Not longer ago than 1900 agriculturalists contended that wheat could not be grown north of the fiftieth degree of latitude. The best quality of the grain is now raised in the regions north of the fifty-fifth degree. All the vast expanse of the Peace River country, for some 700 miles or more north of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, offers rich and attractive soil that well repays cultivation. As has been noted in preceding pages, regions that were formerly supposed to be adapted only to the most primitive conditions of life—to hunting, fishing, canoeing, or dog-sledging—are now found to be entirely amenable to ordinary life and pursuits, with a climate even less rigorous than is sometimes experienced in the winters of northern Dakota or Minnesota. The Japanese chinook wind that blows in tempers the air, and many of these northern lakes are now free from ice, for the most part, during the winter. This change of the climate has largely been brought about by the opening up of forests and dense undergrowth, which so intercepted the sun's rays that ice would be found at midsummer in the dense shades.
The valley of the Athabasca, stretching away from the portals of Jasper and of Jasper Park, is an Alpine wonderland; it is enshrined in legendary history; it is unrivalled in splendour of scenery and richness of colour; and traversed as it is by the most modern of our transcontinental lines, it becomes as easily accessible to tourists as are the romantic mountain haunts of Colorado. No more beautiful summer resort could be dreamed than that afforded by this valley. It is destined to become one of the famous mountain haunts of the world. Fine carriage roads are being constructed in Athabasca Valley that will add to the famous drives of the world, and rank with that never-to-be-forgotten drive from Sorrento to Amalfi, or that of the Corniche road on the Riviera. The Athabasca Valley and Jasper Park and Mount Robson Park will be developed into places of great international resort, as are the Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the Yosemite in the United States.
After the Bear Hunt—Moose River Forks
In the de luxe conditions of travel through all these regions to-day, it is as difficult to realise the conditions that prevailed there before the arrival of the railway line as it was for the little lad at school to transport himself into the pre-historic days before the telephone had established its universal sway. Reproved by his instructor for not knowing the date on which Columbus discovered America, he replied that he could not find it. "Not find it!" replied the irate master, "there it is, right before your eyes, 1492!" The lad looked at it. "Why, I thought that was his telephone number," he rejoined. It is quite as difficult for the traveller to-day to project himself backward, even into the environment of only a past century. The world into which we are born seems to have existed forever. It is a curious fact, but one that seems borne out by experience, that any event which just preceded one's own consciousness and memory is practically as remote as if it were many centuries away. This truth regarding the phenomena of consciousness might well enlist the scrutiny of that analyst of Time and Memory, the brilliant Henri Bergson.
Is it amid all the transcendent beauty, all the scenic glory of the great North-West that one shall listen for the call and watch for the beckoning to the Promised Land? Its prairies and valleys provide every resource for the support of life, its forests offer the most incalculable yield in lumber, its lakes and rivers teem with fish, its mountains are rich in mineral wealth, it has water power to be utilised in manufactures, lighting, and traction to an extent that defies prediction; there is every contributing cause for great cities to arise, with universities, with their laboratories and observatories for science, while, with such a port as that of Prince Rupert, the commerce of the world will be brought to these shores; nor does it require any undue effort of imagination to see, as in a vision, the libraries, the conservatories of music, the museums of art that will arise, the splendour of cities "with room in their streets for the soul." The Call of the North-West is to art, to science, to poetry, to religion. It is the call to the great spiritual realities of the spiritualised life, "the power of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty, and the power of social life and manners." The real task of man is that of the discerner of spiritual truth. "The universe is the externalisation of the soul." And in this eternal quest man shall press forward "without haste, without rest," consoled by his divination of spiritual ideals; a dweller in the atmosphere of spiritual splendour expressed in those immortal lines:
"I will wait heaven's perfect hour
Through the innumerable years!"
INDEX
Alaska, the Great Country (Ella Higginson), 204
Allandale, 117
Alpine Club of Canada, 170
Archives (Ottawa), 80
Arlette, George, 231
Art Gallery, civic (Winnipeg), 152
Aurora Borealis, 216
Bacon, James H., 192
Bancroft, George, 14
Banff, 127
Barrie, 117
Beaconsfield, Lord, 32
Bell Telephone Company, 227
Borden, Sir Robert L., 131, 188
Brett and Hall, Messrs., 190, 191, 192
Bulkley Gate, 176
Burpee, Lawrence J., F.R.G.S., 169
Button, Admiral Sir Thomas, 9
Cabot, John and Sebastian, 3, 7, 9, 47
Campers, the true, 110
Camps: Minnesing, 113; Minne Wawa, 116; Nominigan, 112, 113
Carling, Sir John, 28
Carlyle, Thomas, 148
Cartier, Sir George Etienne, 3, 30, 34, 265
Chamberlain, Edison J., 181
Château Laurier, 79
Clairoscope, the (Heydon), 138
Climatic conditions, 295
Club, Canadian Women's Press, 157
Cochrane, 144
Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur, 113, 160
Connaught, Duke of, 81
Dawson, Sir William, 37
Degroseillers, Menart Chouart, 9
Deville, Dr. E., 168
Devonshire, Duke of, 81
Donald, Dr. W. J. A., 130
Doughty, Dr. Arthur, 80
Exposition, Canadian National, 96
Falls: Bala, 119; Emperor, 172; Karabeka, 122; Punch Bowl, 169; Thousand, 172
Farm, Central Experimental, 62, 80; branches, 62
Fiddle Creek, 169
Flavell-Astoria, 225
Foxe (1631), 9
Fraser, 3
Galt, Sir Alexander, 34
Georgian Bay, 121
Geographic Board, 167
Glaciers: Borden, 177; Muir, 212, 213, 241; Taku, 206
Golden Gate, 226, 232, 233, 240
Gravenhurst, 117
Gregory, John, 15
Guyart, Marie, 49
Halifax, 63
Hays, Charles Melville, President, 4, 36, 179
Hazleton, 175
Herschell Island, 308
Heydon, Asa Thurston, 138
Higginson, Ella (Alaska, the Great Country), 204
Hill, James H., 235
Hopkins, J. Castell, 60
Hotels: Bigwin Inn, 105; Bulkley Gate, 177; Château Laurier, 153; Fort Garry, 141, 142, 153, 154, 155; Highland Inn, 108, 110; Lake-of-Bays, 108; Macdonald, 153, 156; Minaki Lodge, 123; Royal Muskoka, 118; Wawa, 101, 105, 106
Hudson's Bay Company, 9, 19, 23, 125, 126, 154, 300, 301
Hudson, Henry, 9
Hutchinson, Colonel William, 239
Immigration, 290
Indians, relations with, 301, 302, 303
James, 9
Jasper House (Hudson's Bay Company), 126
Jesuit missionaries, 13
Jobe, Miss Mary L., F.R.G.S., 174
Kelliher, J. B., 181
Kempenfeldt Bay, 117
Ketchikan, 205
Kinney, Rev. George, 171
Lakes: Athabasca, 16; Avenue, 193; Beauvert, 166; Berg, 172; Brulè, 126, 168, 170; Burns, 176; Cache, 114; Canadian, 118; Decker, 176; Edith, 166; Fairy, 108; Fish, 126; Great, 84, 121; Great Slave, 16; Helena, 172; Jasper, 126; Kathlyn, 176; Lake-of-Bays, 100, 101, 102, 103; Little Island, 114; Louise, 127; Maligne, 127, 165, 166; Mary, 108; Morse, 193; Muskoka, 117, 118, 119; Nipissing, 120, 122; Ontario, 84; Patricia, 165; Peninsula, 108; Pyramid, 165; Rock, 114; Timagami, 137; Two Rivers, 116; Wainwright, 193; White, 114
La Place Royale, 73
La Rose Mine, 173
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 42, 80, 239, 266
Laval-Montmorency, François de, 38, 266
Laval University, 59
Library of Parliament (Ottawa), 82, 83
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 21
Lumber industry, 199
Macdonald, Sir John, 3, 25, 32, 239, 303
Macdonald, Sir William, 56
MacDougall, Governor, 24
Mackenzie Basin, 296
Mance, Jeanne, 73
Marconi, 78
McLeod, Alexander, 15
M'Tavish, Simon, 15
Methodists, the, 42
Miette Hot Springs, 169
Mill, James, 5
Minaki, 123
Mines (chap. vi.), 129
Minnecoganashene, 121
Mortesen, A. M., 231
Mountains: Hudson Bay, 176; Juneau, 208; Laurentian, 119; Mount Edith Cavell, 167; Mount Hays, 191; Pyramid, 165; Robson, 168, 169, 172; Roche à Perdrix, 164; Roche Deboule, 177; Rocky, 163; Sir Robert Mount, 177; White, 107
Murphy, Mrs. Arthur (Janey Canuck), 157
New Brunswick, 60
New Liskeard, 134
Nibigami, 123
North-West Company, 15, 16, 19
North-West Passage, 15
North-Western Fur Company, 126
Nova Scotia, 47
Olier, Jean Jacque, 73
O'Neil, Rev. A. Barry, 240
Orillia, 117
Parks: Algonquin, 85, 100, 108, 109, 112, 114, 115; Jasper, 124, 125, 164, 166, 168, 169, 316; Mount Hays, 193; Mount Robson, 164, 169, 316
Passes: Peace River, 182; Pine River, 182; Wapiti, 182; Yellowhead, 158, 160, 163, 182
Perry, George H., 231
Phillips, Donald, 171
Poets, Canadian: Blewett, 273; Butler, Ethel Huestis, 267; Campbell, William W., 249, 250; Carman, Bliss, 249, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257; Coleman, Helena, 274; Crawford, Isabella V., 250, 274; Drummond, Dr. William Henry, 250; Frenchette, Louis, 270; Garvin, Mrs. John (Katharine Hale), 264; Garvin, John W., 272; Gordon, Alfred, 272; Heavyserge, Charles, 247; Huestis, Annie C., 267; Johnson, E. Pauline, 272, 284; Lampman, A., 100, 119, 249, 252; Lighthall, William Douw, 272, 274, 275; Logan, J. D., 265; Mair, Charles, 272; McArthur, Peter, 276; McCollum, Alma Frances, 272; McLennan, William, 274; Machan, Agnes Maule, 278; Norwood, Robert, 272; O'Hagan, Thomas, 270; Pickthall, Marjorie, 273, 283; Roberts, Charles G. D., 247, 248, 249; Roberts, Lloyd, 278; Scott, Canon, 249, 258; Scott, Duncan C., 83, 249, 263; Service, Robert, 172, 216, 286, 287, 288; Sheard, Virna, 272; Stringer, Arthur, 280; Warman, Cy., 57; Watson, Albert D., 272; Wetherald, Ethelyn, 272, 284
Porcupine Creek, 135
Porcupine Gold Camp, 136
Portland, 225
Prince George, 174
Puget Sound, 223
Queen Charlotte Sound, 204
Radisson, Pierre Esprit de, 9
Railways: Canadian Government, 123, 133, 137; Canadian Northern, 153; Canadian Pacific, 34; Grand Trunk, 35, 86, 120, 132, 126, 128, 137, 153, 239; Northern Ontario, 136, 137; Ontario, 144; Temiskaning, 136; White Pass and Yukon, 214
"Ready-made Farming," 146
Rebellion of 1869, 301
Redpath, Peter, 37
Rideau Canal, 65
Rideau Hall, 8
Riel, Louis, 24
Rivers: Assiniboine, 290, 299; Athabasca, 126, 163, 168; Bulkley, 175; Don, 89; Fairy, 108; Fraser, 174; French, 122; Grand Fork, 172; Maligne, 126; Moon, 119; Peace, 16; Qu'appelle, 290; Red, 15, 18, 25, 155, 299, 300; Saskatchewan, 155, 291; Shadows, 119; Skeena, 175, 177, 196; St. Lawrence, 47; Telkwa, 176; Winnipeg, 143
Robertson, Colonel Ross, 92, 302
Rosedale Ravines, 89
Rose Point, 121
Royal Mounted Police, 304-309
Ryerson, Rev. D. Egerton, 42, 266
St. Anne de Beaupré, 50
Salvation Army, the, 185, 186, 187
Sans Souci, 121
Scidmore, Eliza Ruhamah, 210, 211, 212
Seattle, 195, 200, 201, 209, 225
Sellers, Constable, 307
Seymour Narrows, 204
Sifton, Sir Clifford, 131
Silver Islet, 132
Simpson, Governor, 22
Skagway, 195, 200, 201, 214, 215
Social conditions, 293
Sowton, Mr. and Mrs., 186
Station, Doreen, 177
Steamship Co., Grand Trunk Pacific, 195, 201-218
Steam navigation, 74
Sterling, George, 231
Strachan, Bishop, 41
Straits of Georgia, 204
Strathcona and Mount Royal, Lord (Donald Smith), 3, 20, 21, 25, 37, 41, 76
Taché, Archbishop, 40
Taku Inlet, 206
Talbot, Frederick A., 181, 182, 183
Telephone, first experiments, 219, 220
Tilley, Sir Samuel L., 32
Universities: California, 242; Manitoba, 142; Toronto, 88
Universities and schools, 39
Ursuline Convent, Quebec, 49
Valleys: Athabasca, 126, 316; Nechako, 175; Thousand Falls, 172