IN THE STORM.
IN THE STORM.
Though the lightning is so fearful, and the moment well calculated to arouse solemn thoughts, we cannot restrain our laughter when two occupants of an adjoining tent rush into mine in the condition of men who have had a sousing in a pond. The wind pulled their tent up by the roots, and slapped the wet canvas down upon them in a twinkling. They crawled out like muskrats from their holes,—their night-shirts fit for mops, their clothing ready for washing, their boots full of water, their hats limp and damp and ready for moulding into corrugated tiles.
It is a ludicrous scene. I am the central figure inside the tent,—holding to the pole with all my might, bareheaded, barefooted, my body at an angle of forty-five degrees, my feet sinking into the black mire,—the dripping canvas swinging and swaying, now lifted by the wind and now flapping in my face, and drenching anew two members of Congress, who sit upon my broken-down bed, shivering while wringing out their shirts!
When the fury of the storm is over, I rush out to drive down the pins, and find that my tent is the only one in the encampment that is not whollyprostrated. The members of the party are standing likeshirtedghosts in the storm. The rotund form of our M. D. is wrapped in the oil-cloth table-cover. For the moment he is a hydropath, and complacently surveys the wreck of tents. The rain falls on his bare head, the water streams from his gray locks, and runs like a river down his broad back; but he does not bow before the blast, he breasts it bravely. I do not hear him, but I can see by his features that he is silently singing the Sunday-school song,—
"I'll stand the storm,It won't be long."
"I'll stand the storm,It won't be long."
Tents, beds, bedding, clothing, all are soppy and moppy, and the ground a quagmire. We go ankle deep into the mud. We might navigate the prairies in a boat.
Our purveyor, Mr. Brackett, an old campaigner, knows just what to do to make us comfortable. He has a dry tent in one of the wagons, which, when the rain has ceased, is quickly set up. His cook soon has his coffee-pot bubbling, and with hot coffee and a roaring fire we are none the worse for the drenching.
The storm has spent its fury, and is passing away, but the heavens are all aglow. Broad flashes sweep across the sky, flame up to the zenith, or quiver along the horizon. Bolt after bolt falls earthward, or flies from the north, south, east,and west,—from all points of the compass,—branching into beautiful forms, spreading out into threads and fibres of light, each tipped with golden balls or beads of brightest hue, seen a moment, then gone forever.
Flash and flame, bolt and bar, bead, ball, and line, follow each other in quick succession, or all appear at once in indescribable beauty and fearful grandeur. We can only gaze in wonder and admiration, though all but blinded by the vivid flashes, and though each bolt may be a messenger of death,—though in the twinkling of an eye the spirit may be stricken from its present tabernacle and sent upon its returnless flight. The display, so magnificent and grand, has its only counterpart in the picture which imagination paints of Sinai or the final judgment.
In an adjoining county the storm was attended by a whirlwind. Houses were demolished and several persons killed. It was terrifying to be in it, to hear the deafening thunder; but it was a sight worth seeing,—that glorious lighting up of the arch of heaven.
It required half a day of bright sunshine to put things in trim after the tornado, and then on Saturday afternoon the party pushed on to Cold Spring and encamped on the bank of Sauk River for the Sabbath.
CAMP JAY COOKE.
CAMP JAY COOKE.
The camp was named "Jay Cooke," in honor ofthe energetic banker who is the financial agent of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. Sweet, calm, and peaceful the hours. Religious services were held, conducted by Rev. Dr. Lord, who had a flour-barrel and a candle-box before him for a pulpit; a congregation of teamsters, with people from the little village near by, and the gentlemen composing our party, some of us seated on boxes, but most of us sitting upon the ground. Nor were we without a choir. Everybody sung Old Hundred; and though some of us could only sound one note, and that straight along from beginning to end, like the drone of a bagpipe, it went gloriously. Old Hundred never was sung with better spirit, though there was room for improvement of the understanding, especially in the base. The teamsters, after service, hunted turtle-eggs on the bank of the river, and one of them brought in a hatful, which were cooked for supper.
Our course from Cold Spring was up the Sauk Valley to Sauk Centre, a lively town with an excellent water-power. The town is about six years old, but its population already numbers fifteen hundred. The country around it is one of the most beautiful and fertile imaginable. The Sauk River is the southern boundary of the timbered lands west of the Mississippi. As we look southward, over the magnificent expanse, we see farm-houses and grain-fields, but on the north bank are dense forests.The prairie lands are already taken up by settlers, while there are many thousand acres of the wooded portion of Stearns County yet in the possession of the government. The emigrant can raise a crop of wheat the second year after beginning a farm upon the prairies, while if he goes into the woods there is the slow process of clearing and digging out of stumps, and a great deal of hard labor before he has any returns. Those prairie lands that lie in the immediate vicinity of timber are most valuable. The valley of the Sauk, besides being exceedingly fertile, has timber near at hand, and has had a rapid development. It is an inviting section for the capitalist, trader, mechanic, or farmer, and its growth promises to be as rapid in the future as it has been since 1865.
A two days' ride over a magnificent prairie brings us to White Bear Lake. If we had travelled due west from St. Cloud, along the township lines, sixty miles, we should have found ourselves at its southern shore instead of its northern. Our camp for the night was pitched on the hills overlooking this sheet of water. The Vale of Tempe could not have been fairer, and Arcadia had no lovelier scene, than that which we gazed upon from the green slope around our tents, blooming with wild roses, lilies, petunias, and phlox.
The lake stretches southward a distance of twelve miles, indented here and there by a woodedpromontory, with sandy beaches sweeping in magnificent curves, with a patch of woodland on the eastern shore, and a green fringe of stately oaks and elms around its entire circumference. As far as the vision extends we behold limitless fields, whose verdure changes in varying hues with every passing cloud, and wanting only a background of highlands to make it as lovely as Windermere, the most enchanting of all the lakes of Old England.
At our feet was the little town of Glenwood. We looked down upon a hotel with the stars and stripes waving above it; upon a neat school-house with children playing around its doors; upon a cluster of twenty or thirty white houses surrounded by gardens and flower-beds. Three years ago this was a solitude.
There is a sail-boat upon the lake, which some gentlemen of our party chartered for a fishing-excursion. Thinking perhaps we should get more fish by dividing our force, I took a skiff, and obtained a stalwart Norwegian to row it. Almost as soon as my hook touched the water I felt a tug at the other end of the line, and in came a pickerel,—a three-pounder! The Norwegian rowed slowly along the head of the lake, and one big fellow after another was pulled into the boat. There was scarcely a breath of wind, and the sails were idly flapping against the masts of the larger boat, where my friends were whiling away the time as bestthey could, tantalized by seeing that I was having all the fun. They could only crack their rifles at a loon, or at the flocks of ducks swimming along the shore.
But there was rare sport at hand. I discovered an enormous turtle lying upon the surface of the water as if asleep. "Approach gently," I said to the Norwegian. He dipped his oars softly, and sent the skiff stern foremost towards the turtle, who was puffing and blowing like a wheezy old gentleman sound asleep.
One more push of the oar and he will be mine. Too late! We have lost him. Down he goes. I can see him four feet beneath us, clawing off. No, he is coming up. He rises to the surface. I grasp his tail with both hands, and jerk with all my might. The boat dips, but a backward spring saves it from going over, and his majesty of White Bear Lake, the oldest inhabitant of its silver waters, weighing forty-six pounds,—so venerable that he wears a garden-bed of grass and weeds upon his back—is floundering in the half-filled skiff.
The boatman springs to his feet, stands on the seat with uplifted oar, undecided whether to jump overboard or to fight the monster who is making at his legs with open jaws.
By an adroit movement of an oar I whirl him upon his back, and hold him down while the Norwegian paddles slowly to the beach.
The captive rides in a meal-bag the remainder of the day, hissing now and then, and striving to regain his liberty.
Ah! isn't that a delicious supper which we sit down to out upon the prairies on the shores of Lightning Lake,—beyond the borders of civilization! It is not mock turtle, but the genuine article, such as aldermen eat. True, we have tin cups and plates, and other primitive table furniture, but hunger sharpens the appetite, and food is as toothsome as if served on gold-bordered china. Besides turtle-soup we have fresh fish and boiled duck. Who is there that would not like to find such fare inside the borders of civilization?
Beyond Pope we entered Grant County, containing 268,000 acres of land, nearly all open to settlement, and through which the main line of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad will be constructed the present year. The population of the entire county probably does not exceed five hundred, who are mostly Swedes and Norwegians. It is on the ridge, or, rather, the gentle undulating prairie, between the waters of the Red River of the North and the Chippewa River, an affluent of the Minnesota. We passed between two small lakes; the waters of one find their way to the Gulf of Mexico, the other to the Arctic Sea.
Our second Sabbath camp was upon the bank of the Red River of the North,—a beautiful stream,winding its peaceful way through a country as fertile as the Delta of the Nile.
For two days we had journeyed over rolling prairie, seeing no inhabitant; but on Saturday afternoon we reached the great thoroughfare leading from the Mississippi to the Red River,—travelled by the Fort Abercrombie stage, and by the Pembina and Fort Garry carts, by government trains and the ox-teams that transport the supplies of the Hudson Bay Company.
Sitting there upon the bank of the Red River amid the tall, rank grasses, and watching the flowing stream, my thoughts went with its tide towards the Northern Sea. It has its rise a hundred miles or more north of us, near Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi, flows southward to this point turns westward here, is joined below by a stream issuing from Lake Traverse, its most southern source, and then flows due north to Lake Winnipeg, a distance altogether of about five hundred miles.
It is the great southern artery of a water-system that lies almost wholly beyond the jurisdiction of the United States.
The Assinniboine joins it just before reaching Lake Winnipeg, and up that stream we may steam due west two hundred and thirty miles to Fort Ellis. From Winnipeg we may pass eastward to the intricate Rainy Lake system towards Superior, or westward into Lakes Manitoba and Winnipegosis, which together contain as much water as Lake Erie.
Sailing along the western shore of Lake Winnipeg two hundred miles, we reach the mouth of the Saskatchawan, large enough to be classed as one of the great rivers of the continent.
Professor Hind, of Toronto, who conducted a government exploring-party through the country northwest of Lake Superior, says: "The Saskatchawan, which gathers the waters from a country greater in extent than the vast region drained by the St. Lawrence and all its tributaries, from Lake Superior to the Gulf, is navigable for more than a thousand miles of its course, with the single exception of a few rapids near its confluence with Lake Winnipeg."
Professor Hind travelled from Fort Garry northwest over the prairies towards the Rocky Mountains, and gives the following description of his first view of the stream. He says:—
"The first view, six hundred miles from the lake, filled me with astonishment and admiration,—nearly half a mile broad, flowing with a swift current, and still I was three hundred and fifty miles from the mountains."
The small steamer now plying on the Red River might, during the season of high water, make its way from Fort Abercrombie down this river, thenthrough Lake Winnipeg, and up the Saskatchawan westward to the base of the Rocky Mountains,—a distance altogether of sixteen hundred miles.
We are in the latitude of the continental water-system. If we travel along the parallel eastward, one hundred miles will bring us to the Mississippi at Crow Wing, another hundred will take us to Lake Superior, where we may embark on a propeller of five hundred tons and make our way down through the lakes and the St. Lawrence to Liverpool, or any other foreign port; or travelling west three hundred miles will bring us to the Missouri, where we may take one of the steamers plying on that stream and go up to Fort Benton under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.
Two hundred and fifty miles farther by land, through the mining region of Montana, will bring us to the navigable waters of the Columbia, down which we may glide to the Pacific.
Nowhere in the Eastern hemisphere is there such a succession of lakes and navigable rivers, and no other country exhibits such an area of arable land so intersected by fresh-water streams.
It would be an easy matter by canals to connect the Red River, the Saskatchawan, and Lake Winnipeg with the Mississippi. We can take a canoe from this point and paddle up to Otter-Tail Lake, and there, by carrying it a mile or so over a sand-ridge, launch it on Leaf River, an affluent ofthe Crow-Wing, and so reach the Father of Waters. We may do even better than that. Instead of paddling up stream we may float down with the current a few miles to the outlet of Lake Traverse, row across the lake, and from that into Big Stone Lake, which is the source of the Minnesota River, and by this route reach the Mississippi below Minneapolis. Boats carrying two tons have frequently passed from one river to the other during the season of high water. It would not be difficult to construct a canal by which steamers might pass from the Mississippi to the base of the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. Railroads are superseding canals, and it is not likely that any such improvement of the water-way will be attempted during the present generation.
But a glance at the river and lake systems enables us to obtain a view of the physical features of the country. We see that the northwestern portion of the continent is an extended plain. The Red River here by our encampment is about nine hundred and sixty feet above the sea. If we were to float down to Lake Winnipeg, we should find that sheet of water three hundred feet lower.
Our camp is pitched to-day about ten miles west of the 96th meridian. If we were to travel south from this point 350 miles, we should reach Omaha, which is 946 feet above the sea, so that if we were sitting on the bank of the Missouri at that point,we should be just about as high above tide-water as we are while lolling here in the tall rank grass. By going from Omaha to San Francisco over the Pacific Railroad, we see the elevations of the country; then by striking westward from this point to the head-waters of the Missouri, and then down the Columbia, we shall see at once the physical features of the two sections. The engineers of the Pacific Railroad, after gaining the top of the bluff behind Omaha, have a long and apparently level sweep before them. Yet there is a gradually ascending grade. Four hundred and eighty-five miles west of Omaha we come to the 104th meridian, at an elevation of 4,861 feet. If we go west from this point to that meridian, we shall strike it at the mouth of the Yellowstone, 1,970 feet above tide-water. Near the 105th meridian is the highest point on the Union Pacific, at Sherman, which is 8,235 feet above the sea. Three hundred miles beyond Sherman, at Green River, is the lowest point between Omaha and the descent into Salt Lake Valley, 6,112 feet above the ocean level. At that point we are about twenty-six miles west of the 110th meridian. Now going northward to the valley of the Missouri once more, we find that Fort Benton is about the same number of miles west of the same meridian, but the fort is only 2,747 feet above the sea.
Just beyond Fort Benton we come to the RockyMountains,—the only range to be crossed between Lake Superior and the Columbia. We enter the Deer Lodge Pass near the 112th meridian, where our barometer will show us that we are about five thousand feet above the sea. We find that the miners at work on the western slope have cut a canal through the pass, and have turned the waters of the Missouri into the Columbia. The pass is so level that the traveller can hardly tell when he has reached the dividing line.
Going south now along the meridian, we shall find that between Green River and Salt Lake lies the Wasatch Range, which the Union Pacific crosses at an elevation of 7,463 feet at Aspen Station, 940 miles west of Omaha. From that point the line descends to Salt Lake, which is 4,220 feet above the sea. Westward of this, on the 115th meridian, 1,240 miles from Omaha, we reach the top of Humboldt Mountains, 6,169 feet above tide-water, while the elevation is only 1,500 feet on the same meridian in the valley of the Columbia.
At Humboldt Lake, 1,493 miles west of Omaha, the rails are at the lowest level of the mountain region, 4,047 feet above the sea. This is a little west of the 119th meridian, about the same longitude as Walla Walla on the great plain of the Columbia, which is less than 400 feet above the sea.
Westward of Humboldt Lake the Central Line rises to the summit of the Sierra Nevadas, crossingthem 7,042 feet above the sea, then descending at the rate of 116 feet to the mile into the valley of the Sacramento.
Now going back to the plains, to the town of Sidney, which is 410 miles west of Omaha, we find the altitude there the same as at Humboldt Lake. This level does not show itself again till we are well down on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Range. The entire country between Omaha and Sacramento, with the exception of about 510 miles, is above the level of 4,000 feet, while on the line westward from the point where I am indulging in this topographical revery there are not thirty miles reaching that altitude.
With this glance at the configuration of the continent I might make an isometric map in the sand with my fingers, heaping it up to represent the Black Hills at Sherman, a lower ridge to indicate the Wasatch Range, a depression to show the Salt Lake Valley, and then another high ridge to represent the Sierra Nevadas. I might trace the channel of the Missouri and the Columbia, and show that most of this territory is a great plain sloping northward,—that it is lower at Winnipeg than it is here, as low here as it is at Omaha.
CONFIGURATION OF THE COUNTRY.The upper line represents the elevations between Omaha and Sacramento, and the lower line between the Red River and Portland, Oregon.
CONFIGURATION OF THE COUNTRY.
The upper line represents the elevations between Omaha and Sacramento, and the lower line between the Red River and Portland, Oregon.
Taking this glance at the physical features of the northern and central portions of the continent, I can see that nature has adapted all this vast area drained by the Missouri and Yellowstone andtheir tributaries, by the Mississippi, by the Red River, the Assinniboine, the Saskatchawan, and the Columbia, to be the abode, in the future, of uncounted millions of the human race.
It is a solitude now, but the vanguard of the approaching multitude is near at hand. The farmer who lives up the stream and tends the ferry where we crossed yesterday has one neighbor within twelve miles; but a twelvemonth hence these acres will have many farm-houses. To-day we have listened to a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Lord, who preached beneath a canvas roof. We were called together by the blowing of a tin trumpet, but a year hence the sweet and solemn tones of church-bells will in all probability echo over these verdant meadows.
The locomotive—that great civilizer of this century—will be here before the flowers bloom in the spring of 1871. It will bring towns, villages, churches, school-houses, printing-presses, and millions of free people. I sit as in a dream. I can hear, in imagination, the voices of the advancing multitude,—of light-hearted maidens and sober matrons, of bright-eyed boys and strong-armed men. The wild roses are blooming here to-day, the sod is as yet unturned, and the lilies of the field hold up their cups to catch the falling dew; but another year will bring the beginning of the change. Civilization, which has crossed the Mississippi, will soon flow down this stream, and sweep on to the valley of the Upper Missouri.
Think of it, young men of the East, you who are measuring off tape for young ladies through the long and wearisome hours, barely earning your living! Throw down the yardstick and come out here if you would be men. Let the fresh breeze fan your brow, take hold of the plough, bend down for a few years to hard work with determination to win nobility, and success will attend your efforts. Is this too enthusiastic? Will those who read it say, "He has lost his head and gone daft out there on the prairies"? Not quite. I am an observer here, as I have been in other lands. I have ridden many times over the great States of the Northwest; have seen the riches of Santa Clara and Napa west of the Sierra Nevadas; have looked out over the meadows of the Yangtse and the Nile, and can say, with honest conviction, that I have seen nowhere so inviting a field as that of Minnesota, none with greater undeveloped wealth, or with such prospect of quick development.
THE RED RIVER COUNTRY.
Mondaymorning saw us on our way northward,—down the valley of the Red River.
It was exhilarating to gallop over the level prairies, inhaling the fresh air, our horses brushing the dew from the grass, and to see flocks of plump prairie chickens rise in the air and whirr away,—to mark where they settled, and then to start them again and bring them down, one by one, with a double-barrelled shot-gun. Did we not think of the stews and roasts we would have at night?
For a dozen years or more every school-boy has seen upon his map the town of Breckenbridge, located on the Red River of the North. It is off from the travelled road. The town, as one of our teamsters informed us, "has gone up." It originally consisted of two houses and a saw-mill, but the Sioux Indians swooped down upon it in 1862, and burned the whole place. A few logs, the charred remains of timbers, and tall fire-weeds alone mark the spot.
Riding on, we reached Fort Abercrombie at noon. It is situated in Dakota, on the west bank of the Red River, which we crossed by a rope ferry. Itis a resting-place for the thousands of teams passing between St. Cloud and Fort Garry, and other places in the far Northwest. The place is of no particular account except as a distributing point for government supplies for forts farther on, and the advancement of civilization will soon enable the War Department to break up the establishment.
The river is fringed with timber. We ride beneath stately oaks growing upon the bottom-lands, and notice upon the trees the high-water marks of former years. The stream is very winding, and when the spring rains come on the rise is as great, though not usually so rapid, as in the Merrimac and Connecticut, and other rivers of the East.
The valley of the Red River is not such as we are accustomed to see in the East, bounded by hills or mountains, but a level plain.
When the sky is clear and the air serene, we can catch far away in the east the faint outline of the Leaf Hills, composing the low ridge between the Red River and the Mississippi, but westward there is nothing to bound the sight. The dead level reaches on and on to the rolling prairies of the Upper Missouri.
The eye rests only upon the magnificent carpet, bright with wild roses and petunias, lilies and harebells, which Nature has unrolled upon the floor of this gorgeous palace.
I had been slow to believe all that had been told in regard to the genial climate of the Northwest, but through the courtesy of the commandant of the Fort, General Hunt, was permitted to see the meteorological records kept at the post.
The summer of 1868 was excessively warm in the Western, Middle, and Atlantic States. Here, on one day in July, the mercury rose to ninety degrees, Fahrenheit, but the mean temperature for the month was seventy-nine. In August the highest temperature was eighty-eight, the lowest fifty, the mean sixty-nine. In September the highest temperature was seventy-four, the mean forty-seven. A slight frost occurred on the night of the 16th, and a hard one on the last day of the month. In October a few flakes of snow fell on the 27th. In November there were a few inches of snow. Toward the close of December, on one day, the mercury reached twenty-seven below zero. On the 30th of January it dropped to thirty below. During this month there were four days on which snow fell, and in February there were ten snowy days. The greatest depth of snow during the winter was about eighteen inches, furnishing uninterrupted sleighing from December to March.
On the 23d of March wild geese and ducks appeared, winging their way to Lake Winnipeg and Hudson Bay. The spring opened early in April.
There are no farms as yet in the valley,—the few settlers cultivating only small patches of land.
I have thought of this section of country as being almost up to the arctic circle, and can only disabuse my mind by comparing it with other localities in the same latitude. St. Paul is in the latitude of Bordeaux, in the grape-growing district of Southern France. Here at Fort Abercrombie we are at least one hundred and fifty miles farther south than the world's gayest capital, Paris.
It is not likely that Northern Minnesota will ever become a wine-producing country, though wild grapes are found along the streams, and the people of St. Paul and Minneapolis will show us thrifty vines in their gardens, laden with heavy clusters.
Minnesota is a wheat-growing region, climate and soil are alike favorable to its production.
On the east bank of the Red River we see a field owned by Mr. McAuley, who keeps a store and sells boots, pipes, tobacco, powder, shot, and all kinds of supplies needed by hunters and frontiersmen. He sowed his wheat this year (1869) on the 5th of May, and it is now, on the 19th of July, heading out. "I had forty-five bushels to the acre last year," he says, "and the present crop will be equally good."
RED RIVER VALLEY.
RED RIVER VALLEY.
This Red River Valley throughout its length and breadth is very fertile. Here are twenty thousand square miles of land,—an area as large asVermont and New Hampshire combined,—unsurpassed for richness.
The construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the St. Paul and Pacific, both of which are to reach this valley within a few months, will make these lands virtually as near market as the farms of Central or Western Illinois. From the Red River to Duluth the distance is 210 miles in a direct line. It is 187 miles from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois; so that when the Northern Pacific Railroad is constructed to this point, Mr. McAuley will be just as near Boston or New York as the farmers who live in the vicinity of the capital of Illinois; for grain can be taken from Duluth to Buffalo, Oswego, or Ogdensburg as cheaply as from Chicago. The richness of the lands, the supply of timber on the Red River and all its branches, with the opening of the two lines of railway, will give a rapid settlement to this paradise of the Northwest.
Professor Hind, of Toronto, who was sent out by the Canadian government to explore the British Possessions northwest of Lake Superior, in his report says: "Of the valley of the Red River I find it impossible to speak in any other terms than those which may express astonishment and admiration. I entirely concur in the brief but expressive description given me by an English settler on the Assinniboine, that the valley of the Red River,including a large portion belonging to its great affluents, is a paradise of fertility."
In Mr. McAuley's garden we see corn in the spindle. The broad leaves wear as rich a green as if fertilized with the best Peruvian guano; and no wonder, for the soil is a deep black loam, and as mellow as an ash-heap. His peas were sown the 2d of June, and they are already large enough for the table! He will have an abundant supply of cucumbers by the first of August. They were not started under glass, but the dry seeds were dropped in the hills the same day he planted his peas,—the 2d of June.
Vegetation advances with great rapidity. Mr. McAuley says that vegetables and grains come to maturity ten or fifteen days earlier here than at Manchester, New Hampshire, where he once resided.
General Pope was formerly stationed at Fort Abercrombie; and in his report upon the resources of the country and its climatology, says that the wheat, upon an average, is five pounds per bushel heavier than that grown in Illinois or the Middle States.
We saw yesterday a gentleman and lady who live at Fort Garry, and who call themselves "Winnipeggers." They were born in Scotland, and had been home to Old Scotia to see their friends.
"How do you like Winnipeg?" I asked.
"There is no finer country in the world," he replied.
"Do you not have cold winters?"
"Not remarkably so. We have a few cold days, but the air is usually clear and still on such days, and we do not mind the cold. If we only had a railroad, it would be the finest place in the world to live in."
We wonder at his enthusiasm over a country which we have thought of as being almost, if not quite, out of the world, while he doubtless looks with pity upon us who are content to remain in such a cooped-up place as the East.
Most of us, unless we have become nomads, think that there are no garden patches so attractive as our own, and we wonder how other people can be willing to live so far off.
This Winnipeg gentleman says that the winters are no more severe at Fort Garry than at St. Paul, and that the spring opens quite as early.
The temperature for the year at Fort Garry is much like that of Montreal, as will be seen by the following comparison:—
This shows the mean temperatures for the three months of each season. Though the mercury is ten degrees lower at Fort Garry in the winter than at Montreal, there is less wind, fewer raw days, much less snow, and, taken all in all, the climate is more agreeable.
Bidding good by to the courteous commander of the fort, who supplies that portion of our party going to the Missouri with an escort, we gallop on through this "Paradise," starting flocks of plovers from the waving grass, and bringing down, now and then, a prairie chicken.
Far away, on the verge of the horizon, we can see our wagons,—mere specks.
What a place for building a railway! Not a hillock nor a hollow, not a curve or loss of gradient; timber enough on the river for ties. And when built, what a place to let on steam! The engineer may draw his throttle-valve and give the piston full head. Here will be the place to see what iron, steel, and steam can do.
We pitch our tents for the night in the suburbs of Burlington, not far from the hotel and post-office. The hotel, which just now is the only building in town, is built of logs. It is not very spacious inside, but it has all the universe outside!
Once a week the mail-carrier passes from Fort Abercrombie to Pembina, and as there are a half-dozen pioneers and half-breeds within a radius of thirty miles of Burlington, a post-office has been established here, which is kept in a shed adjoining the hotel.
The postmaster gives us a cordial greeting. It is a pleasure to hear this bluff but wide-awake German say, "O, I have been acquainted with you for a long while. I followed you through the war and around the world."
From first to last, in letters from the battle-field, from the various countries of the world, and in these notes of travel, it has ever been my aim to write for the comprehension of the people; and such spontaneous and uncalled-for commendation of my efforts out here upon the prairies was more grateful than many a well-meant paragraph from the public press.
While pitching our tents, a flock of pigeons flew past, and down in the woods along the bank of the river we could hear their cooing. Those who had shot-guns went to the hunt; while some of us tried the river for fish, but returned luckless. The supper was good enough, however, without trout or pickerel. Who can ask for anything better than prairie chicken, plover, duck, pork, and pigeons?
Then, when hunger is appeased, we sit around the camp-fire and think of the future of this paradise. Near by is another camp-fire.
I see by its glimmering light a stalwart man with shaggy beard and a slouched hat. The emigrant's wife sits on the other side of the fire, and by its light I see that she wears a faded linsey-woolsey dress, that her hair is uncombed, and that she has not given much attention to her toilet. Two frowzy-headed children, a boy and a girl, are romping in the grass. The worldly effects of this family are in that canvas-covered ox-wagon, with a chicken-coop at the hinder part, and a tin kettle dangling beneath the axle. This emigrant has come from Iowa. He is moving into this valley "to take up a claim." That is, he is going to select a piece of choice land under the Homestead Act, build a cabin, and "make a break in the per-ra-ry," he says.
He will be followed by others. The tide is setting in rapidly, and by the time the railway company are ready to carry freight there will be population enough here to support the road.
We have an early start in the morning. Our route is along a highway, upon which there is more travel than upon many of the old turnpikes of New England for Winnipeg, and the Hudson Bay posts receive all their supplies over this road.
At our noonday halt we fall in with Father Genin, a French Catholic priest, who lives on the bank of the river in a log-hut. He comes out to see us, wearing a long black bombazine priestlygown, and low-crowned hat. He is in the prime of life, was educated at Paris, came to Quebec, and is assigned to the Northwest. He has sailed over Lake Winnipeg, and paddled his canoe on the Saskatchawan and Athabasca.
"My parish," he says, "reaches from St. Paul to the Rocky Mountains." He speaks in glowing terms of the country up "in the Northwest,"—as if we, who are now sixteen hundred miles from Boston, had not reached the Northwest!
Our talk with Father Genin, and his enthusiastic description of the Saskatchawan Valley, has set us to thinking of this region, to which the United States once held claim, and which might now have been a part of our domain if it had not been for the pusillanimity of President Polk.
Mackenzie was the first European who gave to the world an account of the country lying between us and the Arctic Sea. He was in this valley in 1789, and was charmed with it. He made his way down to Lake Winnipeg, thence up the Saskatchawan to Athabasca Lake. At the carrying-place between the Saskatchawan and Athabasca rivers, at Portage la Loche, he discovered springs of petroleum, which are thus described:—
"Twenty-five miles from the fork are some bituminous springs, into which a pole may be inserted without the least resistance. The bitumen is in a fluid state, and when mixed with resin isused to gum the canoes. In its heated state it emits a smell like sea-coal. The banks of Slave River, which are elevated, discover veins of the same bituminous quality."1
His winter quarters were near Lake Athabasca, at Fort Chippewayan, more than thirteen hundred miles northwest from Chicago. He thus writes in regard to the country:—
"In the fall of 1787, when I first arrived at Athabasca, Mr. Pond was settled on the bank of the Elk River, where he remained three years, and had as fine a kitchen-garden as I ever saw in Canada" (p. 127).
Of the climate in winter he says that the beginning was cold, and about one foot of snow fell. The last week in December and the first week in January were marked by warm southwest breezes, which dissolved all the snow. Wild geese appeared on the 13th of March; and on the 5th of April the snow had entirely disappeared. On the 20th he wrote:—
"The trees are budding, and many plants are in blossom" (p. 150).
Mackenzie left the "Old Establishment," as one of the posts of the Hudson Bay Company was called, on the Peace River, in the month of May, for the Rocky Mountains. He followed the stream through the gap of the mountains, passed to thehead-waters of Fraser River, and descended that stream to the Pacific. He thus describes the country along the Peace River:—
"This magnificent theatre of nature has all the decorations which the trees and animals can afford it. Groves of poplars in every shape vary the scene, and their intervales are relieved with vast herds of elk and buffaloes,—the former choosing the steeps and uplands, the latter preferring the plains. The whole country displayed an exuberant verdure; the trees that bear blossoms were advancing fast to that delightful appearance, and the velvet rind of their branches reflecting the oblique rays of a rising or setting sun added a splendid gayety to the scene which no expressions of mine are qualified to describe" (p. 154).
This was in latitude 55° 17', about fourteen hundred miles from St. Paul.
The next traveller who enlightened the world upon this region was Mr. Harman, a native of Vergennes, Vermont, who became connected with the Northwest Fur Company, and passed seventeen years in British America. He reached Lake Winnipeg in 1800, and his first winter was passed west of the lake. Under date of January 5th we have this record in his journal:—
"Beautiful weather. Saw in different herds at least a thousand buffaloes grazing" (p. 68).
"February 17th.—We have now about a footand a half of snow on the ground. This morning one of our people killed a buffalo on the prairie opposite the fort" (p. 73).
"March 14th.—The greater part of the snow is dissolved."2
On the 6th of April Mr. Harman writes: "I have taken a ride on horseback to a place where our people are making sugar. My path led me over a small prairie, and through a wood, where I saw a great variety of birds that were straining their tuneful throats as if to welcome the return of another spring; small animals were running about, or skipping from tree to tree, and at the same time were to be seen, swans, bustards, ducks, etc. swimming about in the rivers and ponds. All these things together rendered my ramble beautiful beyond description" (p. 75).
During the month of April there were two snow-storms, but the snow disappeared nearly as fast as it fell.
One winter was passed by Mr. Harman in the country beyond Lake Athabasca, on the Athabasca River, where he says the snow during the winter "was at no time more than two feet and a half deep" (p. 174).
On May 6th he writes: "We have planted our potatoes and sowed most of our garden-seeds" (p. 178).
"June 2d.—The seeds which we sowed in the garden have sprung up and grown remarkably well. The present prospect is that strawberries, red raspberries, shad-berries, cherries, etc. will be abundant this season."
"July 21st.—We have cut down our barley, and I think it is the finest that I ever saw in any country. The soil on the points of land along this river is excellent" (p. 181).
"October 3d.—We have taken our potatoes out of the ground, and find that nine bushels which we planted on the 10th of May last have produced a little more than one hundred and fifty bushels. The other vegetables in our garden have yielded an increase much in the same proportion, which is sufficient proof that the soil of the points of land along this river is good. Indeed, I am of opinion that wheat, rye, barley, oats, peas, etc. would grow well in the plains around us" (p. 186).
He passed several winters at the head-waters of Peace River, in the Rocky Mountains. In his journal we have these records:—
"May 7th.—The weather is very fine, and vegetation is far advanced for the season. Swans and ducks are numerous in the lakes and rivers."
"May 22d.—Planted potatoes and sowed garden-seeds."
"October 3rd.—We have taken our vegetables out of the ground. We have forty-one bushels of potatoes, the produce of one bushel planted last spring. Our turnips, barley, etc. have produced well" (p. 257).
In 1814 he writes under date of September 3d: "A few days since we cut down our barley. The five quarts which I sowed on the 1st of May have yielded as many bushels. One acre of ground, producing in the same proportion, would yield eighty-four bushels. This is sufficient proof that the soil in many places in this quarter is favorable to agriculture" (p. 267).
Sir John Richardson, who explored the arctic regions by this route, says: "Wheat is raised with profit at Fort Liard, lat. 60° 5' N., lon. 122° 31' W., and four or five hundred feet above the sea. This locality, however, being in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, is subject to summer frosts, and the grain does not ripen every year, though in favorable seasons it gives a good return."
In 1857, Captain Palliser, of the Royal Engineers, was sent out by the English government to explore the region between Lake Superior and the Pacific, looking towards the construction of a railroad across the continent, through the British Possessions. His report to the government is published in the Blue-Book.
Speaking of the country along the Assinniboine,he says: "The Assinniboine has a course of nearly three hundred miles; lies wholly within a fertile and partially wooded country. The lower part of the valley for seventy miles, before it joins the Red River, affords land of surpassing richness and fertility" (p. 9).
Of the South Saskatchawan, he says that "it flows through a thick-wooded country" (p. 10).
The natural features of the north branch of that river are set forth in glowing language:—
"The richness of the natural pasture in many places on the North Saskatchawan and its tributary, Battle River, can hardly be exaggerated. Its value does not consist in its long rank grasses or in its great quantity, but from its fine quality, comprising nutritious species of grasses, along with natural vetches in great variety, which remain throughout the winter juicy and fit for the nourishment of stock.
"Almost anywhere along the Saskatchawan a sufficiency of good soil is everywhere to be found, fit for all purposes, both for pasture and tillage, extending towards the thick-wooded hills, and also to be found in the region of the lakes, between Forts Pitt and Edmonton. In almost every direction around Edmonton the land is fine, excepting only the hilly country at the higher level, such as the Beacon Hills; even there there is nothing like sterility, only the surface is too much brokento be occupied while more level country can be obtained" (p. 10).
Going up the Saskatchawan he discovered beds of coal, which are thus described:—
"In the upper part of the Saskatchawan country, coal of fine quality occurs abundantly, and may hereafter be very useful. It is quite fit to be employed in the smelting of iron from the ore of that metal, which occurs in large quantities in the same strata" (p. 11).
Two hundred miles north of this coal deposit, Mackenzie discovered the springs of petroleum and coal strata along the banks of the streams. Harman saw the same.
Palliser wintered on the Saskatchawan, and speaks thus of the climate:—
"The climate in winter is more rigorous than that of Red River, and partial thaws occur long before the actual opening of spring. The winter is much the same in duration, but the amount of snow that falls rapidly decreases as we approach the mountains. The river generally freezes about the 12th of November, and breaks up from the 17th to the 20th of April. During the winter season of five months the means of travelling and transport are greatly facilitated by the snow, the ordinary depth of which is sufficient for the use of sleighs, without at the same time being great enough to impede horses.
"The whole of this region of country would be valuable, not only for agriculture, but also for mixed purposes of settlement. The whole region is well wooded and watered, and enjoys a climate far preferable to that of either Sweden or Norway. I have not only seen excellent wheat, but Indian corn (which will not succeed in England or Ireland), ripening on Mr. Pratt's farm at the Qui Appelle Lakes in 1857" (p. 11).
Father De Smet, a Catholic missionary, in 1845 crossed the Rocky Mountains from British Columbia, eastward to the head-waters of the south branch of the Saskatchawan, and passed along the eastern base of the mountains to Edmonton. He characterizes the country as "an ocean of prairies."
"The entire region," he says, "in the vicinity of the eastern chain of the Rocky Mountains, serving as their base for thirty or sixty miles, is extremely fertile, abounding in forests, plains, prairies, lakes, streams, and mineral springs. The rivers and streams are innumerable, and on every side offer situations favorable for the construction of mills. The northern and southern branches of the Saskatchawan water the district I have traversed for a distance of about three hundred miles. Forests of pines, cypress, cedars, poplar and aspen trees, as well as others of different kinds, occupy a large portion of it. The country would be capable of supporting a large population, and the soil is favorable for the production of wheat, barley, potatoes, and beans, which grow here as well as in the more southern countries."
It is a region abundantly supplied with coal of the lignite formation. Father Genin has a specimen of lignite taken from the banks of Maple River, about seven miles from our camp. It is a small branch of the Red River flowing from the west. If we were to travel northwest a little more than one hundred miles, we should come to the Little Souris or Mouse River, a branch of the Assinniboine, where we should find seams of the same kind of coal. Continuing on to the Saskatchawan, we shall find it appearing all along the river from Fort Edmonton to the Rocky Mountains, a distance of between three and four hundred miles.
Dr. Hector, geologist to the exploring expedition under Captain Palliser, thus describes the coal on Red Deer River, a branch of the South Saskatchawan:—
"The lignite forms beds of great thickness, one group of seams measuring twenty-five feet in thickness, of which twelve feet consist of pure compact lignite. At one point the seam was on fire, and the Indians say that for as long as they can remember the fire at this place has not been extinguished, summer or winter" (p. 233).
Father De Smet passed down the river in 1845, and it was then on fire. If we were to travelnorthward from the Red Deer to the Peace River, we should find the same formation; and if we were to glide down the Mackenzie towards the Arctic Sea, we should, according to the intrepid voyager whose name it bears, find seams of coal along its banks.
Mr. Bourgeau, botanist to the Palliser Exploring Expedition, in a letter addressed to Sir William Hooker, has the following remarks upon the capabilities of the Northwest for supporting a dense population:—
"It remains for me to call the attention of the English government to the advantages there would be in establishing agricultural districts in the vast plains of Rupert's Land, and particularly in the Saskatchawan, in the neighborhood of Fort Carlton. This district is much better adapted to the culture of staple crops than one would have been inclined to believe from this high latitude. In effect, the few attempts at the culture of cereals already made in the vicinity of the Hudson Bay Company's posts demonstrate by their success how easy it would be to obtain products sufficiently large to remunerate the efforts of the agriculturist. Then, in order to put the land under cultivation, it would be necessary only to till the better portions of the soil. The prairies offer natural pasturage as favorable for the maintenance of numerous herds as if they had been artificially created. The construction of houses for habitation and for pioneer development would involve but little expense, because in many parts of the country, independent of wood, one would find fitting stones for building purposes, and it is easy to find clay for bricks.... The vetches found here are as fitting for nourishment of cattle as the clover of European pasturage. The abundance of buffaloes, and the facility with which herds of horses and oxen increase, demonstrate that it would be enough to shelter animals in winter, and to feed them in the shelters with hay.... In the gardens of the Hudson Bay Company's posts, beans, peas, and French beans have been successfully cultivated; also cabbages, turnips, carrots, rhubarb, and currants" (p. 250).
The winters of the Northwest are wholly unlike those of the Eastern and Middle States. The meteorologist of Palliser's Expedition says: "Along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains there is a narrow strip of country in which there is never more than a few inches of snow on the ground. About forty miles to the eastward, however, the fall begins to be much greater, but during the winter rarely exceeds two feet. On the prairies the snow evaporates rapidly, and, except in hollows where it is drifted, never accumulates; but in the woods it is protected, and in spring is often from three to four feet deep" (p. 268).
Captain Palliser and party travelled from post to post during the winter without difficulty. In February, 1859, he travelled from Edmonton to Lake St. Ann's. On two nights the mercury was frozen in the bulb,—as it is not unfrequently at Franconia, New Hampshire. Exclusive of those two cold nights, the mean of the temperature was seventeen. He says: "This was a trip made during the coldest weather experienced in the country. If proper precautions are taken, there is nothing merely in extreme cold to stop travelling in the wooded country, but the danger of freezing from exposure upon the open plains is so great that they cannot be ventured on with safety during any part of the winter" (p. 268).
The Wesleyan Missionary Society of England has a mission at Edmonton, under the care of Rev. Thomas Woolsey. The following extracts from his journal will show the progress of the winter and spring season in 1855:—
The succeeding winter was more severe, and three feet of snow fell during the season, but the spring opened quite as early as in 1856. The comparative mildness of the winter climate of all this vast area of the West and Northwest, at the head-waters of the Missouri, and in the British dominions, as far north as latitude 70°, is in a great measure due to the warm winds of the Pacific.
In the autumn of 1868 I crossed the Pacific, from Japan to San Francisco, in the Pacific mail-steamer Colorado. Soon after leaving the Bay of Yokohama we entered the Kuro-Siwo, or the Black Ocean River of the Asiatic coast. This ocean current bears a remarkable resemblance to the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic. Along the eastern shore of Japan the water, like that along Virginia and the Carolinas, is very cold, but we suddenly pass into the heated river, which, starting from the vicinity of the Philippine Islands, laves the eastern shore of Formosa, and rushes past the Bay of Yeddo at the rate of eighty miles per day. This heated river strikes across the Northern Pacific to British Columbia and Puget Sound, giving a genial climate nearly up to the Arctic Circle. No icebergs are ever encountered in the North Pacific. The influence of the Kuro-Siwo upon the Northwest is very much like that which the Gulf Stream has upon England and Norway. It gives to Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Vancouver Island winters so mild that the people cannot lay in a supply of ice for the summer. Roses bloom in the gardens throughout the year. So the water heated beneath the tropics, off the eastern coast of Siam and north of Borneo, flows along the shore of Japan up to the Aleutian Isles, imparting its heat to the air, which, under the universal law, ascends when heated, and sweeps over the Rocky Mountains, and tempers the climate east of them almost to Hudson Bay.
So wonderfully arranged is this mighty machinery of nature, that millions of the human race in coming years will rear their habitations and enjoy the blessings of civilization in regions that otherwise would be pathless solitudes.
In the meteorological register kept at Carlton House, in lat. 52° 51', on the eastern limit of the Saskatchawan Plain, eleven hundred feet above the sea, we find this entry: "At this place westerlywinds bring mild weather, and the easterly ones are attended by fog and snow."
By the following tabular statement we see at a glance the snow-fall at various places in the United States. We give average depths for the winter as set down in Blodget's climatology.
From this testimony I am impelled to believe that the immense area west of Lake Superior and south of the 60th parallel is as capable of being settled as those portions of Russia, Sweden, and Norway south of that degree, now swarming with people. That parallel passes through St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Christiania, and the Shetland Isles on the eastern hemisphere, Fort Liard and Central Alaska on the western.