Canada and Newfoundland

Following the course of the French explorers, I have come up the St. Lawrence to the head of navigation, and am now in Montreal, the largest city of Canada and the second port of North America. It is an outlet for much of the grain of both the United States and Canada, and it handles one third of all the foreign trade of the Dominion. Montreal is the financial centre of the country and the headquarters for many of its largest business enterprises. In a commercial sense, it is indeed the New York of Canada, although totally unlike our metropolis.

In order to account for the importance of Montreal, it is necessary only to glance at the map. Look first at the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the broad mouth of the river! See how they form a great funnel inviting the world to pour in its people and goods. Follow the St. Lawrence down to Quebec and on by Montreal to the Great Lakes, which extend westward to the very heart of the continent. There is no such waterway on the face of the globe and none that carries such a vast commerce into the midst of a great industrial empire.

Montreal is the greatest inland port in the world. It ships more grain than any other city. It is only four hundred and twenty miles north of New York, yet it is three hundred miles nearer Liverpool. One third of the distance to that British port lies between here and the Straits of Belle Isle, where the Canadian liners first meet the waves of the open sea. The city is the terminus of the canal from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence and of Canada’s three transcontinental railways. Vessels from all over the world come here to get cargoes assembled from one of the most productive regions on the globe. Although frozen in for five months every winter, Montreal annually handles nearly four million tons of shipping, most of which is under the British flag. It has a foreign trade of more than five hundred million dollars. The annual grain movement sometimes exceeds one hundred and sixty bushels for each of the city’s population of almost a million.

In the modern sense, the port is not yet one hundred years old, though Cartier was here nearly four centuries ago, and Champlain came only seventy years later. Both were prevented from going farther upstream by the Lachine Rapids, just above the present city. Cartier was seeking the northwest passage to the East Indies, and he gave the rapids the name La Chine because he thought that beyond them lay China.

At the foot of the rapids the Frenchmen found an island, thirty miles long and from seven to ten miles wide, separated from the mainland by the two mouths of the Ottawa River. It was then occupied by a fortified Indian settlement. The presence of the Indians seemed to make the island an appropriate site on which to lay the foundations of the new Catholic “Kingdom of God,” and the great hill in the background, seven hundred and forty feet high, suggested the name, Mont Real, or Mount Royal.

Although the Indians seemed to prefer fighting the newcomers to gaining salvation, the religious motive was long kept alive, and it was not until early in the last century that the city began to assume great commercial importance. During the first days of our Revolution, General Montgomery occupied Montreal for a time, and Benjamin Franklin begged its citizens to join our rebellion. It had then about four thousand inhabitants. Even as late as 1830 Montreal was a walled town, with only a beach in the way of shipping accommodations. The other day it was described by an expert from New York as the most efficiently organized port in the world.

I have gone down to the harbour and been lifted up to the tops of grain elevators half as high as the Washington Monument. I have also been a guest of the Harbour Commission in a tour of the water-front. The Commission is an all-powerful body in the development and control of the port. Its members, who are appointed by the Dominion government, have spent nearly forty million dollars in improvements. This sum amounts to almost five dollars a head for everyone in Canada, but the port has always earned the interest on its bonds, and has never been a burden to the taxpayers.

An American, Peter Fleming, who built the locks on the Erie Canal, drew the first plans for the harbour development of Montreal. That was about a century ago. Now the city has its own expert port engineers, and last summer one of the firms here built in ninety days a grain elevator addition with a capacity of twelve hundred and fifty thousand bushels. A giant new elevator, larger than any in existence, is now being erected. It will have a total capacity of fourteen million bushels of grain.

The port handles at times as much as twenty-three hundred thousand bushels of wheat in a day. It is not uncommon for a lake vessel to arrive early in the morning, discharge its cargo, and start back to the head of the lakes before noon. Rivers of wheat are sucked out of the barges, steamers, and freight cars, and flow at high speed into the storage bins. There are sixty miles of water-front railways, most of which have been electrified. Every operation possible is performed by machinery, and there are never more than a few workmen anywhere in sight. Yet the grain business is a source of great revenue to the city, and furnishes a living to thousands of people. One of the industries it has built up is that of making grain sacks, of which one firm here turns out two and one half millions a year.

But let me tell you something of the city itself—or, better still, suppose we go up to the top of Mount Royal and look down upon it as it lies under our eyes. We shall start from my hotel, a new eight-million-dollar structure erected chiefly to accommodate American visitors, and take a coach. As a concession to hack drivers, taxis are not allowed on top of Mount Royal.

Our way lies through the grounds of McGill University, and past one of the reservoirs built in the hillside to supply the city with water pumped from the river. McGill is the principal Protestant educational institution in the province of Quebec. Here Stephen Leacock teaches political economy when he is not lecturing or writing his popular humorous essays. Besides colleges of art, law, medicine, and applied science, McGill has a school of practical agriculture. It also teaches young women how to cook. It has branches at Victoria and Vancouver in British Columbia. The medical school is rated especially high, and many of its graduates are practicing physicians in the United States.

Now we are on the winding drive leading to the top of the hill. Steep flights of wooden stairs furnish a shorter way up for those equal to a stiff climb, and we pass several parties of horseback riders. All this area is a public park, and a favourite spot with the people of the city. See those three women dressed in smart sport suits, carrying slender walking sticks. They seem very English. Over there are two girls, in knickers and blouses, gaily conversing with their young men. They have dark eyes and dark hair, with a brunette glow on their cheeks that marks them as French.

Step to the railing on the edge of the summit. If the day were clear we could see the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains of Vermont. Like a broad ribbon of silver the St. Lawrence flows at our feet. That island over there is called St. Helene, bought by Champlain as a present for his wife. Since he paid for it out of her dowry, he could hardly do less than give it her name.

That narrow thread to the right, parallel with the river, is the Lachine Canal, in which a steamer is beginning its climb to the level of Lake St. Louis. The canal has a depth of fourteen feet, and accommodates ships up to twenty-five hundred tons. The shores of the lake, which is really only a widening out of the river, furnish pleasant sites for summer bungalows and cool drives on hot nights. Nearer the city the canal banks are lined with warehouses and factories. Montreal’s manufactures amount to more than five hundred million dollars a year.

There below us is Victoria Jubilee Bridge, one and three quarters miles long. Over it trains and motors from the United States come into the city. Another railroad penetrates the heart of Montreal by a tunnel under Mount Royal that has twin tubes more than three miles in length. The Canadian Pacific Railroad has bridged the St. Lawrence at Lachine.

Most of Montreal lies between Mount Royal and the river, but the wings of the city reach around on each side of the hill. The French live in the eastern section. The western suburbs contain the homes of well-to-do English Canadians. One of them, Westmount, is actually surrounded by the city, yet it insists on remaining a separate municipality.

Mark Twain said that he would not dare throw a stone in Montreal for fear of smashing a church window. If he could view the city to-day he would be even more timid. Almost every building that rises above the skyline is a church, and the largest structures are generally Catholic schools, colleges, hospitals, or orphanages.

In the heart of Montreal’s Wall Street is the huge Church of Notre Dame. It seats twelve thousand people, and in its tower is the largest bell in America, weighing about twenty-nine thousand pounds. That dome farther over marks the location of the Cathedral of St. James. It is a replica, on a reduced scale, of St. Peter’s at Rome. It seats several thousand worshippers; nevertheless, when I went there last Sunday morning hundreds were standing, and within fifteen minutes after one service was concluded it was again filled to capacity for the next.

Downtown Montreal is built largely of limestone. It has a massive look, but skyscrapers are barred by a city ordinance. Erection of modern steel and concrete office buildings is now under way, and they stand out conspicuously against the background of more old-fashioned structures. Big as it is and important commercially, Montreal seems a city without any Main Street. St. Catherine Street has the largest retail stores and the “bright lights” of theatres and cafés, but I have seen more impressive thoroughfares in much smaller places at home. This is essentially a French city, though less so than Quebec. The French do not naturally incline toward “big business.” They seem content with small shops, which since the days of their grandfathers have grown in numbers rather than in size. They are by nature conservative, and though they make shrewd business managers, they care little for innovations in either public or private affairs.

I have visited the biggest market, the Bonsecours. It is quite as French as those I have seen in southern France. This market takes up a wide street running from the heart of Montreal down to the wharves. The street is the overflow of the market proper, which fills a church-like building covering an acre of ground. When I arrived the open space was crowded with French farmers, who in the early morning had driven their cars and light motor trucks loaded down with fruits and vegetables into the city. Fully half of the wagons were in charge of women, who looked much like those in the Halles Central in Paris. As I pressed my way through the throng many of them called out to me in French and some thrust their wares into my face and urged me to buy.

The mayor of Montreal is always a French Canadian, and he is usually reëlected for several terms. I talked with His Honour and found him a most pleasant gentleman. Discussing his city, he said:

“Montreal is thriving as never before. Our population is rapidly increasing and we expect soon to have more than a million. We have taken in some of the suburbs, as your great cities have done, and our increasing opportunities are constantly attracting new people.

“I believe we are one of the most cosmopolitan communities on the continent,” continued the Mayor. “About seventy per cent. of us are French, and a large part of the balance are English Canadians. We have also Americans, Germans, Belgians, Italians, and Chinese, besides large numbers of Irish and Scotch, and some of the peoples of southeastern Europe. We are the Atlantic gate to Canada, so that a large portion of our immigrants pass through here on their way west. Many of them go no farther, as they find employment in our varied industries.

“It costs us more than twenty million dollars a year to run Montreal, but we feel that we can afford it. The value of our taxable buildings amounts to nearly seven hundred and fifty millions, and is increasing at the rate of fifteen millions a year. We have more than one million acres of public parks, or in excess of an acre for every man, woman, and child in the city.”

Montreal is one of the great sport centres of Canada. In the warm months, the people play golf, baseball, football, and lacrosse. The latter is a most exciting game, borrowed from the Indians, with more thrills and rough play than our college football. It is a cross between hockey and basketball. A light ball is tossed from player to player by means of a little net on the end of a long curved stick, the object of each side being to get the ball into the opponents’ goal. In the game I saw, the players were often hit on the head and shoulders, and before the afternoon was over there had been a good deal of bloodshed from minor injuries. I was told, however, that this match was exceptionally rough.

In the winter, hockey is the great game of Canada. Every large city has its hockey rink, and, where there are many Scotch, curling rinks as well. In curling, great round soapstones are slid across a designated space on the ice toward the opponents, who stand guard with brooms. By sweeping the ice in front of the approaching stone, they try to veer it out of the course intended by the player who started it toward their goal.

As far as the masses of the people are concerned, skiing, snowshoeing, and coasting are the chief winter sports, and in them nearly everybody takes part. In Montreal, toboggan slides are built on the sides of Mount Royal, and its slopes are covered with young men and women on snowshoes and skis.

Montreal used to build an ice palace every winter. Then the business men feared the city was acquiring an antarctic reputation that would discourage visitors. Consequently, organized exploitation of winter sports fell off for a time, but this fall a fund of thirty thousand dollars is being subscribed to finance them on a large scale.