Canada, the Spellbinder

To find this possibly incalculable wealth in the densely wooded wilderness is a continually increasing surprise. The Porcupine district, as well as the Cobalt region, is reached by the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, a line of two hundred miles in length, built by the Province of Ontario, and furnishing connection between the Transcontinental line from Quebec to Winnipeg, north of the lakes, and the cities in the southern portion of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The construction of this connecting line led to the discovery of Lake Timagami (one of the popular summer resorts), and about thirty miles north of the lake the first indication of silver was accidently found by a workman who hurled his hammer at a scampering rabbit and hit a rock instead, chipping off a layer that disclosed a vein of almost pure silver. This initiated the famous La Rose mine, taking its name from the man who made this fortunate throw of his hammer, and within the succeeding four years this immediate region was capitalised at some five hundred millions. While the Cobalt silver mines, then, owe their discovery to this employee on the line, the engineers prospecting for the grade of the Grand Trunk Pacific accidentally uncovered vast coal-fields in Alberta.

This Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway connects the Grand Trunk System at North Bay with the Canadian Government lines at Cochrane. The opening up of all this country has not only resulted in the exploiting of these famous mines, but has brought to knowledge the existence of the largest tract of pulpwood in the world. The belt of these forests extends from Ontario to Quebec and westward to the prairies of Manitoba, a thousand miles of almost unbroken woodland.

The hydraulic mechanism used in prospecting for ore is one of the marvels of inventive genius. One man can operate the powerful lever that turns on a torrent of water against trees, huge stumps, vast rocks, and sends them rolling down the hillside. All obstruction, indeed, the very hill itself, is washed down. The twentieth century will always stand out as a remarkable era for the invention of mechanism to harness and utilise power hitherto undreamt of for practical application. These inventions are securing the increasing spiritual liberation of man. When he is enabled to harness the powers of the ether; to send the lightning on his errands; to bridle a force that no man ever saw or touched; when he can cause the waves of the ether to serve his chariot wheels, he has indeed transformed the world in which he finds himself.

There are rumours of a recent invention made by Mr. Asa Thurston Heydon in the Yukon that may largely revolutionise the mining industry. It was in the middle 'eighties that Mr. Heydon began studying the primitive divining-rod, the use of which he was inclined to believe was based upon some germs of scientific truth. He thought it possible that some natural law lay hidden in the garments of superstition. For thirty years he experimented and observed. This research has led him to what he believes is a series of discoveries, one of which is his invention called the clairoscope, which is the diviner for substances that are in the earth. Fitted with one or another substance attached, it turns to that which corresponds with the given thing attached. He calls the instrument the clairoscope and the result obtained the clairum. The clairum, Mr. Heydon explains, is the counterpart of the spectrum. The latter is limited to the luminous, the former to the non-luminous, rays. The spectrum exemplifies one pole of the spherical organisation of energy, and the clairum exemplifies the opposite pole. Mr. Heydon's researches are based on his conviction that everything, organic and inorganic, from electrons to the mighty universe itself, is surrounded by a sphere; that these spheres blend and combine "in accordance with the laws of force-centres," but that in all combinations "they retain their identity as do rays of light." This interesting speculator holds that the non-luminous rays are constant, changing only from attraction to repulsion, and that they are the radii of the spheres. He believes that the distinctive energy that operates the clairoscope is a higher dynamic energy; nothing less, indeed, than that vital force which is characteristic of all life. "A name must be found," he says, "for this vital force which is rhythmically circulating throughout the universe, forming the pulse of existence. The dream of the alchemist is founded in the nature of things," continues Mr. Heydon, "and will be realised when mankind shall have discovered the simple process of polarising and depolarising electrons at will. This will induce the polarisation of the correlated material sphere, and an electron of the desired element will awaken from its slumbers."

To what degree Mr. Heydon's theories will bear the test of his future investigations it is impossible to conjecture; but it is already true that the clairoscope is being used to some extent to locate minerals and has proved useful.

To descend into a mine, down to a three hundred and fifty feet level, and see the strange panorama of life that is before one's eyes, is a novel experience. Into the cage steps the little party, and the downward journey begins. All is dark save for the lamps of the miners, affixed to their caps, and the lights that are swung give a fitful and weird illumination. Through the narrow aisles on every level push-carts are passing, and the visitor must pack himself into as little space as possible as he stands against the wall to let the traffic pass by. Everything is dripping; one walks in mud and water, and sees the glisten of the wet walls. The air is cold and damp. It seems inconceivable that men can work under such conditions, yet the visitor is assured by some of the workmen themselves that they prefer this labour to any of the employments open to them on the surface of the earth. This subterranean world incites curiosity, interest, and still the onlooker is not sorry when he finds himself again in the air and sunlight above.

On the hills about Cobalt are perched attractive cottages and bungalows, and the quiet, pleasantly social little town bears no trace of the traditional atmosphere of the mining-camp of that peculiar order that has been most vividly derived from the pictures in the novels of Bret Harte.

CHAPTER VII

WINNIPEG AND EDMONTON

The traveller whose imagination had vaguely pictured Winnipeg as a fur-trading station somewhere toward the North Pole would be aroused from such reveries by the spectacle of this brilliant and cosmopolitan centre, with its beautiful architecture, its broad boulevards, the magnificent Fort Garry Hotel on the site of the ancient fort, and the civic centre in the Free Exposition building, where specimens of all the great products of the Canadian West are displayed. Winnipeg, which in 1870 had a population of two hundred and fifteen people, in 1917 records its quarter of a million. It grows at such a rate that it is unsafe to prophesy to what degree these figures may be increased in the immediate future. A representative of Baedeker, who had been sent to the United States to prepare a volume on its western regions, complained to a fellow-voyager on the ocean steamer, when returning to his own country, that it was mathematically impossible to cope with the Far West with any accuracy. "Why, I prepare the exact population of a town—Seattle, for instance—and before I can get my report into print the population has doubled." This was naturally a tangible grievance, and one which was extremely difficult for the statistician to meet. Possibly the same baffling problem of accuracy confronts him who would record the population of Winnipeg.

From the tower of the Fort Garry Hotel there is revealed a scene hardly to be compared with any other on the continent. The spectator can see broad boulevards, many of which are a hundred and thirty-two feet in width; an electric railway, operating hundreds of cars, whose service is said to be the most perfect of that of any city in the States or in Canada; streets paved with asphalt and macadam; extensive parks, where equipages not less fine than those of Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne, are seen rolling along the smooth, winding roads; churches, numbering nearly two hundred; the University of Manitoba; the art school; and the unexcelled beauty of miles of residential regions, laid out in those graceful curves and crescents so familiar in the West End of London—all these are indicated in this great centre of commercial, industrial, and social life.

To those who had thought of Winnipeg as being remote, if not inaccessible, it is rather surprising to find that this metropolis of Western Canada is but twenty-seven hours from Chicago and but forty-five hours from Washington. At the time of the Chicago Exposition of 1893, one of the most popular routes between Boston and that city was through the Hoosac tunnel, on which the passenger boarded his train in Boston at seven P.M., and arrived in Chicago at seven the second morning after—a journey of thirty-six hours, which no one at that time regarded as being too long. Nor does it require the memory of that traditional being, the "oldest inhabitant," to recall that when the Pennsylvania Railroad succeeded in reducing the time between New York and Chicago to twenty-five hours, it was then held to be much more of a marvel than is now the eighteen-hours' journey of the Twentieth-Century Flyer. Winnipeg is forty-eight hours from Montreal, fifty-three from Quebec, and only forty-five from New York. No city on the western continent is more splendidly equipped than Winnipeg for business enterprises, great conventions, and large convocations of all orders. Besides the spacious and superb Fort Garry Hotel, she has more than fifty other guest-houses and one of the largest departmental stores on the continent; she has parks covering more than five hundred acres; she has more than twenty banks; and in a single year these banks did a business of almost one billion seven hundred million dollars. All the grain business of the Canadian West centres in Winnipeg. In the magnificent Union Station of white marble, costing some two millions of dollars, there are twenty-seven railway tracks, long distance and local, all of which radiate from the city. The Winnipeg River offers unmeasured facilities for power, a total of sixty thousand horse-power being already developed, which is sold to manufacturers and other consumers at the cost of production. There are over four hundred successful factory plants in operation, employing twenty thousand factory workers. Thus told in bald statistics alone, the story of Winnipeg is singularly impressive; but these facts and figures are but the mere skeleton of the story of Winnipeg. In this northern metropolis the polarity of life in general is changed.

Union Station and Fort Garry Hotel, Winnipeg

A signal aim in this city is the culture of beauty. In the laying out of streets and avenues the question of vista and the composition, so to speak, of the landscape has received unfailing consideration. All the country about is finely wooded, and with its rolling declivities offers cool and shaded nooks and spaces for summer outings. Here and there are lofty elms, and occasional wooded areas of many acres in extent. These are a surprise to the traveller whose conceptions of this region have been those of a bare and more or less desolate prairie land. The nature of the soil of the neighbourhood is a factor of determining importance. The clay belt begins at Cochrane, the junction of the Transcontinental line with the Ontario Government Railway, and it extends for three hundred miles to the west, affording a tract with plentiful water and with every productive condition. The provision of population for this clay belt is now a foremost question in Canada and engages the attention of both the Province of Ontario and of the Transcontinental Railway. The generation that cleared the bush lands has almost passed away, and the present settlers have different ideas of pioneer life. One age does not repeat itself. The continual invention of machinery that liberates human life has its dominating influence, and all signs of the times point to new methods of entering on new settlements. The British settlers who arrive are not accustomed to the clearing of timber-lands, yet this clay belt has probably resources to sustain a population of from one to two million people, and the climate is no more severe than that of Quebec or of northern Maine. The transformation of this region of wilderness into a well-populated country would provide a much-needed link between Eastern and Western Canada. The distances, as we have seen, between Winnipeg and other of the great centres both in the Dominion and in the United States are by no means appalling; and with the splendid railway facilities now provided by the new Trans-continental route between Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal, by way of Cochrane, Cobalt, and North Bay, across New Ontario, and through the Highlands of the same Province, a route that only opened on July 13, 1915, this region is abounding in attractions for the new settler.

There are two sources of revenue which are of unmeasured value; one is that of pulpwood which can be advantageously disposed of, and the other that of employment in constructing government roads. Another inducement will be that of the "ready-made farm." This scheme has been utilised to some extent in Alberta and in New Brunswick as an inducement to colonists. Thousands of these farms, on which buildings have been erected and a small area placed under cultivation, with stock and farming implements furnished, have been placed at the disposal of settlers, each for a small cash payment, and with the conditions of subsequent payments made most liberal and lenient. In Ontario the scheme has not yet been worked out in detail; but the government of the Province is favourable toward adopting a similar system, building a house and barn and clearing ten acres on a farm of a hundred and sixty acres, as well as advancing a limited sum of money for the purchase of stock. The Ontario government also propose arrangements for assisting the farmer in marketing his pulpwood.

All these conditions of the surrounding country are of vital importance to the city of Winnipeg. The settlement of wild lands, the development of industrial resources, centres of population springing up in new sections—all these directly contribute to the growth and importance of the metropolitan centre. The civilisation of Canada has proceeded more rapidly in the transformation of the wilderness into populated lands than did that of the western part of the United States. Four years after the formation of the Dominion (July 1, 1867) Canada had extended across the entire continent. By the conditions of the time, both in applied inventions and in the degree of progress achieved by man, Canada has escaped the disadvantage that the long efforts of pioneer life entail upon a nation. The new towns and cities begin with well-paved streets, electric lighting, and electric transit.

Winnipeg, since 1899, has owned and operated its own water system, which is the hydro-electric power plant. The architecture is largely of a permanent nature, the designs following the latest developments of taste, skill, and efficient construction. Much of it compares favourably with the best architecture of New York or Washington. The blocks of handsome residences; the architectural taste of the public buildings; and the constant series of lawns, with their flowers and plants, leafy shrubs and luxuriant trees, make the city one of exceeding beauty and attractiveness. Churches, schools (and they are among the best in Canada), theatres, and lecture halls abound; the libraries are particularly enlightened and helpful and their growth and extension are only comparable with the library developments of St. Paul and Minneapolis, of Los Angeles and other young cities of the most advanced degrees of progress. "The world of books is still the world," wrote Mrs. Browning; and the community that renews its resources from the best that has been thought and said in the world, as it is conserved in literature, will be that which is the more efficient in all that makes for human advancement. Familiarity with the best literature has the most potent of influences for good taste, good manners, high ideals of conduct, mutual courtesy, and self-respect.

Canada cannot afford to ignore Matthew Arnold's wise warning not to mistake material achievement for civilisation. In its true and full significance, civilisation means "the humanisation of man in society; his making progress there towards his true and full humanity. We hear a nation called highly civilised," Mr. Arnold proceeds to say, "by reason of its industry, commerce, and wealth, or by reason of its liberty or equality, or by reason of its numerous churches, schools, libraries, and newspapers. But there is something in human nature, some instinct of growth, some law of perfection, which rebels against this narrow account of the matter. Do not tell me, says human nature, of the magnitude of your industry and commerce; of the beneficence of your institutions, your freedom, your equality; of the great and growing number of your churches and schools, libraries and newspapers; tell me also if your civilisation—which is the grand name you give to all this development—tell me if your civilisation is interesting."

Carlyle, as Matthew Arnold reminds us, once wrote to a younger brother who thought of emigrating to the United States: "Could you banish yourself from all that is interesting to your mind, forget the history, the glorious institutions, the noble principles of old Scotland—that you might eat a better dinner, perhaps?"

Mr. Arnold hastens to disclaim any sympathy with the idea that young men should not emigrate; it was the term "interesting" that caught his eye in Carlyle's counsel, and it is for that element that he makes his eloquent plea. It is that element, moreover, which the young and splendid city of Winnipeg may well reckon as one of its fundamental characteristics. In the Journal Intime of M. Amiel, the reader finds him saying that "the human heart is, as it were, haunted by confused reminiscences of an age of gold; or, rather, by aspirations toward a harmony of things which every-day reality denies to us." In all the appointments of wealth and luxury, M. Amiel made an effort to realise or to approach this ideal, and thus finds in this order of life one form of poetry. Society demands distinction and beauty as a component part of human nature's daily food.

Obviously, a new country cannot offer archives of long centuries of history, nor ruined castles, nor an assortment of myth and tradition. These may and do have their part in that atmosphere of interest which is the nurture of the intellectual powers; but the Future is no less stimulating than the Past; prophecy is not less alluring than history. The art of life itself is the finest of all the fine arts and to the seeing eye may invest a city with as much fascination as is to be derived from the galleries of the Louvre or of the Vatican. The spiritual life of all the ages is preserved in libraries, and the youngest of cities may well be heir to the records of this life. "No matter how poor I am," said William Ellery Channing; "no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling—if the sacred virtues will enter and take up their abode under my roof; if Milton will sing of Paradise; and Shakespeare open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart; if Franklin will enrich me with his practical wisdom—I shall not pine for intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live."

It is not only noble art and beautiful architecture combined with historic and social traditions that appeal to all that is best in life. What could more readily appeal to the imagination than that visible expression of faith in the future of the Great Dominion, the completion of a new great transcontinental line making possible direct transit across Canada from ocean to ocean? What could more appeal to the imagination than the marvellous invention of the wireless control of moving trains as has been already described in a previous chapter?

What can, indeed, be a feature of greater interest than the practical creation of a new world; the power of man conquering and transforming the domain of Nature? Do not Romance and Poetry spring up here anew? Science and the Muses have a subtle basis of understanding. James Russell Lowell has interpreted this mutual comprehension in the lines:

"He who first stretched his nerves of subtle wire
Over the land and through the sea-depths still,
Thought only of the flame-winged messenger
As a dull drudge that should encircle earth
With sordid messages of Trade, and tame
Blithe Ariel to a bagman. But the Muse
Not long will be defrauded. From her foe
Her misused wand she snatches; at a touch
The Age of Wonder is renewed again,
And to our disenchanted deity restores
The Shoes of Swiftness that gave odds to Thought;
The Cloak that makes invisible; and with these
I glide an airy fire from shore to shore."

Winnipeg has an interesting centre in the Industrial Bureau and permanent Exposition and Public Service Building, located in the leading business street and contributing in many ways to the swiftest means of unfolding industrial opportunities and to the most liberal development of the city. Both the Dominion and the Province of Manitoba, beside all the railways centering in Winnipeg and thirty western Boards of Trade, have installed attractive and extensive exhibits of the natural resources, so extensive, indeed, as to be practically complete in their revelation to the visitor of every variety and quality of the country. The manufacturing interests of the city are represented by eighty-five practical exhibits of articles "made in Winnipeg." There is also a museum with a large collection of mounted birds and wild animals of Canada; and there are historic relics and curios; as well as collections of economic minerals and other exhibits of various interest. Winnipeg has also, in this building, the first Civic Art Gallery in Canada, and it is wisely made free to all. In connection with the Gallery is an Art School where painting and drawing are taught. In this Public Service centre is a Convention Hall that will seat four thousand people and a smaller lecture or banquet hall seating about four hundred. There are also other accommodations for meetings, large or small gatherings, as may be, that are so numerous in business, social, industrial, or educational activities. Over seven hundred meetings were held in this building within the first ten months after it was opened. Adjoining Convention Hall is the Central Farmers' Market, where citizens conveniently find the produce of farm, market, or garden. The Industrial Bureau, which has its quarters in this building, is a thoroughly representative one, incorporated under Provincial Government Charter, with a directorate elected from appointed representatives of twenty-nine public bodies of the city, grouping together the best talent, administrative, professional, educational, and industrial, which could be brought together for the work of public service. The Bureau organisation is non-partisan, non-sectarian, and has no axe to grind other than that which concerns the benefit of the whole community. It is the Civic Bureau of Information for citizens, visitors, and outside inquirers.

The Fort Garry Hotel is a social centre of Winnipeg. Its imposing architectural effects render it a landmark in the panoramic view of the city. Its walls, of buff sandstone, rise to a height of fourteen stories, and the copper roof and lofty pinnacles are transformed to molten gold when the sun shines on them. The majestic structure is an adaptation from the period of François I., with something reminiscent of the old chateau in Touraine and Normandy. In the standards of elegance and beauty in all entertainments, these Grand Trunk hostelries—the Château Laurier, the Fort Garry, the Macdonald of Edmonton—all introduce standards of polite life that are of incalculable benefit to the community and which have hardly before been approached in the Dominion. In elegance and refinement, both of appointments and of service, these hotels rival, if indeed they do not almost excel, the choicest luxuriance and beauty of Paris and New York. One block to the east of the Fort Garry is the magnificent Union Station in which the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific centre, and which has every convenience and device up to date; and between the station and the Fort Garry Hotel is a wide boulevard with a double row of trees in the centre, and a little park, under the very shadow of the house, has its picturesque approach through the ivy-clad ruins of the old gateway to the fort; an historic reminder of the time when, a century ago, this entrance was built by the Hudson's Bay Company in a turbulent period. The contrast between the sense of peaceful though intense activity, under the brilliant sunshine over the broad, beautiful streets, whose smooth pavement is a joy to motorists, with that time when savage assaults must be defended by the forces within Fort Garry, is a contrast to incite a train of speculative reflection. There were "sceptred spirits" in those days whose heroic deeds shine through all the years between their time and our own. The history of the Hudson's Bay Company is, in itself, one of the most thrilling chronicles of the Dominion.

From the windows and balconies of the Fort Garry Hotel the view is magnificent—St. Boniface, with its splendid cathedral group, Assiniboine Park, and the Legislative Buildings, with two rivers winding away into the vast spaces of the prairie—all make up a panorama never to be forgotten. The interior of this alluring house is singularly charming to the eye. The furnishings are rich and yet have that air of simplicity that appeals to the artistic sense—grey marble floors with soft rugs and the main dining-room all in cream and gold. The foyer and loggia connecting the banquet and ball rooms suggest the ancient cloister with their vaulted ceilings and the mediæval lanterns for electric lights. The café has marble wainscoting, suggestive of some old baronial castle, while in the grillroom there is oak panelling that would delight old England. There are three hundred rooms, two hundred and thirty-five of which have private baths while the others have easy access to bathrooms. What a contrast of living is thus revealed between the fastidious and luxurious life of the twentieth century and that of the primitive days of a hundred years ago when the old Fort Garry occupied the site of this hotel!

For fully fifty miles west of Winnipeg extends a belt of land some 300 miles in width, provided with good water found at reasonable depths, which is the marvel of the world for grain raising. This Red River Valley is the great wheat-producing region of the continent, and the journey of nearly eight hundred miles from Winnipeg to Edmonton reveals vast fields of golden grain, while along the route the colossal elevators loom up in the level expanse like some colossal fortifications.

Winnipeg has been from the first a predestined centre of commerce. It is the metropolis of the transcontinental lines and is the one supreme gateway through which all travellers and all traffic from ocean to ocean must pass. No other city on the western continent has such an absolute monopoly of all transit from the east to the west, or the reverse.

Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, most attractive in its beauty of locality, stands on the bold bluffs of the Saskatchewan. The railway bridge spanning this gulf is one of the finest on the continent, with its imposing piers of hewn stone, over a hundred feet in height, with trusses of steel. Two bridges at the level of the river provide for other traffic, with the novel arrangement that heavy vehicles are lifted and lowered from the surface of the bluff to the river by means of colossal elevators. The elevator is a municipal institution, and municipal ownership is the general rule in Edmonton, the city owning and operating the trolley lines, the electric light plant, the water-works, and the telephone system. Edmonton would be the earthly paradise of the disciples of Henry George, for it is a single-tax town. The University of Alberta with its splendid campus of three hundred and fifty acres, fronts the impressive capitol, of cream-hued sandstone, which stands on the Edmonton side of the river.

The capitol is four stories in height, with classic portico and a dome surmounted by a tall lantern, while the building is rendered still more beautiful by its artistic approach; wide terraced steps, with balustrades, ornamented with heavy bronze lamps, the effect of which, when lighted at night, is not without reminiscences of Paris. The Hotel Macdonald has a charming situation on the high bank of the river, within a few minutes' walk of the centre of the town. The traveller enters by the spacious court and covered loggia, passing thence into the great rotunda, with its floor of pink Levantine marble and its ceiling of solid oak. Adjoining this is a lounge, opening on a terrace 50 feet wide, overlooking the river, and the palm-room (octagonal in form, with its dome decorated in Wedgwood designs), as well as a beautiful dining-room, a café, and other public rooms. As one walks through all this magnificence in the place so recently occupied by Indians, hunters, and trappers of the frontier trading posts, he begins to realise something of that almost incredible rapidity of growth and development that characterises the great North-West.

The Canadian Women's Press Club in Edmonton is an organisation that delights the heart of the modern woman, to whom her clubs are the very breath of being; and its President, Mrs. Arthur Murphy, is well known to the world of letters under her nom de plume, "Janey Canuck." Mrs. Murphy is one of the most famous of Canadian writers, and has contributed much to the general knowledge of the Dominion. Her work has received very high praise. "She has opened a new path in Canadian literature," says an eminent critic, "and her Open Trails and Seeds of Pine will inspire many other writers."

Mrs. Murphy is the wife of the Rev. Arthur Murphy, D.D., who at one time was the chaplain to the Empress Frederick. Her work has attracted much attention in England, and The Bookman of London, in a critical review of her books extending into several pages, said:

"The work of 'Janey Canuck' has the optimism of the true lyric; the song of the open road. The refrain of the windswept spaces was never set to a better tune.... It is not style that matters in the work of 'Janey Canuck' any more than it matters in the work of Walt Whitman—a kindred philosopher. She comes scattering seeds of gladness in our mist, and lo! our gloom is gone like a black cloud that breaks before the April sun. She is the philosopher of gladness and content and common sense, a philosophy as durable as Bergsonism."

Mrs. Murphy has been honoured by King George by the decoration that entitles her to be known as a "Lady of Grace," an appropriate title, indeed, for so gracious a lady.

Edmonton is the gateway to the Yellowhead Pass; and the beauty of its location, the charming nature of its people, and the vastness of the territory of which it is naturally the centre, all conspire to incite dream and prophecy of the future of this young city of University ideals and marked intellectual and literary quality.

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC

One of the most enchanting pleasure trips that can be enjoyed on the North American continent is that from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert through regions of scenic glory

"Where all wonder tales come true";

where one journeys to the accompaniment of a bewildering series of surprises that open vistas of new interests and enjoyments never dreamed of before. It is one of the signal charms of a journey through regions of majestic beauty and of scenic enchantment that it is not over even when it is past. Such a trip is a treasure laid up in life for future enjoyment without limit.

It is only some five hours from Edmonton before one begins to enter on this wonderland of romance. It is so new that the world of travel has not yet realised the marvel and glory of this trip. When it is stated that even the first surveying for this transcontinental line began only in 1910, it will be readily seen that in this region is opened up an absolutely new part of the world to general travel. The anomaly of traversing these primeval wilds in a train so luxuriously appointed as are the limiteds on the Grand Trunk Pacific appeals to the comprehension of man's conquest over nature. To travel in the comfort of these commodious coaches, equipped with a richly-furnished drawing-room, an admirable dining-car, an observation car with a spacious balcony platform at the rear and fitted with writing-desks, stationery in abundance, books, magazines, and newspapers, is to enjoy a journey on a flying hotel.

"Here is a train worth while!" wrote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle after the conclusion of the extensive trip that he and Lady Conan Doyle enjoyed over the Dominion: "it is the latest word in comfort, in luxury, in safety, in speed. The dining-car is never taken off. The observation car is a pleasant club. The road is as smooth as polished marble, with heavy rails well ballasted, no smoke or cinders.... It has the highest maintenance of track and rolling stock.... It runs on a marvellous line, destined to a mighty future."

Mount Edith Cavell and Cavell Lake

The entrance to the Wonderland begins, as was said, some five hours from Edmonton. The best plan is to leave this thriving young capital of Alberta by a late evening train, and waken in the morning to find one's self in a region where the peaks to the south of the Yellowhead Pass begin to appear on the horizon. He who understands the romance of railroad travel will raise the heavy blind of the windows of his lower berth or his drawing-room, so as not to miss the strange panorama of the night. Indeed, if we compare the romance of a night on shipboard with that of a night on a flying railroad train, the latter is incomparably the greater. The first requisite is an added relay of pillows—all that one wants, and all that one does not want, so to speak—pillows on which to prop one's self up to the proper angle of altitude that he may lie at ease and watch that marvellous moving panorama of forest and glade, of starlit sky, or of the hills flooded with moonlight; with flitting gleams of shining silver as the train glides past lakes, or along the course of a winding river. It is the realm of fäery, where nothing is but what is not. Is there a moon? There are a dozen moons! There is one in the south, but a moment later it appears in the far east—no well-regulated moon would career about in the heavens in so erratic a manner, therefore there must be another; and when, at the next glimpse, it again appears at some different point of the compass, one's conviction that the earth must have as many moons as Jupiter is reinforced. The vast forest solitudes are all strange; to waken suddenly and find one's self flying through these unreal regions is an experience never to be forgotten. It is an experience entirely lost save to one who unveils his windows to the mystic scenes rather than sleep in the darkness of drawn blinds. The elusive fascination possible to the nights on a railway train is a chapter of life in itself. It recalls to one the dictum of Socrates that all exact inquiry into such matters as the movements and nature of the sun and the moon should be excluded from too close investigation!

From Winnipeg the traveller speeds over fields of emerald or fields of gold, according to the season; the harvest time is a world of gold and resplendence; and ere the grain ripens it forms an infinite expanse of tender green. The economist would see in these far-reaching fields of growing grain a theme for his statistics and practical deductions as to their contribution to the world's wealth; but the eye of the pleasure-traveller regards them solely in the light of æsthetic effect. Wheat or oats, grass or anything else, it is all one to him as long as the colour scheme enchants his eye. As he approaches the mountain region the scene is etherealised. Away on the horizon are illuminated points, but whether on earth, or in the heavens, who can tell? One begins to enter into the atmosphere that pervades mountain solitudes. It eludes all analysis, but it is the most potent of impressions. The gateway to the mountains prefigures itself as the portal to some trackless spaces not of earth. The peaks shine with a celestial light. Snow-capped, catching the morning sunshine in dazzling splendour, they rise as a very wall beyond which mortal may not pass. Is the wall as impenetrable as it seems? How can a railway train dash itself through the palisades of bewildering mountain peaks, clustered in their shining splendour? And what world lies beyond?

The grandeur grows more impressive. And as among the problems of life, so among mountains, there is usually a way out. In this case it is the Yellowhead Pass. In the preliminary survey and construction of the railroad this Pass was chosen by the skilled engineers who at once recognised its striking characteristics, for it permitted the railway to take its line across the Rocky Mountains at the lowest altitude of any transcontinental line on the continent. The swiftly flowing waters of the Athabasca River mirror the towering peaks above. The Pass grows wider; again, there is a narrower curve as it deftly penetrates its way between the vast heights. The tourist has of course betaken himself to the outside platform of the observation car. Here is a spacious balcony, with projecting roof to shield from sun or wind; a space ample for some sixteen seats, which offers a moving picture that reveals the handiwork of Nature as distinct from that of Art. Here the traveller sits, with all the majesty of the mountain contours about and above him.

This Yellowhead Pass had been, for some generations, the great natural highway of the fur trade. The Hudson Bay post was established here as early as in 1800, and the name of a yellow-haired trader, known to the Indians as "Tête Jaunne" (otherwise Jasper Hawes), led to the present name of this historic spot. One cannot but dwell a little on the Yellowhead Pass itself, as one of the special features of the trip; not merely a passage-way to traverse, but as a region rich in novel points of beauty, never twice the same, but varying with every atmospheric change and from every new angle of vision. Traverse the Yellowhead Pass by day in the brilliant sunlight; or on one of the marvellous moonlit nights, when every peak rises in silver sheens; when the stars look down as if they were great globes of light near at hand, and the walls of sheer rock are so softened under the mystic light as to be no more mere rocky precipices, but the field of the weird dances of the Brocken. Gnomes and sprites emerge from some unseen caverns; the cliffs tower into the sky and bring the stars down to earth, so as to make them seem as accessible as electric lights. There are projecting balconies far above where perhaps the Spirits of the Solitudes congregate.

The eastern approach to the Yellowhead Pass is guarded by the Boule Roche and the Roche à Perdrix Mountains, these marking, also, the entrance to Jasper Park. The fabled Valley of the Cashmere is hardly less familiar to the great tide of summer travel than is this Yellowhead region. In a preceding chapter (on the summer resorts of Canada) the pleasure resources of Jasper Park were somewhat suggested, and Mount Robson Park will doubtless also become one of the great favourites of the world. The great natural reserve of Jasper Park comprising 4400 square miles is one that for all time will be preserved in its absolute integrity. No spoliation will be permitted. It is not only a national but a continental pleasure-ground for all time. Mountain-climbers will find here the fullest scope for their prowess. More and more will the Mountaineering enthusiasts of Britain be allured to Canada instead of to Switzerland—a part of the great Empire, calling with a thousand voices to every trueborn Briton. To many visitors the best use they have for a mountain peak is to look at it rather than to ascend it. Why tramp about when the eye registers all its supreme splendour and the tourist may luxuriate in the shaded portico outside his camp and revel in the changeful panorama of colour and beauty? Or he may stroll in fertile valleys, brilliant with flowers; he may ride, or drive, along good trails with new enchantments meeting him at every turn.

Two beautiful lakes, Pyramid and Patricia, are in the very shadow of Pyramid Mountain, only four miles from Jasper station. At this station are the Park superintendent and his staff, who are ever ready with help and information and who effectually banish from the mind of the tourist any fear of strangeness or solitude. While hunting is not permitted in Jasper Park, the angler may, if he likes, fish all day in the clear lakes. They are well stocked with trout. The complete ban upon hunting or any use of firearms is a great safeguard to the wanderer through woods and valleys, making accidents of this nature impossible. Maligne Cañon and Maligne Lake have been already discussed in the chapter already alluded to on summer resorts, but no description could convey any idea of the spectacular beauty of the excursion leading past Lakes Edith and Beauvert, through dense forests of spruce and cottonwood, with the walls of the cañon rising 300 feet in height on either side. Here is a trip of thirty-five miles from the cañon to Maligne Lake, that sheet of pure, emerald water—an excursion amid such magnificence of beauty as to defy adequate description.

Jasper Park is now enriched by the presence of an imperishable monument that will endure throughout the ages; one to which thousands of travellers, in the years to come, will make their pilgrimage as to a shrine. It is a memorial that not only lends its glory to the Dominion, but to the entire continent as well; for not unaccompanied by faithful hearts from her great sister nation across the border shall Canadians seek this mystic altar to which every wind wafts aromatic fire. For it is a shrine consecrate to all that is noblest in womanhood, all that is most heroic and divine in our common humanity. The Dominion, the States, are at one in their reverent appreciation of the greatness of simple fidelity to duty. He who keeps faith with his ideals is the true hero. It is he who enters into the fellowship of the mystery. He may go down to death in apparent darkness and defeat; he rises in eternal glory. For to be spiritually-minded is life and peace, even the life eternal.

It is fitting that Edith Cavell, who gave her life for her country; who died the death of the martyr rather than betray her trust, should be commemorated with a memorial whose monumental grandeur exceeds that of any Egyptian king or Assyrian monarch of remote antiquity.

A marvel of glory is this mountain peak now christened Mount Edith Cavell. It rises in solitary majesty out of this morning-world, lifting its head into the faint, transparent azure of ethereal spaces, while its base is rooted amid the rocky fastnesses of the great range. The naming of Mount Edith Cavell is the tribute of the Dominion to one great-souled woman, and thus to all that makes for the greatness of womanhood. On its precipitous slopes may be read by all who have the inner vision the scroll of human fate.

The peak is calculated to enchain the eye by its towering height and faultless symmetry. Did Nature herself design and fashion it for its strange destiny? Was it indeed reserved for its present consecration? Who may know? Life is a chain of sequences divinely ordered. It lieth not with man to direct his steps.

"The shuttle of the Unseen powers
Works out a pattern not as ours."

In the matter of naming new places in Canada the Geographic Board is the governing body. It was at their meeting in Ottawa in March 1916 that the decision was made that this peak should immortalise the name of Edith Cavell. The suggestion had previously been made that the name of Mount Robson should be changed to that of Mount Cavell, but this would have been so inevitably confusing all over the world that it was thought wiser to select a peak hitherto unnamed. To Dr. E. Deville, the Surveyor-General, the Geographic Board therefore made this announcement much to the gratification of that well-known official. Thus is a woman's life of simple faithfulness to duty lifted into immortal resplendence. What a monitor suggesting unfaltering devotion to great issues will Mount Edith Cavell remain to the throngs of passengers on this Grand Trunk Pacific line, who will watch for its appearance on the horizon, and gaze, with steadfast view, until it fades in the far distance. For several miles can it be seen, and what traveller will gaze on this height without feeling it to be one of the spellbinders of the Dominion? or without finding himself involuntarily recalling those wonderful lines of Emerson?

"Inspirer, prophet evermore!
        Pillar which God aloft hath set
        So that men might it not forget;
It shall be life's ornament
And mix itself with each event.
            By million changes skilled to tell
            What in the Eternal standeth well!"

Brulè Lake, in Jasper Park, is an expansion of the Athabasca River, and the railroad line follows the east bank of the lake. Canada would be the paradise of Undine, the water sprite of La Motte Fouqué's famous story, for rivers broaden into lakes, and lakes connect themselves by a chain of rivers, until the continuous possibilities for inland navigation appeal to the geologist as a problem of the ages to be solved. Many theories are evolved; even as they are in Arizona, as to the origin of that apparently impenetrable mystery, the petrified forest.

At the station of Miette Hot Springs another excursion may beckon to some travellers in that up the valley of Fiddle Creek, which flows into the Athabasca River. There are a number of basins encrusted with yellow from the sulphur that abounds in the water, which has strong medicinal properties, and which ranges from a hundred and eleven to a hundred and twenty-seven degrees in temperature.

Then, too, there are the Punch Bowl Falls, reached by an attractive trail from the station known as Pocahontas. Jasper Park extends to the boundary line which marks the division between Alberta and British Columbia; and crossing this boundary the traveller finds himself in another of Canada's gigantic reserves, that of Mount Robson Park, with Mount Robson itself as the centre dominating the entire region. The train stops at Mount Robson station, and one seems to enter a new world in this near approach to that king and monarch of the Canadian Rockies, the peak of Mount Robson towering upwards for 13,068 feet in the clear air. Of his first view of this peak Lawrence J. Burpee, F.R.G.S., writes:

"... Almost without warning it came. We rounded the western end of the Rainbow Mountains and looked up the valley of the Grand Fork. 'My God!' some one whispered. Rising at the head of the valley and towering far above all the surrounding peaks we saw a vast cone, so perfectly proportioned that one's first impression was rather one of wonderful symmetry and beauty than of actual height. Then we began to realise the stupendous majesty of the mountain...."

It is not only that Mount Robson is supreme in the range of the Rockies in Canada, but it is one of the notable mountains of the world. In its peculiar beauty of form and proportion it is hardly surpassed by any known peak. It has many aspects and phases—it is clearly seen in brilliant sunshine, it is dimly discerned when it enwraps itself in clouds and ethereal mists, it is seen again by resplendent moonlight—and one finds each phase has its own enchantment. Its glistening crest is visible for twelve miles after the train pulls out from the station. Its colossal glacier tumbles masses of ice-fields down into Berg Lake at the foot, and these masses of ice continue to drift on the surface of emerald water that holds its colour in the same strange way as do the waters of the Gulf of Corinth.

The Alpine Club of Canada has made excursions to these places, and of one quest on Berg Lake a member writes:

"... I shall not soon forget that first day when we came up the trail and, looking through as far as the eye could reach, saw countless blossoms—brilliant crimson Indian paintbrush, pale pink columbines, and mauve asters, their stems imbedded in the softest and greenest of foliage and moss; nor another day, when on the side of Rearguard, we came upon a garden of blue forget-me-nots.... Whilst we lingered amongst the flowers that first day, an avalanche crashed into the lake and the big waves came rolling across until they reached the shore above which we were standing, while broken ice floated out as miniature icebergs upon the milky blue surface of the lake. And Lake Adolphus, across the Pass—I could not find a word to describe its indescribable blue. Seen from camp or through the trees from the side of Mount Mumm, it was absolutely lovely. Then there was the Robson Glacier, in plain view of camp and only a few minutes' walk distant, a never-ending source of interest, with its ice cave and its seracs and crevasses."

As the train sweeps on the tourist sees, from his comfortable seat on the platform of the observation car, a myriad rocky pinnacles silhouetted against the heavens. The peerless grandeur of these peaks, snow-crowned and glistening with glaciers; of emerald lakes at the foot mirroring overhanging crags; of unmeasured wastes of windswept snow-fields; of ethereal solitudes and depths unfathomed, in the wild gorges, where, for all the eternities, only the stars have looked down; and the isolated grandeur of Mount Robson itself lifting its glittering summit into the skies—all this amazing wonder enters with new force and richness into life itself. Half a century ago Milton and Cheadle christened it "a Giant among Giants, Immeasurably Supreme." The first ascent of Mount Robson was made only as recently as in 1909 by the Rev. George Kinney and Mr. Donald Phillips, their final success being the outcome of a trial of twenty days, during which they were continually baffled and driven back by adverse and seemingly impossible conditions. But the difference between success and failure may be accurately defined as persistence of energy. He who gives up, fails; he who does not give up, succeeds. It is only a question of time and of tenacity of purpose. Two unsuccessful attempts to ascend to the summit of Mount Robson had been made in 1907-8. There is a trail leading to the north side of Mount Robson, along the Grand Fork River, skirting the shore of Lake Helena and up through the Valley of a Thousand Falls, with the celebrated Emperor Falls within view, and thus on to Berg Lake and to Robson Pass. The trip to Berg Lake can be made within one day, and it is an excursion into regions of such marvellous beauty that can never be translated into words. In all this bewildering sublimity the spellbound gazer can only question, with Robert Service:

"Have you seen God in His splendours? heard the text that
    Nature renders?"

Such fantasies of combination, too, as meet the eye: castles, towers, fortresses, that glow like opal and ruby and topaz; walls of sheer glaciers rising in dazzling whiteness like a spectral caravan; formless solitudes fit only for the abode of the gods! The spirit of the mountains is abroad on her revels; ice peaks 10,000 feet in the upper air are her toys; the winds are her Æolian harp; the Valley of a Thousand Falls is her theatre for pastime. Neither the Swiss Alps, nor yet that mysterious chain of the Tyrol, haunted by drifting cloudshapes and vocal with rushing waterfalls, can compare with the colossal scale of this splendour of all the Mount Robson region. It is the encountering of an entirely new range of experiences. It is Service again who interprets one's emotional enthusiasms in the stanzas:

"Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else
    to gaze on?
            Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets
    blazon,
            Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream
    streaking through it,
            Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go
    and do it;
            Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

"Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed
    twig a-quiver?
            (Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies),
Have you broken trail on snow-shoes? mushed your huskies up
    the river,
            Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?"

Strangest of all, in these stern mountain solitudes, with their glittering crevasses of ice, there are sheltered valleys all aglow with myriads of flowers in brilliant and gorgeous hues; and here, at sunset, peaks touched to gold and crimson are seen looming up in the transparent air against a background of intensely blue sky, a spectacle to inspire both painter and poet with its unearthly beauty.

To traverse such a region as this amid the luxury of the appointments of the Grand Trunk Pacific's transcontinental trains seems at first an anomaly; nothing is primitive save the forests primeval; nothing wild but the scenery. It is all a new universe, somewhere between the once familiar earth and the dream of Paradise—something by which to set the compass of life to a new polarity.

An intrepid mountain climber, Miss Mary L. Jobe, F.R.G.S., made a wonderful quest into these Canadian Rockies recently, and explored a region 100 miles north-west of Mount Robson. Of one scene there Miss Jobe writes:

"A massive white peak shot into the blue from a walled fortress of rock. Two colossal rocky towers stood guard over a file of lesser peaks; multi-coloured masses of granite, glacier-hung, glowed with irridescent tints, while down a valley rushed a foaming river to meet the cascades of colour pouring from the mountain...."

Between Mount Robson and Prince George (from which young city a railway will soon be completed linking it with Vancouver) the route on to Prince Rupert follows the Fraser River, the waters of which are a chrysolite green, the furious current flecked with foam, while the Fraser, at one point, transforms itself into a lake, seven miles wide, with that easy power of compassing transformation scenes, lightning changes, so to speak, of which the rivers of the Dominion appear to hold the secret. When a Canadian river grows tired of running, it immediately turns itself into a lake. When a Canadian lake becomes tired of staying in the same place, it at once proceeds to become a river. Just what species of genii control the wilds of Canada has not yet engaged the attention of her statisticians. The great Fraser River has its headquarters in the Yellowhead, and flowing through a broad valley, watering large fertile tracts of land, it makes its progress to the Pacific 800 miles away. The view of this wonderful river from the railroad, as the line passes high above the swirling waters, is a magnificent one. The Fraser has a beautiful bend at Prince George, turning sharply to the south, while the railway proceeds through another smiling valley, the Nechako—a valley which is rich in plateau lands favourable for agricultural uses, and along whose course are numberless sylvan scenes that lend to it great beauty. Vanderhoof, the gateway to all the region of lakes of British Columbia, is the capital of the Nechako Valley. The railway again enters into the mountains, the Coast Range, in the Bulkley Valley, and for a distance of 200 miles, between Smithers and Prince Rupert, the view is diversified by mountain peaks. The Nechako and Bulkley Rivers water fertile valleys of more than 6,000,000 of acres, easily cultivated and offering a scenic setting unparalleled in the world. Hazleton is a prosperous and growing centre with an assured future. From this city the railway route follows the Skeena River, which also has a trick of widening at intervals. The splendid train glides on and on, and is it on the air that one seems to hear echoed:

"There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star a-gleam to
    guide us,
And the wild is calling, calling ... let us go!"?

The onward route is enthralling. There comes in sight La Riviere au Shuswap, a tributary of the Fraser, with a vanishing view of three peaks close together, far up the valley, as the train rushes past. For it is not every mountain that can have a station to itself, as has Mount Robson, thus giving the passenger time to see its wonders with no little satisfaction. Before the junction of the Bulkley and the Telkwa Rivers is reached, the railway passes Lakes Decker and Burns; and at the junction of the rivers mineral deposits of copper, silver, lead, and coal have been discovered that promise rich leading. Hudson Bay Mountain is a prominent peak, 9000 feet in height, and in this mountain also silver and silver lead, copper, and anthracite coal are found; and the Hudson Bay Glacier lies only four miles from the railway track, easily reached on horseback. The train runs close to the shore of Lake Kathlyn, a lake filled with a black-spotted trout, and Hudson Bay Mountain is repeated in the lake as in a mirror.

Charles Melville Hays

Bulkley Gate is something to see, if one may judge by the contagious enthusiasm of the young train agent who proceeds to announce it, with the pride of a showman displaying his wares. By just what necromancy a railroad system magnetises every employé, from the most important officials to the youthful recruit, with its own courtesy and unanalysable charm in all the relations of service, may not be revealed; but the result is very much in evidence.

In all the hotels of this line, as well as upon railroad lines, the duty, grace, and charm of courtesy of manner are constantly inculcated. To make the service the best on the continent seems to be the ideal of the staff through every grade and department. Bulkley Gate proves itself quite worthy of its young champion—a wonderful gate indeed, formed by a dyke that formerly crossed the valley, and at last gave way before the power of the river. The Skeena and the Bulkley Rivers unite near Hazleton, and in close vicinity is the Rocher Deboule Mountain, which is known as the Mountain of Minerals. It is extremely rich in copper ore, large quantities of which have already been taken from it. All along the picturesque and turbulent Skeena River are quaint Indian villages, with the totem poles of their tribes. Here also mountain peaks are much in evidence, and in the spring of 1916 one of these, 9000 feet in height, was chosen to bear the name of Mount Sir Robert, in honour of the Premier of the Dominion, Sir Robert Borden. A large glacier, which seems to be at least a mile in width, has been named Borden Glacier, and both the peak and the glacier can be seen from Doreen station.

Thus is the entire route one of exceptional beauty and never-failing interest. From the first to the last there is not a dull moment. And in crossing the wonderful bridge that connects Kaien Island (on which Prince Rupert stands) with the mainland, the traveller finds something to enlist his enthusiasm for science as well as that enlisted for nature. This bridge is nearly a thousand feet in length, and includes six spans, two of which are of two hundred and fifty feet each. The engineers encountered great difficulty, because of the furious racing of the water through the channel, so that at times the divers could not descend. The conditions not unfrequently reduced the working hours to little more than three out of the twenty-four.

The construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific that extended the western lines of the Grand Trunk System from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert was an epic story of the Dominion. For it was really one of the determining events of British Empire history, as well as an exceptionally potent factor in the contemporary development of Canada. It has not only changed the map of the country, but also takes its place in international advancement. To open a new and vast territory whose splendour of scenery, incalculably marvellous resources, and climatic conditions are such as to invite and sustain immigration is an achievement that brings to bear a signal influence upon the peoples of the entire European continent and even upon the Orient. It was at once the opening of a new realm for human life. Education and culture are invited to enter. It is hardly possible for the mind to grasp, or for the imagination to picture, all the possibilities of the future that are initiated by so great an enterprise. The Indian trail, the packhorse, the canoe, gave way to the steel tracks, the luxurious trains of vestibuled cars laden with civilisation advancing into the wilderness. A great Canadian railway is not built to meet the recognised demands of settlement. It has to act as pioneer and create the conditions that make settlement possible. Its construction is, literally, the manifestation of belief in the things not seen. It is a creative power prospecting for paths of national destiny.

The story of that reconnaissance through hundreds of miles of an apparently impenetrable wilderness is one to haunt the imagination. It is a story of hardships and of heroisms. Emerson declares that

"The hero is not fed on sweets."

The pathfinder shares the usual experience that invests heroism.

It is to Charles Melville Hays that the conception of thus extending the Grand Trunk System is primarily due. Mr. Hays was endowed with the "seeing eye." He was gifted with that penetrating order of comprehension that swiftly discriminates between the possible and the impossible, and sets the key of achievement accordingly. He was not infelicitously called "the Cecil Rhodes of Canada." With that same brilliant capacity to conceive new combinations that build up new orders of life, Mr. Hays had that tenacity of purpose which alone renders such conceptions available, and he had an even larger power than that of the Empire builder in Africa for relating his dream to definite conditions.

It is recorded that there came a morning in Canada when the Dominion awakened "to experience a thrill of excitement from the Atlantic to the Pacific." For the newspapers had announced that a new Transcontinental railway was to be undertaken, and that the Grand Trunk System was the initiator of this stupendous scheme. It seems that Mr. Hays himself had conveyed to the press merely this laconic statement overnight, and it was the spark that incited a very conflagration of discussion. There was an instantaneous public clamour whose geographical limits were only defined from Halifax and Vancouver, from Dawson to Hudson Bay. But when the morning dawned, and the startlingly interesting news incited the pursuit of the President of the Grand Trunk System for fuller information, that distinguished official had already boarded his steamer and was fairly off on the high seas for Europe. The man at the head of a railway system that, by the addition of its new western lines, attains to no less than 8115 miles in extent, with its inestimable potentialities of service, may well be accorded rank among the notable figures whose genius and courage have helped to shape the destiny of the Dominion.

In the work of constructing this great trans-continental road, Mr. Hays called as his lieutenant, in 1909, Mr. Edson Joseph Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain was Vice-President and General Manager of the Grand Trunk Pacific for three busy years, and after the tragedy of the Titanic in 1912, he was called to succeed Mr. Hays as President of the Grand Trunk System.

The chief engineer in charge of the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific was Mr. J. B. Kelliher. With him went a party of gentlemen to make the preliminary exploration after the surveyors had made their pioneer report on the possibilities of the route. While they had secured a general impression of the topography, the problems that remained were intricate and manifold.

Hudson Bay Mountain and Lake Kathlyn, Bulkley Valley

"In order to obtain a faint idea of the prospect that confronted those entrusted with the reconnaissance," writes Frederick A. Talbot,[1] "conceive a vast country rolling away in humps, towering ridges, and wide-yawning valleys as far as the eye can see, and with the knowledge that the horizon can be moved onward for hundreds of miles without bringing any welcome break in the outlook. On every hand is the interminable forest, a verdant sea, except where here and there jagged splashes of black betoken that the fire fiend has been at work. The trees swinging wave-like before the breeze conceal dangers untold beneath their heavy, blanket-like branches.... Here is a swamp whose treacherous mass stretches for mile after mile.... There is a litter of jagged rock ... here a maze of fallen tree trunks, levelled by wind, water, and fire, piled up beneath the trees to a height of ten, fifteen, and twenty feet in an inextricable mass, over which one has to make one's way...." Mr. Talbot graphically describes that silence of the trackless solitudes: "Not a sound beyond the sighing of the wind through the trees, the rifle-like crack of a dead, gaunt monarch as it crashes to the ground, or the howl of a wolf." At night the party slept in sleeping-bags; they had scant provisions, too, because to carry an adequate supply would have been an impediment to progress; and after the quicksands, the impenetrable forests, they would suddenly encounter some mad river or vast lake; and at one cache where they arrived, famished and weary, they found that wild animals had broken in and destroyed the store of dried fruits, fish, and canned food they had expected to find. What a story is this record of pioneer work for the selection of the route and the discovery of the most favourable Pass for the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific! There were many possible Passes investigated before the decision was gradually arrived at, by the process of elimination, to choose that of the Yellowhead. The number was first reduced to four; the Wapiti, Pine River, Yellowhead, and Peace River, and then Mr. Hays decided on that of the Yellowhead.

[1] The Making of a Great Canadian Railway. London: Seeley, Service and Company, Limited.

"Our engineers have secured so easy a grade through the Yellowhead Pass," said the Chairman of the Board of Directors, "that when the traveller takes the trip he will be no more conscious of crossing a big mountain range, except for the magnificent scenery, than he would be when he travels by the London and North-Western or by the Great Eastern Railway."

One interesting fact in connection with the enormous enterprise of constructing this road was the installation of temporary telephone facilities, linking together the long line of construction camps that trailed from Winnipeg to the coast.

Something of all this wonderful story comes fragmentarily to the passenger whose interest is aroused by the splendid construction of the road, on which no effort was spared to secure permanence and safety. One feature that is always a noticeable one to the traveller is that of the "milestones," so to speak; the tall signs clearly inscribed with the figures registering the miles as they are so rapidly passed over.

Not only flowers and glaciers, sunsets and tumbling cataracts, rocky pinnacles and frowning ramparts, enchant a journey unrivalled on the continent, but in the palace-train, whose cars are a series of drawing-rooms in their luxurious appeal, there are varied opportunities for studies of humanity, human interest, and sympathies as well. For example, in one corner is an aged French Abbé, absorbed in his breviary and in a richly bound volume which reveals itself as the meditations of Fénelon. The air of detachment and scholarly isolation that he contrives to throw around himself forbids even much speculation as to whence he came or whither he is going—as if even one's mental questioning might be an intrusion.

At one little station, as the train stops, its resplendent comfort contrasting strangely with the primitive life of the newly-fledged village, there enter a man and woman who have been attended to the very steps of the vestibule by a throng that apparently represents the entire population of the town. They are all singing, and the man and woman linger in the vestibule joining in the song. The man is in the uniform of an officer of the Salvation Army; the woman, sweet-faced and smiling, is also costumed in this order, with the usual Salvation Army bonnet projecting over her serene and pleasant face. The refrain of the song floats out on the air: