; so for two weeks we lived on what mountain-gophers and birds we could get. I finally reached Edmonton September 6th, only to find that Cook and Peary monopolised the interest of the world.”

But, to continue our progress towards the Pacific, I learn that, seventy-five miles from the sea, there occurs a marvellous palisade of corrugated and terraced mountains reaching a height of 6,000 feet. Then comes a cañon one mile long with sheer walls a hundred feet high; and through that majestic avenue flows a mighty torrent. And so we continue along the Skeena River—a valley of enchantment—until we reach the new oceanport (Prince Rupert) that will be created by the Grand Trunk Pacific.

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